Niue and ENGLISH!!!

Our arrival to Niue was unique, we were utterly amazed at how flat the island appeared. Niue was formerly an atoll, but volcanic activity raised the whole lagoon area a few hundred feet. So the island is a big plateau. It is quite large but many people have taken advantage of the free association with New Zealand to go and live there, thus population is actually declining. It definitely retains the feel of an old South Pacific Island. It is not a huge tourist destination and many of the natural features are protected. Overall it was a beautiful island to visit and hearing English after so many months of French was quite an experience. Niue was devastated by a cyclone in 2004 but the landscape has recovered, the coral is still in the process however. The waters are very clear because rain simply percolates through the limestone of the island without taking runoff sediment. There are tons of sea snakes in the water but they pose no threat really and we saw a number of turtles there. The limestone also has created beautiful caves all around the island. The problem with Niue is protection at harbor. Only Alofi Bay has any moorings for yachts and most other places are too deep to anchor. The whole east side of the island is shear cliff and the west side drops off quickly as well. Our visit was cut short because of weather, westerly winds were predicted. With the swell increasing as well as the wind at our mooring we decided to head out to sea, start sailing for Tonga. Our other option was to head to the east side of the island, hove to, and wait out the weather, but we decided to set sail in the evening. We went right into rain squalls and bad weather. The wind was a steady 40 knots, rain, and confused seas for all of the next day. We hove to twice but then decided to see if we could sail out of the weather, finally by this morning the weather cleared. Everything on the boat is salty and sour so we will have some cleaning when we get to Tonga. The weather was particularly hard to handle on our first 24 hours out to sea, we had no time to get out sea legs back on. Even with our second reef in the main and our jib reefed way down we were still overpowered, burying our rail. With the rail underwater we had some intake problems, our sink overflowed as well as a head. The boat handled well so that was comforting but a third reef point on the main would be useful. Overall it was a good experience to have because it brought to reality our sail home if we are going to undertake it. On a well equipped boat, set up for wet seas possibly with inside steering, the trip would be a fun sail. Either way it could also be cold and miserable. We definitely got a feel for how the boat handles and what sailing becomes in that kind of weather.

Giovanni