SV Yohelah – Pacific Loop

Limits…

We’ve had a few years of living aboard and traveling in our sailboat but we still occasionally chafe at the limitations imposed by our house. Recently we were discussing the employment opportunities in New Zealand versus the US, along with the difference in salaries and taxes. Looking at a two year ‘work’ break, we felt we’d be financially better off working in Seattle than New Zealand. The downside? A 5000 mile sail to get home. On the other hand, it isn’t that hard to get back to the South Pacific from Seattle, a quick jump to Southern California and then another puddle jump, this time 2400 miles to French Polynesia. Didn’t sound that bad. We’d be the only people in Seattle waiting to go cruising who’d have a boat that was actually ready!

Next step, can we personally do it? Neither of us were enthralled with a 2400 mile voyage to Hawaii, then another 2400 miles to Seattle. The Hawaii/Seattle leg would actually be much longer since we would travel in a large arc north. We decided we were still game.

Next step, will the weather allow it? Well, it was the last week of August. The Northern Pacific gets pretty nasty in the fall and winter, it didn’t have to work too hard to earn the moniker ‘Graveyard of the Pacific’. We would want to get to Washington in early October. Figure 30 days from Hawaii, better leave early September. Hmm, need to get to Hawaii.

Call me a name dropper, but the area between southern Mexico and Hawaii is “Hurricane Alley” and we’d have to cross it. A month ago a fellow Baba 40 left Bora Bora to return to San Diego via Hawaii, a much easier proposition than heading for Seattle. A month later they were still not to Hawaii yet, sitting on Christmas Island waiting for a break in the Hurricanes, tropical depressions, and troughs traveling across from Mexico. They just left Christmas for Hawaii a couple of days ago and will probably take two weeks. The best we’d have done is crossing with them, although we would have been hard pressed to get to Christmas in time so may have been waiting for the next weather window. Once in Hawaii it would have been late September. Rest, provision, fuel, and get ready for another long passage? Oh wait, need a short break in the weather to get far enough north of Hawaii to miss hurricanes. There were already two large lows in the Gulf of Alaska.

So now it wasn’t a voyage home, but a sail to Hawaii that may take until November, which is when sane people cross to Hawaii. Once there we’d have to re-evaluate and decide whether going further north was feasible. Odds would be we wouldn’t want to risk the weather so would either be stuck in Hawaii or would have to head back to somewhere around the equator to wait until next spring. When we found ourselves checking historic hurricane paths and water temp patterns we realized that maybe this idea had taken a life of its own, grabbed the wheel, and veered off into the giggly bushes. Sailboat routing had always told us you don’t go from the South Pacific to the Northern Pacific in late summer and fall, we knew better.

So it was a happy fantasy for a few days, fortunately reason kicked in, aided by a few emails from fellow sailors in response to Teresa’s email telling them we were looking into traveling back to Seattle. Most responses outlined many of the facts above. No one thought it was a good idea. One sailor here who has made the trip from the South Pacific to the west coast of the US three times simply looked at us and said, “Too Late”.

On to New Zealand.

And while we’re talking about the weather…

We know we won’t get a lot of sympathy from anyone when we whine “we’re tired of Bora Bora” but I’ll do it anyway, because we are. We just passed a month. The first two and a half weeks seemed consumed with the accident and repairs. Then we spent a week being tourists, biking and diving. We came back to the Bora Bora Yacht Club for another trip to the store prior to leaving. We’ve now been here another ten days watching horrid weather between here and the Cook Islands.

It’s hard when you are a cruiser and have sailed to the South Pacific to sit in one place this long because of weather. Most of what is forecast is max winds of 30 knots and 15-20 foot seas. It’s hard to sit, but harder to knowingly sail into that sort of forecast, especially when experience tells us the winds will be stronger than forecast, the seas higher. Last night someone mentioned a boat getting impatient and leaving an island in the Cooks for Tonga; they had a horrible passage and wished they’d waited. There are probably 20 boats sitting here waiting to leave. One left yesterday, a few are planning tomorrow. We’re thinking Tuesday might look good. We’re all looking at the same forecasts and websites, none of us are seeing conditions we like. If we sail a long way out of our way north we get better weather. At some point we’ll just have to go, it isn’t weather we haven’t seen before, just weather we know is an uncomfortable ride. One of the cruising guides calls this “The Dangerous Middle” of the South Pacific, I call it “The Frustrating Middle”.

And then there’s Maya…

Getting tired of the wait for weather, Maya decided to strike out for the Cooks on her own. This morning Teresa woke me up yelling from the deck. I arrived on deck to the sound of a cat howling. We discovered on our last trip to the vet that Maya can out yell a 15hp Merc running wide open and she wasn’t far off this morning. Arriving on deck I decide a quick swim sounded good so went in. While I was in I detached the cat from the bobstay (the wire rigging that goes from our bow sprit and the waterline) and handed her up to Teresa.

We’re not sure how she ended up in the water but it was clear she didn’t like it. She seems a little shaky but generally OK. Our fastidious cat now has a lot of cleaning to do, despite the freshwater rinse we gave her.

Once everyone was safe we realized we had no pictures. Rats. A ‘re-enactment’ was considered but rejected since it would be too hard on us. The cat still has her claws.

The biggest problem is we discovered Maya cannot climb the rope ladders we made and deployed specifically for this purpose. She tried but the rope ladder spun around and she gave up, swimming to the bow and grabbing on to the only thing she could.

Sounds like we need to re-design the cat saving gear, probably using some wood pieces for rigidity wrapped in rope for traction. Back to the hardware store.

It’ll give us something to do while we wait for the weather to get better, if it ever does.

Today on Yohelah we have cabin fever, or is it ‘island fever’?

Well it looks like we’re finally going to get a break in the weather long enough to get across the Cook Islands. Sadly, we’ll have to admit defeat on a stop a Rarotonga, though, because the weather that is building now is in that neighborhood. There’s a guy down here named Bob McDavitt who is the guru of the Kiwi weather folks. He writes a weekly “weathergram” which you’re foolish not to pay attention to. When he uses a single word to describe an area, and it’s “Avoid”, we know to listen to him. That’s his advice for the Southern Cooks this coming week, which is where Rarotonga is.

We were going to leave tomorrow, but managed to completely destroy ourselves on a “hike” yesterday. I use the work hike very loosely in this case because it really wasn’t a hike. It was a climb. Three solid hours straight up, using roots and ropes to literally scale the side of the mountain. The most incredibly suckful thing was, though, that Rob & I got shut out 25 minutes from the top. There’s one last area where you’re using ropes to climb straight up a creek bed through the last overhang on top. According to our friend Ann who climbed it the day before us, there were 3 ropes. Bob, our other friend who climbed it last week was certain there were four ropes, extending from the bottom all the way to the top.

Yesterday there were only two ropes. The bottom section was a nearly vertical climb about 8′ high in wet rocks, but there were good footholds and handholds. The two middle sections each had a rope that we used to literally pull ourselves up the rocks. The last section, about 60′ long did not have a rope at all. The rocks were pretty wet from a rainfall the night before and neither of us could find a spot that wasn’t too slippery to even start the ascent. Looking down the creek bed behind us and knowing we’d fall all the way to the bottom (probably 100′ straight down bouncing off rocks) just didn’t sound like a good idea. So we gave up and turned back. Our friends Phillip & Leslie on Carina were ahead of us and made it up that section, but I have no idea how they did. We weren’t too tired to continue, we just couldn’t convince ourselves we could do it without falling and causing major damage to our bodies high up on top of that mountain.

So we turned around and had another 3 hours straight down. Again, we had to use ropes in the steepest rocky areas and roots all the way down, mostly descending backwards and holding on to anything that would keep us from falling. It was muddy from the rain and we were just absolutely filthy and exhausted by the time we reached the bottom. We both woke up about 3:00 this morning when our aspirin and muscle relaxers wore off and there are few places on either of us that don’t ache pretty good today. It was definitely the most technical and challenging “hike” we’ve ever been on. I’m glad we did it, and sorry I finally have to say there’s a hike I didn’t make it to the top of, but definitely wouldn’t try it again. OK, if I knew all of the ropes were back maybe I would. But in retrospect I’ve got to say I’d rather be the guy who got there after the ropes were gone than the guy who was on the rope when it broke.

So now that we know we can’t go to Rarotonga I’ve got to provision the boat well enough here in Bora Bora to get us to Tonga, with a short stop in Niue on the way. Grocery shopping is a big challenge for us in the French stores, but we’ll make one last trip tomorrow and then pack the bicycles back up in the forward cabin under the bed. The dive gear is all cleaned up and packed away and all of our to-do’s and small repairs are done. Yohelah is ready for her last two big passages, about 1,500 miles to Tonga and then another 1,350 down to northern New Zealand. We’ll have about a month to enjoy Tonga before we start watching for a weather window for the passage south. It’s a tricky passage, heading into the westerlies in the Southern Ocean, so there’ll be lots to write about that later. Hopefully by then Hello World will have caught up with us. Axel’s still in Tahiti waiting for a doctor’s release before they head this direction. We miss their company and hope he gets well soon.

Yohelah is here in Bora Bora

Miles traveled day 1: 109
Miles traveled total: 109
Miles left to Niue: 957

On Tuesday we finally cast off the buoy at the Bora Bora Yacht Club, went to town and provisioned, then left behind one last chunk of money at Bloody Mary’s having lunch. Wednesday morning we put things away, packed up the last of the groceries, and got us and the boat ready for our first long passage in months. It’s just over 1,000 nautical miles from Bora Bora to Niue on a southwest heading. When we left yesterday we headed northwest in very light winds, sailing with the wind on our beam to keep the sails full and move as quickly as possible north. There are remnants of a system south of us that we’re trying to scoot over the top of. We’ve turned southwest this afternoon and are now headed at Niue.

There’s no guarantee we’ll get to make landfall at Niue when we get there, but that’s where we’re hoping to stop. The weather south near Rarotonga has been too stinky so we’re going to skip even an attempt at a stop there. The harbor is small and completely exposed to any passing northerly winds, which we’ve had a lot of lately. So we’ll hope the weather is settled enough at Niue for a stop and a little exploration. The diving there is reported to be spectacular, with exceptional visibility and lots of marine life. There is no harbor, though, just a bunch of buoys on the northwest side in 100′ of water. So if a northerly blows, people reportedly either just leave or go around the other side of the island and heave to and wait for the weather to settle. After a 10 day passage we’ll hope there’s no waiting for a buoy. The next jump to Tonga is only another couple of days from there.

Right now we’re slogging along in light winds, which we expect to get through this afternoon or evening. Friends 350 miles ahead of us right now are sailing in 20-28 knots. We’d be happy with halfway between the 10 we have and the 25 they have, but we’re committed now and just have to take what we get. We’re hopeful this will be a nicer passage than the ones we made after we reached the Marquesas.

Today on Yohelah we’re getting our sea legs back and hoping for a smooth ride west….

The boat is here

Miles traveled day 2: 99
Miles traveled day 3: 118
Miles traveled day 4: 156
Miles traveled total: 482
Miles left to Niue: 598

I’ve been trying to figure out what it is with passages and how to understand them. We’ve had pretty good luck and basically enjoyed our passages right up until we made landfall in the Marquesas. Since then I’ve been pretty challenged to come up with something good to say while we’re on passage, and may even have broken our strict “no whining” in the blog mandate. The first four days of this passage have again made writing without whining difficult. Every day has been different from the previous one, but they are getting better. As a matter of fact we’re having a marvelous sail right now. Bouncy, but mostly marvelous and making good time in the intended direction.

About day 2 I had a little realization that maybe you can’t just define a passage as one thing. Sometimes a passage is going to have lots of different personalities. So I thought maybe Passages Are Like Relatives. There are days when you feel like you’re back at Crazy Aunt Sally’s on Thanksgiving, and there are days when you’re sitting in the sun on the deck at Ray’s Boathouse having lunch with your sister. You can’t pick ‘em, you just get what you get. But that’s not entirely true – we could have waited another week or month to try and get a perfect weather window for this passage. But with a 10 day passage and no way to forecast accurately further out than 5 days, you can’t really pick a perfect passage.

Then I thought maybe Passages Are Like Cliches. It is what it is. But in the end, I realized that Passages Are Like Forrest Gump’s Box Of Chocolates – you never know what you’re going to get.

Miles traveled day 5: 128
Miles traveled total: 610
Miles left to Niue: 474

We continue to make pretty good time on the way to Niue. The weather has eased considerably and as I look at the weather charts I see no more fronts between us and our destination. When we left Bora Bora we had reasonably good weather, but it was pretty stinky south towards the Southern Cook Islands. So we headed north to give us a little breathing room. It turned out to be a good decision. Friends of ours who left a few days ahead of us and headed directly southwest reported 30 hours of winds with gusts to 40.

Our first night out the winds died and we motorsailed until the next morning when we met our first front (actually, I think it was a convergence zone). The winds howled and it poured rain all day long. We sailed with a reefed main only and made not such great progress. That night we were between fronts and the wind died and we motorsailed again. I could actually see both fronts on the weather chart and knew we’d be heading back into it again. Sure enough the next morning brought strong winds and rain again all day. The seas were a huge mess, with big swells and troughs about 15′ deep just aft of our beam. Luckily, just before dark the winds eased and we rolled some jib back out and have had a lovely sail ever since then.

Right now the skies are mostly sunny and we have about 15 knots of wind off our port stern quarter. We have out a reefed main and full jib and are making about 5 knots. The seas have settled considerably and we have a pretty quiet ride right now. And the forecast is calling for more of the same of this as we get closer to Niue. It’s still blowing 25 there, so we may encounter some stronger winds as we approach, but actually with it behind us we’re better off with 20 than 15.

We’re scheduled for a Friday arrival at the pace we’re making, but the winds are forecast to still be blowing from the northeast when we get there, so we may have to slow down (rats) and not arrive until Saturday. Niue has no protected harbor. The main town is on the leeward side of the island (northwest), in a little indent that you really can’t even call a bay. There are a dozen or so mooring buoys that are in 100+’ of water. The island is just a big rock that essentially comes straight up out of the ocean. I’ll post more info on Niue after we get there and checked in.

The boat is here

Miles traveled day 5: 129
Miles traveled total: 739
Miles left to Niue: 348

Today’s lesson is that if the weather is settled and you’re going to need to cook you should do it now and not wait until tomorrow. Yesterday was an absolutely blissful day of sailing, with winds behind us and flat seas. I had pre-cooked and frozen meals for 6 days and needed 8, but just was enjoying the calm yesterday so much I didn’t feel like cooking. About 1:30 last night the wind piped up strong and shifted further to the east. Suddenly the seas were lumpy and confused and we started rolling like mad. Today we continue rolling around in big lumpy seas. They’ve settled and are less confused, but are about 3 meters high. We tried turning downwind and putting them behind us while I cooked but it didn’t help too much. I think I’m going to write to the Olympic Organizing Committee and suggest that cooking while on passage be added as an Olympic sport.

Besides that all is well. Maya is bored to tears. We should be in Niue late morning Friday, and the weather forecast is changing in our favor. It was supposed to turn back to a southeasterly on Saturday, and that’s moved up to Friday night now. So hopefully it’ll keep moving up and there’ll be a nice quiet calm anchorage when we arrive. Our friends Marcy & David on Nine of Cups are on their way from Suwarrow and should arrive on Friday also.

Miles traveled day 6: 131
Miles traveled total: 870
Miles left to Niue: 220

It suddenly occurred to me last night when Rob woke me up for my 5:00 watch that our watch schedule is so not in my favor. All this time I thought Rob had it really tough on watches because he has the 2:00 am to 5:00 am watch, and by the time he goes to bed at 5:00 am he’s only had 3 hours sleep (from 11:00 pm to 2:00 am). But what I finally realized (and it only took me three years to figure this one out) is that I get woken up twice every night, and he only gets woken up once! It’s like I’ve done twice as many night watches as he has, because getting out of the bunk and back outside is really the hardest part. And once I’m up for the 5:00 watch I just let him sleep until he wakes up, which is usually sometime before 9:00 am.

The reason I realized it last night is because for the first time since we left Northern California, we’re fully dressed in foulies, fleece and all, and it takes a long time to get all that gear on and off twice every night. I’m amazed how cold it’s getting at night, and we’re not that far south yet. We’re only at 18 degrees south, which in Mexico terms is the Gold Coast (Barra de Navidad and Tenicatita), where it was plenty warm at night. Here and now, however, we’re in the dead of winter and there is absolutely nothing between us and Antarctica to warm up this southeasterly wind.

We continue to have a lovely sail – bouncy but lovely. The wind is scheduled to clock around to the northeast this afternoon, which will be interesting with the southeast swell we always have coming from the southern ocean. But we only have two days left, so it should be bearable. And maybe the northeasterly wind waves will flatten the southeast swell a bit and give us a quieter ride.

The weather forecast continues to improve for our visit to Niue. We’ve made contact with the guy in charge of the buoys there and he thinks the weather will be fine to pick up a mooring mid day Friday. We’ve heard from other folks there recently that the whales are there at the island and you can practically hop overboard and go for a swim with them. Don’t really know if that’s on my need-to-do list, but it will be nice to see some whales. And we’re told that there is “a big Village day here on Saturday as well as an ear piercing ceremony. Never a dull moment.” We’ll see what that’s like on Saturday.

Miles traveled day 8: 122
Miles traveled total: 992
Miles left to Niue: 107

We’re just about to put this passage behind us, with just over 100 miles to go. We’ve slowed down significantly because we need to arrive during daylight. We realized a couple of days ago we couldn’t guarantee going fast enough to make it Thursday night because the winds were going to ease, which they have, so we’ve slowed down. At night we like to keep the jib out as much as possible to steady the boat so it’s easier for the off-watch to sleep, so right now we have no jib out at all and we’re poking along (or rolling along should I say) at 3.2 knots. We’ll speed back up after dark, timing our arrival to pick up a buoy right after daybreak tomorrow. The weather has continued in our favor and the winds should be fine for an early morning arrival.

The water temp has increased and is back up to 75, which is very good. It had dropped down to 72 for a while, which helps keep the freezer cold (we have a keel cooler), which helps with power consumption while on passage. But 72 is not so good for diving when we get there. One thing we need to add to our supplies is a pair of wetsuits. When we left we thought we wouldn’t want to dive in places where the water was too cold for our noeprene skins, but that’s not necessarily true. Hopefully there’s a dive shop on Niue with some wetsuits to rent if the water stays cold. My travel guide pre-dates the last hurricane that nearly flattened Niue, so I don’t know which of the services that they list have been reopened since they picked up the pieces after the big blow (I think it was about 3 or 4 years ago).

We had a big event this morning when the wind did turn far enough to the northeast that we had to gybe the sails. That’s the first time we’ve done anything besides roll the jib in and out in 8 days. All is quiet now, as we’re just waiting out the day reading some books and looking forward to the last night watch of the passage.

This was an interesting passage. As a friend currently in the Caribbean recently wrote us, we haven’t been having a lot of fun on South Pacific passages recently. With some twists, this one seems to have changed our luck.

Sitting in Bora Bora looking at the weather, we were all dismayed at the procession of lows and fronts coming at us from the west. Some friends of ours left four days before us, a few boats the day before, and some others were still dubious of the weather when we left. We looked at a passage forecast straight to Niue and another heading north toward Suwarrow then turning south toward Niue. The northern route looked best with maximum winds of 29 knots for a few hours, the rest pretty good. We left on the northern route.

The first couple of days we ran through some pretty stormy weather as we passed through two fronts. No surprise since we’d seen them on the New Zealand fleet codes, but the wind was in the mid-thirties for a few hours. A boat just behind us tore their mainsail and hove-to for 12 hours while the front passed. On the third day the weather seemed to settle into the mid teens, very sail-able even if the wind was further south than normal.

The rest of our passage was a standard tradewind passage with winds in the teens, clocking from south to the northeast. We jibed the sails once, somewhere around day seven. We were actually quite enjoying the sail and agreed it was one of our better passages since leaving the Marquesas.

Meanwhile, the boat that left Bora Bora four days before us, and sailed a route 150 miles further south, tore their mainsail in some more stormy weather. Another boat heading into Suwarrow met with 40 knot head winds, shredding their main. A ketch that left a few days before us also tore sails and are looking for a sail maker in Tonga. We know of two boats that had sails shipped into Bora Bora after ripping them in the Society Islands.

So what’s behind this rash of ripped sail cloth? In some cases the difference between cheap manufactured sails from Taiwan and Thailand and robust hand-made cruising sails from sail makers like Hasse are the difference – the cheaper sails don’t last as long. Of course, at a fraction of the cost you can buy several sets for what a hand-made sail costs, so the decision is a wash. But you do end up shipping more sails around with the cheaper ones. The other reason is age. Two of the boats on the passage have been cruising for around 10 years, another is on his third South Pacific loop. Ten years is about the lifespan of a sail in the tropics and the sharp wind shear we’ve had in the fronts and squalls is particularly hard on sails. Our Hasse sails pulled right through the stormy weather and we’re happy a fire drill in the middle of the night was unnecessary.

Since we arrived in the South Pacific we have realized the number one priority in safe sailing for us is to be able to shorten sail quickly. Especially at night with one person sleeping. Our roller furling jib has been getting a real workout since it’s much faster and easier to roll in the jib than go forward and drop the hank-on staysail. We are seriously considering converting the staysail to roller furling so we are using our all our sail combinations in various wind strengths as intended. Just need to talk to our sail maker and rigger to see what our options are for our hank-on storm jib.

So that’s it. Out of the four boats we kept in contact with on this passage we seemed to have had the best of it. While I’d like to claim superior weather knowledge, it just wouldn’t be true – they’ve all been cruising for 10 years or more and have the same weather tools we have. I think we were just lucky, for a change.

And one last thing, I seem to remember Teresa reporting an Epiphany in her log the other day about watch schedules. I can only say, if you get awakened twice during the night, it’s because you had two times you were asleep. If you only get awakened once, it’s because you only slept once. Whiner >

Today on Yohelah we are rolling around in the anchorage at Niue.

As was forecast, the night before we arrived at Niue the barometer dropped and the wind turned to the northeast as a low pressure system passed through. When we approached the harbor around the south end of the island the wind begin to build, and when we rounded the last point of land we had 25 knots of wind on our nose and a foul current, making the last few miles of the approach take considerably longer than they should have. We called Radio Niue (pronounced NEW-way) to announce our arrival, and after that the Niue Yacht Club to request a buoy. The response from the yacht club was that as the low passes, the wind will clock around from the northeast back to the southeast and leave the bay exposed to westerly winds and swell. He said it would be very uncomfortable in here, and they would like to ask the yachts to move around to the other side of the island, but knew that was tough to sell. I had worried this would happen, and after a 9 day passage and with 25 knots of wind on my nose, just really wanted to get tied up to a buoy and have a rest.

We looked around and saw a dozen other boats sitting on the moorings not moving. When someone called to ask about the moorings and how strong they were, we were all assured that the moorings were fine, it was just that the swell entering the bay we be considerably “uncomfortable” for a while. That was an understatement, to say the least, but I’m glad to say it was only about 8 hours that we rolled toerail to toerail. Unfortunately the wind passes much faster than the swell and we were sideways to it by the time the biggest of the rollers were coming in. But by daybreak the next day it was comfortable again and we’re back to a southesterly breeze and gentle swell in the bay.

The moorings are in 65 feet of water, and as we got settled in and had a look over the side we were stunned at how clearly we could see the bottom with a completely overcast sky. The island has few sandy beaches and is basically a rock coming straight up out of 10,000 feet of water. The center of the island has a permeable crust that the rainwater seeps into, leaving little runoff and few streams to drain soil into the water. The result is truly crystal clear visibility – like looking through a glass of water from your kitchen faucet. We can’t wait to get in diving and have a look for ourselves.

We stayed on the boat Friday and went ashore Saturday to check in with Customs. They won’t allow you to go anywhere else on the island until you’ve done your paperwork, so they first meet you at the pier. Since there is no harbor here you have to hoist your dinghy out of the water every time you go ashore. They have a hydraulic crane on the pier, so one person hops out and drops down the hook and operates the hoist, and the other hooks it up to a bridle in the dink and muscles it around onto a cart. Quite a system, but it seems to work.

After we got checked in we went up to the high school, where they were having a “village day”. It consisted of food vendors and dancers, two things we always enjoy. When we arrived three older girls were performing traditional Polynesian dances and doing quite a lovely job. The next group was three “tweens” who were dancing hip-hop to Beyonce, followed by a couple dozen older women who were doing country-western line dancing to music that was neither Polynesian nor Country Western. Definitely different than the performances put on for the tourists, but fun to watch nevertheless. Our favorite was a young boy dressed in a traditional Cook Island / Polynesian grass costume, dancing solo – definitely the highlight of the festivities.

Sunday we were invited along to a cafe on the north shore where many of the Kiwis go for lunch. The guy in charge of the yacht club (Keith) and his wife who teaches math here took us and our friends from Nine of Cups along, showing us some beautiful spots on the island along the way. And yesterday Keith gave us a longer tour, taking us sightseeing for several hours in the afternoon. We were amazed to learn that when the cyclone hit here in 2004 the waves came up above the 30 meter shoreline. The bay where we are moored took a direct hit and with 300 kilometer per hour winds, the waves just kept stacking up on the hill until there was 2 meters of standing water on the hillside high above the bay. The damage was extensive, but they’ve cleaned up and rebuilt, even including many new houses right on the hillside where little was left behind after the cyclone passed by.

I don’t know how often Niue gets a supply ship, but what we do know is that the last on didn’t get here. It’s three weeks late and counting while the ship sits in Apia (Western Samoa) waiting for a repair part to arrive from Germany. I haven’t been to the grocery store yet, but my friend Marcy describes the pickings as “grim”. And unbelievably, she said prices are even worse than Bora Bora (7 dollars for a dozen eggs). Luckily we’ve got enough food to get us to Tonga so we don’t need much. The Kiwis are calling beer an endangered species, as the stores are out until the supply ship eventually arrives.

Now that we’re settled in we’ll contact the dive shop and make arrangements for some diving – both with them and without. We’re also planning to rent a car with our friends to see the spectacular chasms and sights of Niue, which I’ll report on later.

Today on Yohelah we’re enjoying Niue and looking forward to seeing more, both above and below the water….

Niue is here