We no longer sit on the beach of maybes, watching the tide roll in and out. We are now in that ocean also swimming against the tide, but slowly we make our way across, because as navigators and voyagers, this is who we are.

It’s like an impending clock ticking for those of us who make our way back to Aotearoa, knowing the time is short and that we must leave again.

It’s heart breaking to be honest, and the thought of not returning to New Zealand, flooded my mind and heart again and again, as I sailed around Rarotonga drinking in the mountains, majestically looking over me on my right and the ocean spray filling my soul with the beauty that is the paradise we call home.

It is a deeper sense of purpose that drives me, and many others I meet, or simply the opportunity that keeps our people, and has kept them from the place we call home since the 1940s.

This is not a new challenge for our island home, just new for this younger generation. The ebbs and flow of our people since the migrations of the 1950s, then after the airport was built in the 1970s, the economic downturn of the 1990s, and now the challenges laid bare by Covid-19, and a global pandemic, continues a story of outward migration, it best demonstrates the cost of our access to New Zealand as passport holders, and stands firmly against the benefit we all so often celebrate; because nothing in life is free, and everything comes with a cost.

And unlike other Pacific nations, there is only the restraint of choice and circumstances that stops anyone from getting on a plane and relocating for whatever reason to New Zealand, as close to 100,000 Cook Islanders now live in Aotearoa, and 40,000 or so in Australia.

But let me be clear, the choice is never an easy one, and one that comes at a cost also, and a cost we all pay when we make that choice. Our home is always our home, and the life we live, connection, and opportunity to build our country is the price we pay, and one I personally consider day to day, week to week and month to month.

On the flip side, I remember returning to Rarotonga in early 2010, bundled with my CV and an eager desire to work, walking into an office to speak with someone in my line of work about potential possibilities.

As I spoke, he looked at his keyboard, pointed to a pile of papers and without looking up said, put your CV there and then continued to type away.

That I was not welcome was clear, neither were my skills or potential job application, and with that I experienced sadly what some here in Aotearoa have.

Those I have spoken to who applied with no reply, interviewed with no opportunity, or simply were rebuffed is a very real experience that must be challenged if we are to welcome more of our people home, and back with the skills and experience they bring.

Though not everything is welcome to our country, Covid-19 makes its unwelcome arrival, and we finally cross over into territory that many have done before, and with their insight and guidance we can navigate to the other side as numbers of other countries have done also.

We no longer sit on the beach of maybes, watching the tide roll in and out, we are now in that ocean also swimming against the tide, but slowly we make our way across, because as navigators and voyagers, this is who we are.

It is in our DNA and as we have traversed violent oceans and calm before – be it depopulation, financial difficulties, health risks or simply the desire for more – we will together make our way across this ocean of difficulty.

Because together means ‘us’ wherever we may be, because home is home for all of us, our love for our home is the same, and our heartfelt desire to give back to our country, our people, culture and identity that has given us so much and ever present and part of our conversation, no matter where in the world we may be.

As the children of Israel lamented in the Psalms, ‘how can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land’, for us as Cook Islanders, there is a song in our hearts we sing when we come together, when we celebrate our culture and language and no matter where in the world we may be, that takes us home … Te Atua mou ē Ko koe rāi te pū - O te pā 'enua ē, or maybe it’s Kua rere o te manu i te reva, mei Takutea ki Enuamanu.