Category Archives: SCUBA & Snorkeling

Adventures under the water.

Snake Gully Dive in Niue

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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. Continue reading →

Tour of Niue Caves and Pools

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We rented a car and went on a tour of the island. Our first stop was an early lunch at the ice cream store adjoining the yacht club. They also sell hamburgers, steak sandwiches, chicken paninis, ham paninis, and toasties. We suspect a toastie is a grilled cheese sandwich. We got chicken paninis, which had cream cheese and bell pepper and were quite good.

We headed north. Our first stop was the cave at Palahu. You walk down a scary and steep flight of stairs towards the water.
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At the bottom of the stairs is a large cave that you have to walk through to get to the water. The cave is well lit and you could see most of it from the mouth, but we still carefully checked the corners for the monsters from the movie “The Descent”. The cave has lots of neat stalactites and stalagmites formations. Continue reading →

Exploring Some More Motus in Suwarrow

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Last night we had agreed to head over to a couple of islands farther down the reef, where we could see more birds and snorkel. We met at 10:00 and loaded into John’s boat. It was low tide. When we passed Monkey Island, we realized that the “reef” around the motu was actually the island itself submerged by high tide. Oops. We paralleled the reef around Suwarrow the entire ride, and it looks like the reef is a solid land mass that can be easily walked in low tide. Later, John confirmed that you can walk around the whole island on the reef (except for the passes).

We passed several small motus (islands) before John stopped at a larger one. There were a lot of bushes and trees around. The ground was rocky with chunks of coral and shells.
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There were several white tropicbirds and boobies flying around and a couple of babies on the ground.
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The adults walked the length of the motu while the children fished. As we came into view of the next motu, we could see Continue reading →

Diving All By Ourselves in Suwarrow

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We got a call on the radio first thing this morning from a couple we are friends with, Denise and Kip. We first met them in Nuka Hiva and have seen them often in various ports. We mentioned having lunch with them on our first day in Manihi, but didn’t mention their names in that entry. They were getting close to the reef and had recognized Kosmos from the distance. We definitely stand out. Eric gave them the low down on getting through the pass and where to anchor.

We got another delivery of more fish from John. We are not sure what kind of fish it is, but it is enough for three nights. A few minutes later, John called on the radio and said he was organizing a potluck at 1730 (5:30 pm) in celebration of Kip and Denise’s wedding anniversary. Since Christi wasn’t going to be making the fish still left from yesterday for dinner tonight, and since we couldn’t eat the new fish fast enough, we vacuumed sealed all the fresh fish and put it in the freezer. Continue reading →

Diving with Martin and Ginger

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This morning we woke up to 18 knot winds, swells in the normally flat lagoon, and overcast skies. We were going diving with Martin and Ginger, and we were a little nervous. Except for the “Spaghetti” dive, we have not dived without a dive master. Eric got the inflatable dinghy ready. As the four of us were leaving for the dive site, Giles called over to us that his anchor was stuck. Martin hopped in snorkel gear and thankfully with a couple strategic tugs on the chain had Giles’ boat freed in a couple of minutes. Continue reading →