Get Me Back to Nuie!

Niue (NEW-way):  a tiny island nation consisting of one small atoll afloat in the Pacific Ocean approximately 1,440 miles northeast of New Zealand. 

In an area of the world where most of the nations are made up of collections of islands which have been, in ways mysterious, grouped together into national entities, little Niue’s single island-ness is unique.  Though this singularity may set Niue apart, it does nothing to keep Niue from sharing the common characteristic of most small Pacific Island nations.  Life, as present-day inhabitants have come to know it, is unsustainable unless close ties have been established between their little island nation and a bigger, more prosperous nation upon whom they can rely.  In Niue’s case, New Zealand is its benefactor.  Officially, Niue is a self-governing body in free association with New Zealand.  Financially, this means that New Zealand supplies the money that keeps the island afloat. It also providentially gives the citizens of Niue dual resident status (Niue and New Zealand) and the freedom to live in whichever country they chose.  As was seen on Palmerston Island, the result of this association is that there are more Niueans living in New Zealand than the island of Niue ever saw or could ever support. The oft-repeated struggle to make a living island-style is seen yet again on little Niue where the government is the major employer with few other options available for generating an income.  In 1996, New Zealand upgraded the airport and built a resort in hopes of encouraging tourism.  With inexpensive flights from New Zealand, there has been a mild increase in tourist revenue, but for the most part, Niue remains an undiscovered, under-appreciated little jewel of an island out in the vast Pacific Ocean.

A “jewel of an island”?  Yes, indeed!  The First Mate discovers a further Niuean uniqueness.   Niue, one of the smallest nations in the world, is at the same time one of the world’s largest elevated coral islands.  Niue is an “uplifted” atoll.  This is a new geological phenomena for The First Mate, but as she thinks about it, the explanation makes sense.  Even she can understand the physics of it.  For every action, there must be an opposing action.  With all these volcanic islands sinking out here, something has to be rising.  Niue is in an area where the pressure exerted by those sinking volcanoes is buckling and thrusting up the ocean floor.  In fact, Niue is a geologist’s dream, for this rising up is happening so fast that the island is just about exploding up from the ocean floor.  Why in a mere half a million years, she should be around 200 feet higher than she is today, and that, geologically speaking, is a lot of movement! 

All those fantastic underwater coral formations have been pushed up to the surface.  Across the island, the pressure exerted by this uplifting has caused cracks and vaults in the limestone foundation of the atoll resulting in deep chasms and crevices.  Stalactites and stalagmites are found in many of the readily accessible caves.  The waters around the island also benefit from this uplifting.  The limestone filters the rain water so effectively that the drinking water on Niue is some of the cleanest and purest in the Pacific. With all this filtration going on, there is almost no run-off into the sea, and as a result, the coastal waters along the reefs are of the clearest and most brilliant in the world.  They are also supposed to be teaming with wildlife. To The First Mate, the little island of Niue sounds like a veritable wonderland just waiting her exploration.

Friday, October 8th – 0730 – We are off-shore again, heading from Palmerston Island southwest to Niue.  With 400nm to go, we are resigned to another 3-day passage, but oh my, look around, wow!  It’s a whole new world out here.  No rain, sky is partly blue as opposed to partly cloudy, sun is peaking through, sails are up, winds are moderate and seas are relatively calm. The wonder is that the weather forecast for the next few days is for present conditions to remain the same.   “What a nice turn of events”, enthuses The First Mate.  It’s a brand new day, a wonderful day!  This is going to be her kind of passage.   “Something different for a change  …  A new way to Niue!” exclaims the rejuvenated First Mate.  Kind of catchy, that is.  At least it helps her remember how to pronounce the name, for no way would Niue be “NEW-way” if the pronunciation was her way.

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Into the afternoon, we sail peacefully and uneventfully.  At 1700, we both enjoy showers off the aft end of the boat.  It is so nice to have the watermaker working again!

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Into the night we sail, though with gradually decreasing winds.  We are averaging just under 5 knots.  Most cruisers would be content with this progress, but not The Captain of a J/160!

Saturday, October 9th – 0430 – “This is more like it,” thinks The Captain.  A few passing rain cells increase the winds to 20 knots.  Now we’re moving!  We average 7 knots for the next few hours, and The Captain is happy.

When planning a passage, The Captain charts a rhumbline between the point we are leaving and the point to which we are destined.  This describes the shortest distance between the two points, and we hope that the winds allow us to sail along that line.  The winds on this passage are working havoc with our rhumbline navigation.  We need to be following a course of 260°, but we were not able to do that during the first day with the light winds.  We could not keep our sails full at that angle and were forced to sail a course about 25° south of our rhumbline.  Depending upon the length of the passage and expected weather conditions along the way, moving along at least in the same general direction of the rhumbline is tolerable, but at some point a correction to that line has to be made, or one will just sail right on by one’s destination.

The increased winds of those early rain cells enabled The Captain to alter course back toward the rhumbline, but not for long. 

0800 – Captain’s log:  “Have to change course 20° due to winds backing and decreasing to 10 – 20 knots.  Now 20 – 30nm south of rhumbline.”

1200 – Further backing and decreasing of the wind cause us to head further left of course.  We decide to gybe to head back toward the rhumbline before we sail too far away from Niue. 

Another nice, quiet afternoon of sailing passes.  The First Mate is not as concerned about this rhumbline thing as The Captain is.  She follows the charts, too.  We are headed generally in the right direction.  She knows we’ll get there, even if (heaven forbid) we should have to turn on the engine to power the last miles to Niue.  She is content on this mild afternoon sailing peacefully along all alone on the Pacific blue.

Sunday, October 10th – By 0230, winds have dropped to the point where The Captain must turn on the engine, and, except for a brief period when they pick up enough allowing us to sail along at 4 knots, we motor the rest of the night into the morning.  At least we are now able to close in on that rhumbline.

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We motor all day and into the night.  When the wind does pick up enough to allow us to sail, it is directly astern.  We cannot sail in that unless we angle off the rhumbline, and with light wind from aft, it would be a slow trip with a floppy, noisy sail.  We have plenty of fuel, so we continue to motor.  At midnight, we are 62nm from Niue.  Almost there!  We are looking at a morning arrival.

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Winds have picked up to 13 knots and have backed to the NNE.  Raising the sail, we continue on to Niue.  The Captain, with his two fish and a sailing sailboat, is now a happy man!

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1340 – We tie up to a mooring ball in Alofi Bay with four other boats.  Kilkea, owned by Marian and David Paul, with whom we had dinner not too long ago on Faha’a, is moored near us.  The First Mate is eager to talk to them again about the Eastern Mediterranean Yacht Rally they had taken part in several years ago.  Not yet mentioned in this blog is the bud of an idea that instead of returning to the States via Hawaii, we may just continue on around the world.  We are thinking about joining the Blue Water Rally from Australia to the Mediterranean in 2012 for some added security through the Middle East and up the Red Sea.  We are told that Middle Eastern countries are much more welcoming of western tourists, especially Americans, than news reports would have us believe.  We just may do it!

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The First Mate is deposited on the wharf’s slippery stone staircase.  Once up the stairs, she hunts for the control box.  Finding it, she presses the left and right buttons.  They do not work.  Not an unsurprising detail. The up and down buttons do move the arm with the boat hook as they should.  Relieved that this thing is not totally manual, she walks over to the rusty boat hook and wrestles with it until it swings out to hang above the dinghy bobbing below in the water. 

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Relaxing and chatting companionably on the wharf are 3 young officials who give us a friendly greeting.  How Captain Cook would have appreciated such a greeting!  In 1774, when he arrived on these shores, fierce warriors with red-stained teeth greeted his party.  He received such a hostile reception that he called the place “Savage Island”.  It was as much a misnomer then as it is today.  Isolated as these Pacific islands might seem, there was enough inter-island outrigger traffic for Niueans to have heard about the diseases and havoc that these strange white people brought with them.  They wanted none of it, and if it took red-stained teeth to drive them off, so be it! Our present-day Captain fills out all the necessary paper work.  We are then told to go to the police station for further processing.

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It is nearly 4:00 by the time we are duly processed into Niue.  This did not take long by island standards, but when we ask where the nearest ATM and grocery store are located, we are told that everything closes at 4:00 on this island!  4:00?  What kind of work day is that?  Also, there is no ATM.  One must go to the bank to change money.  Stymied by the lack of local currency and in a place where plastic does not work, we decide to take a look at the Niue Yacht Club.

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Lamenting our lack of local currency and the grocery store hours, we are offered NZ$ in exchange for US$.  After we get to the bank, they will give us back our US$ when we return their NZ$.  Fair deal!  Now the grocery … whoever told us that they close at 4:00?  The official at the police station did.   Well, official or not, the largest grocery store down the road a bit stays open “much later” – till 5:00.  You can make it there if you hurry.  Off we go!

There is not much we need:  some bread to make sandwiches for our tour of exploration around the island tomorrow, some lettuce, a piece of fruit or two, a vegetable of some kind and some ginger ale-type soda would be nice.  The store does not have much, but we are able to fill our list, though we do find ourselves adding up our purchases before heading to the cashier.  One measly head of lettuce is $9.18 NZ or about $8.50 US! 

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Marian and David from Kilkea stop by Avante on their return to quickly say hello and good-bye.  They are leaving in the early morning hours for Tonga.  Since Tonga is our next port of call, we know we’ll be seeing each other somewhere over there.  We offer them some fillets from our Mahi Mahi.  We have more than enough fish to eat at the moment, and they are delighted.

Tuesday, October 12th – Today, we are going to rent a car.  The guide books say it is possible to see all the major chasms and caves in one day’s drive around the island.  We pack our bathing suits, towels, suntan lotion, water and lunch.  Off we go at the crack of 8:30.  We could not leave any earlier because our first stop must be to the bank which does not open until 9:00.  The First Mate and her computer are deposited at the local internet store while The Captain runs off to the bank and to the Police Station to procure a Niuean Driver’s License which is necessary if one wants to rent a car.  At the crack of 11:00, we are finally underway!   The Captain had been forced to wait at the bank until it opened its doors at 9:27.  This is island time, remember! 

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According to The Captain’s self-imposed schedule, we are now behind schedule.  He has only allotted us one day in Niue.  The person at the rental car office has marked the best spots to see if one, sadly, can only spare one short day on his delightful island.  With map in hand, The Captain is ready.  Now, let’s get started!   Off we run.

The trails leading down to the chasms and caves are well marked where they take off from the main road.  We park the car at the first one shown on the map, hike on in and down toward the water.  The trail has seen sporadic maintenance which is good, for without at least some pruning, the tropical forest would soon take over. 

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The next of our highlighted stops are Matapa Chasm and the Arches of Talava.  We follow the signs off the main road and soon arrive at a parking area.  We take the first trail to Matapa Chasm.  Again we are impressed by the how well the trails have been maintained as we follow the clearly marked trail.  Entering the chasm itself, we again find ourselves underground in a limestone vault. 

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We could go swimming here.  The First Mate would love to swim in the waters of royalty!  The day is hot and still.  That clear, blue water looks so inviting, but we have left our bathing suits back in the car.  Besides, The Captain has other plans.  Time stands still for no one and definitely not for The First Mate.  We are not even half way round the island.  Move it!

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All too soon we are back underground cautiously following a worn trail.  Sharp, jagged coral projections and overhanging ledges are everywhere.  A distant murmur increases as we descend to become the distinct sound of surf against shore as we near the bottom.

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What a great spot to spend an afternoon with a picnic lunch and a good book.  Maybe climb down to an edge where one can sit in the sun and dapple one’s feet in the water … the peace, the solitude! ….  Dream on, old girl.  The Captain is already well down the trail.  We’re off to see the island, the wonderful island of Niue!

The Huvalu Conservation Area covers a major part of the southeastern portion of Niue.  The guide books describe it as the most beautiful, spectacular and isolated part of the island.  Rainforest covers about 85% of the area with several trails cut through for the truly adventurous, but the rainforest is not what is taking us to this remote section of the island.  We are interested in an extended area along the east coast that is supposed to have some of the most fantastic limestone formations in the South Pacific.  Even though we are still on the one main road around the island, as we near this side of the island, we find ourselves alone out here.  There is no reason for a local to venture to this side of the island, for it is a long, rugged way from here to anywhere.  The very infrequent car we see is a rental car where at least one tourist sports a new Niue driver’s license. 

We are headed to Togo Chasm.  We find the sign for the trailhead, park the car, gather our picnic lunch and, this time, our swim stuff and walk on down the trail.  The trek starts out like the previous two. The canopied stretch of tropical jungle we start walking through soon begins to thin as more and more limestone rock takes over, but unlike our previous treks, we do not find ourselves being tunneled underground.  Instead we are on a shelf looking out across the Pacific Ocean and down into a vast area of coral pinnacles that stretch as far as the eye can see.  Except for a kind of wild ivy that has found a foothold in the meager soil, the area is barren and wild.  The closest comparison The First Mate has to what she is seeing is the vista across a lava field.

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The rough trail she is following ends abruptly at a drop off.  Way down below enclosed by steep coral walls is an inviting sandy beach with palm trees.  A mere obstacle separates her from her Captain who must be down there somewhere since there is only one trail, and this is where it led.

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 At the bottom and released from the ladder, she looks around wondering where to next?  Off to the left is a cave and hunkered quite comfortable out of the rain is The Captain.   “What took her so long?” he calmly asks.

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Leaving the cave by the way we entered, we continue down the sandy stretch between the steep limestone walls.  This must lead to a bathing pool at the water’s edge.  It does not.  Instead we soon find ourselves boulder hopping along sharp ridges.  This time there is no rough path cut out for us. 

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By the time we reach the car, the afternoon is well advanced.  We still have one more chasm to explore according to our marked map, and we have yet to experience a swim in the exceptionally clear and beautiful waters of Niue.  Disappointed to hear that there is no possibility of a swim at the next chasm, The First Mate marches on.

On our drive around Niue, we are struck by the number of small grave sites placed here and there along the route.  Many are elaborate with beautifully carved stones and are definitely costly to maintain for any island family.  There appear to be no municipal or church cemeteries.  Often, we see just one lone stone set along the side of the road with a bouquet of flowers in front of it.  Sometimes, there are several markers, but hardly ever more than 10.  The impression we get is that maintaining a family grave site is important, and that a family can establish such a site wherever it choses on its parcel of land.

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We also observe abandoned, ruined shells of homes and buildings everywhere around the island.  We knew that there had been a Category 5 cyclone that swept across the island in 2004 which all but denuded the island.  Nothing loose was left standing;  yet amazingly only 2 people lost their lives.  Could all these abandoned cement ruins be from that typhoon?  For the most part, the buildings had been gutted.  Many had newer looking buildings put up right next door.  Why not at least tear down the old?  How many ruins does one need lying around as a monument to that cyclone?  We later learn that most of these homes belong to somebody who now resides in New Zealand.  Many of these people will never return to Niue, but the homes are still in their names.  There is no motivation to either repair or demolish these ruined buildings, and as such they will remain.  The government is trying to do something about these unsightly and unsafe buildings, but it does not seem to know where or how to begin.

We arrive at our last chasm.  Here no attempt is being made to beguile one with florae and vistas.  A half-concealed opening descends immediately and steeply along a narrow ledge.  Chain and heavy rope are anchored in to hold oneself as one creeps downward pressing against dripping limestone walls keeping as far from the dark void below as possible.  “This is a veritable Mole Hole,”  thinks The First Mate.  “If Mother Nature had expected me down here, She would have given me black beady eyes, a pointed nose and dagger-like talons on all four paws.”  Not being so equipped, The First Mate decides that she is going no further. 

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We saw all the chasms marked on the map, all the florae, all the vistas.  We circumnavigated the island of Niue, but, to The First Mate’s everlasting disappointment, we did not swim in its beautiful, clear waters.  Its reefs and abundant marine wildlife will have to wait for another visit. 

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The restaurant is run by an enterprising family.  Mother, father, aunts, cousins … everybody has a share in the operation.  The mediocre buffet is helped along by the smiling attendants.  The First Mate is not a picky eater and is always willing to try a new dish.  She just wants to know what she is going to eat first, and she found the attendants quite helpful.  To her dismay, she found the local dishes not quite to her liking, but their interpretation of an Italian Lasagna went down quite well.  Our après-dinner dance show is put on by the youth of the family and is enjoyable.  We are impressed by this local family who, on an island with few gainful employment opportunities, has created a niche for themselves and are doing quite well by it.

The Captain ignores The First Mate’s pleas to “please, let’s spend another day on Niue”.  We have to stay on schedule.  We have to get to Tonga, then onto Fiji, where we are meeting crew, in time for the passage to New Zealand before cyclone season begins.  We have to leave now, and so we do. 

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