in parliament at the 1994 election. After leaving politics Davis advocated for a Polynesian Economic Community. In 2004 he was appointed the Cook Island's High Commissioner to New Zealand. Personal life Davis co-authored the autobiographical Doctor to the Islands (1955) and the novel Makutu (1960) with his first wife, New Zealander Lydia Davis. After divorcing her in June 1978, he married Pa Tepaeru Terito Ariki, the paramount chief of the Takitumu tribe in the Cook Islands, in 1979. She had nine children, three boys and six girls, from a previous marriage to George Ani Rima Peyroux. Pa Terito had become a Baháʼí in the 1950s; sometime after 1986, Davis joined the Baháʼí Faith. In 2000, Davis married for a third time, to American Carla Cassata, but they separated ten months before his death. Davis was a keen sailor since childhood and was interested in Polynesian navigation. In 1992 he built a replica of the vaka Tākitumu for the 6th Festival of Pacific Arts. he later sailed it to Tahiti. He was a founder of the Cook Islands Voyaging Society and in 1994 led the design and construction of the vaka Te Au o Tonga, which he then sailed to Samoa. In 1998 he sailed aboard Nokia in the 1998 Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race. Davis died in 2007 in Rarotonga, aged 90. Honours and awards In 1977, Davis was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal. He was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire, for services to medicine and the people of the Cook Islands, in the 1981 New Year Honours. The University of Otago awarded him an honorary Doctor of Laws degree in 2005. References Further reading 1917 births 2007 deaths Cook Island Bahá'ís Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire Members of the Parliament of the Cook Islands NASA people Prime Ministers of the Cook Islands University of Otago alumni People from Rarotonga High Commissioners of the Cook Islands to New Zealand Democratic Party (Cook Islands) politicians Converts to the Bahá'í Faith 20th-century Bahá'ís 21st-century Bahá'ís National anthem writers Cook Island knights Harvard School of Public Health alumni