Amazing Niue...and then disaster strikes!!!

Photo by divemaster at Niue Blue)

Friday 25^th August, Alofi, Niue.

(For those of you who need to be reassured about the disaster bit first go straight to the bottom section that was written in Tonga, then come back and enjoy reading about Niue)

We made it to Niue! Known as "The Rock" to the locals. Not the world's easiest trip from Bora Bora. The start was a bit lumpy, then we ran into the calms. I was reading "The Captain's Wife" by Abby Jane Morrell, written in the 19^th century, where she said "If, gentle reader, you have an enemy, you can never wish him anything worse than a calm at sea." - well said. We had to go well north of the rhumb line to try to stay in the wind and Karl's daily weather forecast analysis became known as reviewing the Table of Woe. I joked that Niue seemed to have some sort of forcefield repelling us but then I started to worry that maybe the Niue Forcefield was real and we might never make it. Captain Cook had similar trouble when he attempted to visit in 1774. He was prevented from landing by the locals and called the island "Savage Island". Finally one day Karl was able to announce excitedly "We're gaining on Niue!" and we did indeed manage to breach the Niue Forcefield and arrive at first light in a gentle breeze. We've become used to the phenomenon of a dolphin welcoming committee on arrival at a new island but here in Niue they send out the whales instead. What a fabulous welcome.

                                      Gráinne's meandering track from Bora Bora to Niue.

Karl in action on deck.

An early morning arrival with whale escort.

Niue, a little island in middle of nowhere, population about 1600, is a self-governing territory of New Zealand so it almost feels like home. It's a warmer, more Polynesian version of a small Kiwi town. And the people here just might be the most delightful people in all the world – very chilled, very friendly and welcoming and just basically contented. It's one of those places where you can't pass anyone (on foot or in a vehicle) without waving. 

We arrived first thing in the morning and took a mooring and then had to brave the challenge of getting ashore. Alofi doesn't have a dinghy dock so you have to use the main commercial/fishing dock which involves coming alongside and then craning your dinghy up onto the dock. We started well – hooked the dinghy onto the crane, pushed the "Up" button and up came Enzo. Then when it got level with the dock we swung the crane in over the dock and I pressed the "Down" button. And the crane kept going up. And up. Hmmm. We tried all manner of approaches to the "Down" button but the crane just kept going up. Eventually we surrendered and called the lovely ladies at Niue Radio (a shipping station, not the local chat radio) who arranged to send us the Customs Officer (we had been on our way to check in) and a man from Fisheries. The Customs Officer arrived and checked us in right there on the dock and the Fisheries man did some voodoo to the crane, explained they had just had it fixed an hour ago, got our dinghy onto the ground and then called the electrician back for another go. All on a Sunday too!

High and dry.

So we generally just fell in love with Niue. Alofi has a bank, a couple of churches, a couple of small grocery shops, an Indian restaurant, a Japanese restaurant and three cafes with excellent fish and chips (battered wahoo, yum). A little out of town is the airport, a bigger supermarket and a Kmark! The anchorage at Alofi isn't the most protected in the world and gets a bit rolly in a southerly swell so we decided to flee to shore for a couple of nights. We managed to hire the last available car on the island at short notice (this is peak tourist season, there's one whole flight a week from Auckland), nabbed a lovely little studio apartment by wandering up the driveway and enquiring in person (online is not the way to get anything done here) and got Gráinne's cooking gas refilled by heading out to "the boys" at the airport.

The petrol station and source of fresh bread.

Niue Yacht Club ("the biggest little yacht club in the world") is run by volunteer Keith Vial who also, it would seem, stops to pick up weary looking sailors walking around town.

Even better than a Kmart.

The supermarket shopping didn't take long.

Our little apartment came with a big bbq and the owner even gave us a big chunk of fresh tuna for dinner.

And we've just been hanging out and exploring the island. It's very quiet but somehow manages to keep you fully occupied for days. A pretty coastline, a few little villages and lots of abandoned houses (most Niueans live in New Zealand). Niue got hit by the nasty cat 5 cyclone Heta in 2004 and suffered lots of damage. Apparently the mangoes still haven't returned.

First stop was the police station to get Karl the required Niue Driver's License.

Slightly mossy speed limit sign.

One of many abandoned houses.

People are buried by the family home, many graves have little roofs over them.

Toilets don't blow away in cyclones.

In contrast to all our recent volcanic islands with coral reefs and beaches Niue is an uplifted coral atoll, all limestone, so it's full of gorgeous caves and gorges and gullies - a complete change in landscape for us.

This cave at the coast is used to store outriggers.

Exploring Avaiki Cave.

Not out of focus: at Matapa Chasm the mixing of a freshwater spring with the seawater creates a halocline that distorts your vision and makes everything blurry and weird.

We had the beautiful Limu Pools all to ourselves.

Yesterday we had what we have both agreed was the best dive ever with Niue Blue. The dive boat picked us up from Gráinne (how civilised), we pottered five minutes down the coast to the dive site (how civilised) and did just one long dive (how civilised) with the divemaster and one other diver. The visibility on Niue is ridiculous: 30 to 80m! So you get gorgeous views across large areas of reef covered in fish. We swam along gutters and then into a cave where we surfaced inside. We'd never done a cave dive before so the novelty of getting the torches out and heading into the dark was very exciting. We saw sea snakes and a shark and could hear whales. And then when we were back in the dive boat enjoying a hot drink (how civilised) the whales came by to say hi. So I think we've reached peak dive and should just retire now. (Apologies for the dive porn but it was a really good dive)

Torches out and heading into the tunnel leading to the cave.

Dark and spooky inside but full of fish.

And then we surfaced inside the cave. Photo by our divemaster at Niue Blue

Going towards the light on the way back out.

And now we're preparing to set sail again. We've been flip flopping between Tonga and Fiji as the next destination and at this instant Tonga is again in the lead. We're all checked out and just need to end-over-end our headsail sheet, do an oil change, have a final lunch ashore, stow the dinghy and leave first thing tomorrow morning.

Enzo full of the last minute shopping.

Checked out and it's official: I am "Master or Commander" and Karl is "crew foreign built".

Ha ha! Just got interrupted and had to run on deck because a whale had come right by Gráinne, waving at us and slapping the water. How good is Niue!

Whales regularly wandered through the mooring field.

So if you have the chance to visit Niue I very very strongly recommend that you do so, it's absolutely way up in the highlights of our trip, a very special little place. And if you're a diver, then dive, although it may make every future dive an anticlimax.

Tuesday 29^th August, Customs Dock, Neiafu, Vava'u Island, Kingdom of Tonga.

Well we got more than we bargained for on that little trip! First up we lost a day when we crossed the dateline – today should be Monday for us, but it's Tuesday here. And secondly we had a pretty significant failure yesterday afternoon. Things started out fine, the words "lumpy" and "freezing" feature large in the log but that's looking a bit petty now after the big drama.

So Sunday afternoon, my watch, I'm in the cockpit reading. Harry Potter is gagged and bound and tied to a gravestone and things aren't looking too good for him. I was pondering making myself a coffee when suddenly BANG! The forestay failed at the masthead. [The forestay is one of the cables that keeps the mast up, so quite important. The one that failed runs from the mast to the bow and is where the headsail attaches, so really quite important. And the crew of Gráinne is very lazy and likes to sail under headsail alone, so really really quite important.] Panic stations!!! Like serious panic stations. Worst nightmare territory. I yelled "Karl! Help!". He was sleeping below and responded by leaping up, getting his harness on (still naked) and accidently clipping his dangly bits into the crotch strap with a yelp. Thankfully the headsail halyard hadn't failed and we were able, with difficulty, to furl the headsail (high risk naked furling). Then we stabilised the sail using the sheets and stabilised the mast with every halyard we could get our hands on. Thank God for cutter rigs (we have a second, smaller forestay for the staysail). After all of that we checked the level in the port bottle and Karl finally put some pants on.

We were less than 24 hours motor from Vava'u and had plenty of fuel so, ok, this will be fine. We let the local OCC (Ocean Cruising Club) Port Officer know what happened and that we'd be after a rigger when we arrived and he let the local volunteer rescue know and we got put on SAR (Search and Rescue) watch. Quite exciting really. And now we've arrived safe and sound and even had a whale welcoming committee as we came up the channel. Interestingly, I ache all over – I guess the adrenaline kicks in and you physically do what needs to be done at the time but then afterwards you feel like you've hit the gym for the first time in months.

Right now we're at a customs dock that rivals Aruba for evilness and, just like Aruba, comes complete with several stray dogs. While waiting for the officials to turn up to check us in the crew of Sea Wind popped by for a chat. We knew them from an online OCC group and the HF radio net on the way from French Polynesia. Weirdly, they had had the exact same failure on their way across – they had told us about it that evening on the HF net while we were underway and we had felt so so sorry for them at the time, little did we know! Actually, knowing that they'd just been through it and arrived safely helped us cope when it was our turn. So it was lovely to finally meet them in person.

And now to investigate what happened the forestay, figure out how to fix it and figure out how to make that happen in Vava'u! But first, beer. Definitely beer.