It rained all morning, so we weren’t in a big hurry to go out. We love it when it rains right after we arrive from a passage. Then we don’t have to wash all the salt off the boat. We left around noon when the rain seemed to have stopped. Destination number one was food. We tried another café. The entire menu was: Hawaiian pizza slices, sausage rolls, quiche slices, chicken sandwich, ham sandwich. Christi opted for the chicken sandwich. It was huge, with lettuce, sprouts and grated carrot. Eric got some quiche and a sausage roll. Both were good. We commented on how good the food was and the chef said she made everything herself that morning, including the bread. This particular place is only open Mon thru Fri for lunch. Continue reading
Category Archives: South Pacific
Escorting Duties into Alofi, Niue
19-00 S by 169-55 — Niue is the world’s smallest independent nation with only 1200 people on the island. Niue is the largest raised coral islands in the world. It is comprised of one coral limestone island that has an area of 259 square kilometers and a height of 200 feet. It is nicknamed “the rock of Polynesia”. Niue also possesses control of a sunken atoll to the south of the main island, called Beveridge Reef. Like the Cook Island’s, New Zealand is the protectorate of Niue. Even though they are under New Zealand, it is self-governing. Of all the nations, Niue has the most number of politicians per capita one per 65 people. Niue has one flight per week from New Zealand, and mail in and out goes on that flight. There are a total of 50 hotel rooms and the island can accommodate about 120 tourists at a time. Niue is a popular fishing, diving and caving spot. Continue reading
Suwarrow to Niue
Day 2 at sea — After a miserable 45 hours, conditions began to ease some. Not a lot, but some. The waves dropped to 4 to 8 feet. The frequency and forcefulness of the nasty beam rolls lessened a little. The ride went from being super miserable to uncomfortable. Most of our days at sea have been uncomfortable, so we have learned to live with uncomfortable.
One of the things about Niue is that it is difficult to anchor. Continue reading
Goodbye Suwarrow
When we woke up we noticed a big pot of gold on the bow of the boat. We were baffled as to where it came from until the guy from the boat next to us dropped off this picture.
Well that explains the gold! Continue reading
Exploring Some More Motus in Suwarrow
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.
There were several white tropicbirds and boobies flying around and a couple of babies on the ground.
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