Niue is a popular dive destination because of the incredible water clarity. The island is made of limestone, which is porous. Rain water simply seeps through the rock into the ocean, rather than forming streams and rivers. It is the water running through the limestone that has carved out all the amazing caves around the island. Since there are no rivers, there is no soil run off to cloud the ocean water. There are neat caves and gullies to explore. There also used to be a lot of beautiful coral, as well, but Cyclone Heta destroyed a lot of it.

Eric had signed up to go on two dives. They only allow certified divers, so they wouldn’t let Christi dive. The dive shop gave Eric a $20 discount for being a yacht club member, so the membership has already paid for itself.

The first dive was a simple one right off the coast of a village of Tamakautoga. It was actually a bit disappointing since the coral was still recovering from hurricane Heta, and there were not too many fish. With no run off from the land, there are not a lot of nutrients in the water to support a large fish population. It was a nice leisurely dive, and Eric had his most efficient use of air to date. But really this dive was a warm up for the second dive at “Snake Gully”.

At first Eric thought “snake” referred to a narrow winding shape of a gully they would be diving in. No, it was actually referring a high concentration of most poisonous creature on the planet, the sea snake. For an unknown reasons the snakes come here to rest. They shuttle from top to bottom and back every hour or so because they breathe air. The dive master said we were guaranteed to see some snakes, and probably lots of them.

The good news is sea snakes have very small mouths and are not aggressive. You literally would have to force your pinky down their throat to get them to bite you. However, they are bolder than fish and will swim right next to you, and even let you touch them. Eric had heard this previously, so he was not disturbed by seeing several snakes. At one point he had a line of 5 snakes right in front of him, 3 heading up, and 2 heading down. It was really the other part of the Snake Gully dive that had him worried. They passed out flashlights. We were going to go into two deep, dark, scary caves. Remember, Eric likes nice bright light and high visibility while diving. This was a supposed to be an easy introduction to caves, so he figured it was time to give something new a try.

The first cave had a few overhead holes, and you only needed the flashlight to see inside the crevices where lobster and small fished lived. Also it was a big cave and everyone could go through it at the same time. The next cave was completely enclosed; only three people could go in at a time, including the guide, and you needed flashlights to see anything. It was disconcerting going into the narrow cave, but the lights worked pretty well. There were large lobsters and a few fish. It was about a 3 minute trip in and out of the cave. It was not as scary as Eric thought it would be, and he got a brief taste what it would be like night diving. But he will be happy to stick with well lit, open water diving for now. The dive concluded with a trip through some canyons near the shore. There were holes with bunches of sea snakes in them. Overall it was an exciting dive, and very different that anything Eric had done before.

Our friends Eric and Gisela arrived yesterday, and in the evening the four of us went to Jenna’s for fish and chips night. The lady in charge remembered our names and asked if we were still planning to leave on Monday afternoon. Wow, talk about making someone feel special. The food was good, as we expected, and the portions were generous. Much to our excitement, Eric and Gisela gave us a book on tropical fish. Yay. The pamphlet we got in Bora Bora was better than nothing, but most of the fish we saw weren’t listed in the pamphlet. Hopefully, our blogs about diving and snorkeling will become more coherent from now on.