Leaving Paradise? Sailing Passage to the Cook Islands || COUCHSAILORS Sailing Journal #16

[@COUCHSAILORS]

Thanks for watching! Fellow cruisers and travelers, what has been YOUR most disappointing anchorage or destination to date?

[@mcriser]

Kivalina AK

[@timohan100]

Worst? My condo this morning. 6 inches of fresh snow, 4 degrees, and my brand new truck won't start. I will take a rolling, dog poop infested anchorage in the south pacific any day. My Favorite; Chippewa Harbor, Isle Royale, Lake Superior.

[@garysouza2277]

"I'm sharing my feelings" I gonna have to use that...LOL

[@riboaters]

Well done. Total sailors point of view! Haha our favorite to watch. Fair winds and safe travel. Anthony

[@COUCHSAILORS]

Haha yes! We should rename this to: Rarotonga: A Cruiser's Perspective

[@terryharms235]

Well lets start with thank you for sharing, lots of funny stuff, And being in Canada I know how you feel about the exchange rates, LOL

[@justcroozin1889]

Thanks for keeping it real, there are way too many 'sailing' blogs out there that gloss over reality; it's not all palm trees, white sandy beaches and cocktails. Some places and some situations suck, so please keep telling it like you see it. Some of us appreciate it. Besides, you complain with a smile G :-)

[@SailingSVPlanB]

Okie Dokie.... looks like I need to take Rarotonga off any list of places I want to visit. Thank you for taking one for the team!!

[@riboaters]

Was just thinking the same. We've been in nightmare anchorages ...if that's a word ..too times and it's the worst. They did great!

[@COUCHSAILORS]

Haha, happy to be of help! Keep an eye out for the next episode next weekend before you completely scratch it off your list ;)

[@jrmetmoi]

I went to Rarotonga and Aitutaki in September 2022 and it was the best vaycay of my life ever

[@kevinbaerg]

Great vid and big thumbs up for keeping it real! Not sure I wanna show it to my wife as we make our own cruising plans though! 😉 Loved the honest and cute rant with a smile! Looking forward to next episode!

[@COUCHSAILORS]

Hahaha, show her the next one then ;)

[@kevinbaerg]

Okay - will do!

[@ChrisDoesWhat]

Great video, thanks for posting it.

[@COUCHSAILORS]

You're welcome. Glad you enjoyed it!

[@pnwesty7174]

Beauty of a rant there at 12:45! lulz It's not all puppy dogs and rainbows, I suppose. ;-) Cheers.

[@COUCHSAILORS]

We considered cutting it, we actually did cut a lot of it... haha! Glad you ended up watching it

[@bobbybaldeagle702]

Awesome video... You kids same to be have a fun time in spite of the rough seas... I've never seen anyone bleed out their fish no one has ever showed that being done. I'm sure they do it but I've never seen it explained on video. So thank you for that info...

[@COUCHSAILORS]

There are ways and ways of catching and prepping a fish. I think we've it quite dialed down so we can fish without the mess! Hook it, reel it, shot of vodka to the gills (with spray bottle for better aim), knife through the gills, knife right in front of the tail so it drains and ~10 minutes dragging in the water by the tail does the trick for us!

[@timlamarre8680]

The bouncy anchorage--for days one end!? Looks rough. Please don't tell me it was $3 per meter per day. In any case, you sailed from French Polynensia to the Cook Islands--wow! The morning rant--hilariously and cathartic!! Dog poop and bugs everywhere. I love Roratonga and I am taking my next vacation there ASAP. It's gonna be so cool when you sail out of that hell harbor. Sunny 70s and 5-20 knots in SF Bay yesterday, Thanks for the video!

[@COUCHSAILORS]

If you're in SF Bay and need crew...

[@thedoug2908]

Keep it up I love you guys!

[@COUCHSAILORS]

Thanks, Doug!

[@SailBeforeSunset]

Part of me laughed, but then part of me understood the anchorage. We sailors have all been through the rolly anchorages that we all know and hate. Good to see how things went. Think we'll stay in Bora Bora.

[@COUCHSAILORS]

Uh oh! At this rate, next time we sail through Bora Bora there'll be a shitload of boats that refuse to sail west! Hahaha

[@SailBeforeSunset]

See you there, eh?

[@sailingcruiser25]

Nice video and glad your friends showed up to lighten the mood. I was wondering if you could give me your thoughts on your Hydrovane. I'm thinking of one for our Tayana 37. TY.

[@COUCHSAILORS]

Hi David. I love the Hydrovane, particularly because it allows us to continue using our swim platform, one of the big reasons why we went with a Beneteau. We have a hard time giving a solid answer as to whether we'd do it the same way again though. It's hard to justify a piece of equipment like that that only gets used under passage and not really for day sailing. If we were to do it again we'd consider using that money instead for more solar and an entire second Raymarine autopilot ready to go in case the first one failed. We tend to get about 1 more knot of speed by using the electronic autopilot over the Hydrovane, although this varies on the conditions... There'll be people (mostly old school sailors) that will fume at this response, but there's ways and ways of doing it and it's always a trade off on a sailboat!

[@terrysouthard2417]

Great job!!

[@brettney72]

just found your channel and fab work guys you're the only American channel i can watch as you sound real and not fake sounding LOL "No offence to all the Americans out there"...

[@COUCHSAILORS]

Maybe it's because we're from California. ;)

[@LuckyAdventurer]

I love Cook Islands!

[@jrmetmoi]

So do I. I went to Rarotonga and Aitutaki in September 2022

[@SlowBoatSailing]

Keep a good watch at sea.

[@COUCHSAILORS]

Thanks for watching!

[@EZ2CRUISE]

The exchange rate should be the same as the New Zealand dollar. And you should be way over 1:1 not .7 something, more like 1.4 something, you got took advantage of I would think. But, hey you got a new sub out of it so not all is bad.

[@COUCHSAILORS]

Haha, thanks for watching! Next week we'll show you the kind of shenanigans the COUCHSAILORS can get up to!

[@benfromn.z6430]

Most kiwi's got to Raro once and think it's nice , but wouldn't go back again. It could cater and offer so much more to cruisers. I hope the cook isl govt is watching and paying attention. Great video again guys

[@COUCHSAILORS]

I hope they're watching too!

[@paulmurray4397]

Are you in kiwi land at the moment?

[@COUCHSAILORS]

S/V Carthago is! We're in San Francisco waiting out the cyclone season

[@seandikeman7437]

I watched this with poor Internet so your face kept freezing while you complain about Roratonga. Funny

[@COUCHSAILORS]

We've definitely had our fair amount of laughs while editing the videos. hahaha

[@michaelsamuel4159]

In the words of Martin Lawrence, "Damn Gina!". I'm never going there. lol

[@slowbikindude]

Do you use 4" or 6" cedar plugs? How do they compare to the skirt type lures?

[@COUCHSAILORS]

Very interesting, I'm glad you shared that, thank you! To be totally honest, we love fishing and catching of course, but we don't mind not catching a fish every day since it keeps things exciting and we won't get tired of eating fish. That being said, we love winning, so we'll probably try this haha!

[@roberttorres1110]

Can't you guys get a gyro stabilizer? They sell small versions now a days for small boats and you guys can turn it on only when your docked. A good one is seakeeper3 and their web site is seakeeper.com

[@COUCHSAILORS]

Woah, that is EXACTLY what we need. We are only $34,902 away. We cannot WAIT for your Patreon support! Juuuust kidding! Haha. Seriously though: Price, power consumption, weight, noise.

[@geoffthefarmer]

We went to the Cook Islands once and the locals told us that they didn't like or want tourists. The exchange rate they gave you was a total rip off. We will never go back or recommend it to anyone.

[@COUCHSAILORS]

We had an encounter with a local fisherman who we asked about depths for anchoring further east of the harbor. Instead of telling us about the depths, he insisted we needed permission from the chief. We said no problem, we'd ask the chief nicely and would hope he would be nice enough to allow us. The conversation turned south even though we were trying to find the positives. We told him that if they welcomed cruisers then cruisers would spend money locally and help out. He told us that people hadn't paid the chief anchorage fees that were due to him so they would never allow cruisers to anchor there any more. We thought the solution would be simple, pay up front so there's no fear of us leaving without paying. Well, it turns out the whole time we were talking to the chief himself! He flat out refused our request and was actually quite unpleasant about it. He didn't hesitate to basically beg us to spend money at his restaurant before leaving though, proving that they were in need of tourists that would spend money. Anyways, we're not going back either.

[@paulcopeland6539]

Raro really needs to improve the lack of marina facilities.

[@COUCHSAILORS]

Yup!

[@timhunt7854]

The conversion rate should have been about .76, but that is; one NZD buys .76 USD, not the other way around. Looks like the bank was either ripping you off, or they didn't know simple maths, and honestly I don't know which is more disturbing.

[@COUCHSAILORS]

I think we didn't know simple maths. That anchorage had our heads spinning and not functioning right!

[@aldoacitelli]

I like the nerdy thick glasses look. Hot

[@COUCHSAILORS]

I like them too :) -Jose

[@riboaters]

Totally disagree with Chris below. We've all bitched a bit about things like rocking and rolling for days without sleep. They just kept it real and showed it on camera instead of just showing us all the fluff sunsets and margaritas. If you say you haven't been sick of a bad anchorage then you must be the luckiest sailor ever! Oh and I better check with all the sailing community from now on before I set off to next place....hmm..nah

[@Brandon-rq6jg]

Hmm I don't think Rarotonga caters to cruisers at all. If you're getting off a plane, you're in paradise. That's probably where all the focus is and for good reason. Almost everyone I know who's been to Raro and flew there, says it was amazing experience. The place isn't a shit hole, quite the contrary in my opinion. But if you're sailing there, it's likely not gonna cater to you.

[@COUCHSAILORS]

We would totally agree with this! If you've watched the next video, you'll see that our time on the island turned around dramatically once we were more or less "land based"! Definitely not a place we recommend sailing to but certainly has a lot of offer!

[@805gregg]

You are getting ripped off, it should be 1.44 NZ dollars for every US dollar

[@COUCHSAILORS]

Thanks for looking out for us! haha. We mixed things up at first but then managed to get our bearings on the currency issue a little later on in the trip :)

[@sm6wet]

I am sad to see you disliked Rarotonga so much and that you actually met rude people, I guess they are everywhere. Although the marina is not worthy be called a marina as it dont even have any services but still charge I can assure you that in general the Cookislanders are really nice people. I been to 73 countries (according to the DXCC list) in 6 of 7 continents and I can assure you that if there is one Place i Always want to go back to it is the Cook Islands. Now, I do fancy Aitutaki alot more than Rarotonga, Raro is not as genuine and yes, more rudeness can be found there. Go to the small islands instead, visit Aitutai, Palmerston, Manihiki, Mangaia, Pehnryhn, Rakahanga and you will meet the real spirit of Cook Islands.

[@COUCHSAILORS]

We agree with the small island comments and we loved Palmerston and Aitutaki. I guess it was a combination of factors that formed our experience and opinion on Rarotonga, particularly because we were sad about leaving French Polynesia. That being said, we were able to also find the good side of Rarotonga, check out: kzbin.info/www/bejne/bZq4aHihoseIf7s&

[@jackandfriends3658]

That might be the worst anchorage I've ever seen.

[@COUCHSAILORS]

I'm sure there's worse, but it wasn't very pleasant.... We'll dodge it next time around for sure!

[@njdualsportadv8552]

Gina , you lost weight ...

[@COUCHSAILORS]

You think so?! I wish!

[@Grandpacarlreacts]

Its a sailboat. If you dont like it leave!

[@COUCHSAILORS]

Huh? Are you mad, grandpa?

[@Grandpacarlreacts]

Nope I just know better places to anchor in Tonga.

[@COUCHSAILORS]

Hahahahaha, now I get it! Yes, indeed, there are better places and eventually we did leave. We did have two friends flying in all the way from California, so first, we had to wait for them to arrive!