Niue

We have a few days to explore the little island country on Niue before setting off for Tonga later this week.

The ARC fleet was given a very warm welcome by Niue Yacht Club, run by volunteers, with no boats but with very big hearts! Moorings, showers, and very friendly faces have made a big impact on us. 

Life on the ocean wave

After so much fishing success yesterday, today we have seen Richard and
Pim very busy in the galley cooking up wahoo and sailfish delicacies.
Their strategy is to tempt the crew to eat enough fish to free up fridge
space so that the skipper permits them to put the lines out again.
Rob, who has been known to be pretty ambivalent about eating fish,
hasn't managed to resist fallng in with this plan. The lime wahoo
goujons, and teriyaki and sesame marinated sailfish fillets taste
amazingly good.

Meanwhile Nicki has been refreshing her sextant sunsight skills, which
is not an easy task when bouncing over the sea in a boat heeled at
what feels like an angle of 45 degrees. The wind has veered and we are
now almost close hauled to keep our course for Niue. But it is sunny
and the wind is a perfect 15 knots, just what Tintin likes. Wendy the
wind pilot is doing a very reliable job re-established at the
helm.

We will need to make sure we look out well tomorrow lunchtime and avoid
Aniope Reef, an isolated shallow seamount 100 nM NE of Niue over which
the sea can break. It is surrounded by depths of 4700m -incredible.

Spot the flying birthday cake

Towards Nuie

We left Suwarrow yesterday morning bound for Nuie. Nuie is a tiny
independent country, about 10miles by 7 of about 1600 people. It has
no reef, and is steep to, so we'll be mooring on buoys fixed in deep
water on the west of the island. If the wind goes round to the west,
we'll need to move on quickly,


We had a bit of nearly drama yesterday when leaving Suwarrow. We noticed one of the other yachts that had left just before us
was in a funny place away from the pass. Basically they had got their
navigation seriously wrong and were trying to exit the atoll (like
Tuamotus) where it was no way deep enough plus a strong cross current.
They went aground. We contacted them on the VHF and stood by to help
(we were out of the pass by then). Thankfully they managed to get
afloat even though tide was dropping, then we guided them remotely
through deeper water back towards the anchorage again (we could see
their exact location on AIS. I think they had poor charts!) An added
complication is that they are a dutch couple in their 70s whose
English is poor. They joined the WARC fleet in Papeete. Pim did a
brilliant job managing the radio and advising them what to do in Dutch.
Once back at the anchorage other ARC boats helped them check their boat
for damage and led them out of the pass safely. Phew. Really Tintin or
a cat would have been the only boat capable of navigating to where they
were stuck to pull them off. Thankfully not needed but we did hold our
breath a bit!

It was very quiet yesterday with little wind, also Richard's birthday.
We linked up with Aurora B at tea time motoring close alongside and
threw a box of birhday cake over, then had a deep blue swim altogether,
nice as the air temp was 36 deg.

Today, the fish have been biting - 2 smallish wahoos and a 1.5m
sailfish. The fridge is now fully loaded and I've declared a
moratorium on fishing to preserve stocks. Getting the fish on-board
took a few minutes, but substantially less than filleting the
fish and cleaning the blood and guts from deck and cockpit. I have to
admit, though, that Richard is very good at cleaning up after himself.

The wind has filled in and we're going at 7 knots on a beam reach.

Suwarrow

I think it likely that in years to come, when I think back to our
globe-circling journey, Suwarrow will be the place that most epitomises
Pacific cruising.

We arrived off the atoll at 4:00am in virtually no wind. We quietly
bobbed around until sunrise when a gentle breeze set in and allowed us
to sail into the pass. We were anchored by 9:00am and its was great to
be reunnited with 1/2 the World ARC fleet. Suwarrow is desserted for
1/2 the year. 2 rangers had only arrived a few days before us and
were left here until November, with no supply or relief deliveries
scheduled. They were wtill in the process of setting-up their hut and
equipment, but yesterday was one of their busiest days with about 6
yachts checking in (!)

Yesterday and today has passed in gentle rush of walks around the
islands, swimming (with plenty of sharks - some of which are
dangerous), boat maintenance on Tintin and other boats, helping the
rangers get their generator working to run their freezer.

The spirit of helping each other is so strong on the fleet. Since
arriving in Suwarrow, we received a bottle of win from Danica for
providing a vital plumbing component for their watermaker and stopping
their dinghy drifting away;we donated a bottle to Mango for topping up
our water tanks and tomorrow we're going diving on their anchor to
unwrap it from several bommies, which had been spotted by George from
Cabana. The rangers we immensely grateful for help in trouble-shooting
their electric system - failure would have meant their entire freezer
full of food, which needs to last 6 months, would have gone to waste.
Aurora B provided the replacement line for our lazy jacks; I'm going
onboard tomrrow to provide advice, but mostly encouragement, for them
to learn to use their cruising chute.

Last night, we had a 'pot luck' supper ashore for all crews. We did
our bit by supplying a kilo of tuna to each boat from the leviathan that Pim had caught. The quality and variety of dishes that
emerged was great - grilled, curried, raw with wasabi, and many more.
We were entertained throughout by the hermit crabs scuttling about and
then trying to hide if they though they had been seen.

We only have another day here before heading South West towards Nuie -
we'll be sorry to leave

74 miles to Suwarrow

Last night was quiet with little wind, lightening busy in the distance
but nowhere near us, and no need to keep changing sails. So we all got
some decent sleep and today we have been treated to a bright blue sky
with dotted white cumulus clouds for the first time in this passage. It
is a welcome sight, for although we don't have much wind we don't have
any squalls either. The engine is doing its thing and we aim to be at
Suwarrow by tomorrow morning, when there will be good light for us to
navigate the pass and the coral reefs to enter the atoll and anchor
safely.

We stopped Tintin just now for a swim. There is a bit of swell making
the boat rock but it was easy enough for us to use the stern ladder to
get back on board. A rope with a fender attached trailed from the stern
for us to grab hold of if needed, and we always had one person on board.
The water was 3,800m deep and so blue, lit up by the suns rays it
looked like a kaleidoscope. It was exhilarating! No giant squid or
sharks came to eat us up.

This morning the water is unruffled enough for us to notice a shoal of 8
tuna swimming alongside for the last mile. They hardly seem to move a
muscle while keeping pace with us. I'm happy to say that these beautiful
fish are all too canny to be foiled by Richard's glittery lure!

74 miles to Suwarrow

Last night was quiet with little wind, lightening busy in the distance
but nowhere near us, and no need to keep changing sails. So we all got
some decent sleep and today we have been treated to a bright blue sky
with dotted white cumulus clouds for the first time in this passage. It
is a welcome sight, for although we don't have much wind we don't have
any squalls either. The engine is doing its thing and we aim to be at
Suwarrow by tomorrow morning, when there will be good light for us to
navigate the pass and the coral reefs to enter the atoll and anchor
safely.

We stopped Tintin just now for a swim. There is a bit of swell making
the boat rock but it was easy enough for us to use the stern ladder to
get back on board. A rope with a fender attached trailed from the stern
for us to grab hold of if needed, and we always had one person on board.
The water was 3,800m deep and so blue, lit up by the suns rays it
looked like a kaleidoscope. It was exhilarating! No giant squid or
sharks came to eat us up.

This morning the water is unruffled enough for us to notice a shoal of 8
tuna swimming alongside for the last mile. They hardly seem to move a
muscle while keeping pace with us. I'm happy to say that these beautiful
fish are all too canny to be foiled by Richard's glittery lure!