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Firefly - 4 days on Niue



First sighted by Captain Cook in 1774, Niue is 1100nm west of Bora Bora. Its the world's largest raised coral atoll and is composed of coral limestone, is about 80m high at the highest point and its interior is the remains of a lagoon and is flat and heavily forested. Its known as 'The Rock', is full of caves and interesting geological sites and is politically independent but runs in free association with New Zealand - the currency is the NZ dollar and the 1500 inhabitants speak Niuean and English.

There is no natural harbour but there is a mooring field on the West coast near the main town of Alofi. The mooring are maintained by the Niue Yacht Club who claim to be the smallest in the World and without any local members owning a yacht. Its been an interesting place to visit - however, the weather has been a bit unusual and the ocean swell was reaching the mooring field - therefore at times the rolling on the mooring and landing ashore in the dinghy have been very testing.

Once we had our departure paperwork we were tempted to leave early, however we decided to stay one more night and were finally rewarded with a good nights sleep as the swell calmed down. As on Suwarrow its been a very sociable few days with crews from several World ARC boats helped along by the friendly inhabitants of Niue - both Niueans and ex pat New Zealanders. Being at 20 degrees South it is a tourist destination for a relatively small number of adventurous Antipodeans, keen to escape their winter.

Diving here is renowned for several reasons - the limestone means there are no rivers or streams flowing into the sea so that underwater visibility is exceptionally good, plus there are underwater caves to explore - there is also the 'friendly' Niuean 'Sea Snake'. The snake only exists in Niuean waters, is just under 1 meter long and is deadly poisonous - there is no antidote to the venom and death would occur less than 5 minutes after a bite - plus there are lots of them.

6 of the World ARC crews arranged to dive with Buccaneer Diving, owned and operated by some very competent and friendly Aussies, Crystal and Shannon. During the first dive, Lance our dive leader found a Nuiean Sea snake and promptly handed it to us - they are in fact very docile and not known to be at all aggressive. Visibility was exceptional as predicted and the second dive was a 'sporting' affair as we explored a network of caves under the limestone reef and were constantly surging forward and back as waves passed overhead and forced the currents through the tunnels.

Other highlights were visiting Togo Chasm on the East coast - hard to describe it briefly - but the visit included a hike through an ancient forest, which changed to a pathway through some incredibly jagged limestone pinnacles as we approached the sea (erosion from the waves causing the pinnacles to form) and then a descent down a long steep ladder to a beach called the 'Oasis' - the beach was surrounded by limestone boulders and covered in palm trees. Limu pools on the north west coast was a beautiful snorkeling spot just inside the reef. Here there was a 'thermocline' - a barrier between the warmer sea water and the cooler fresh water escaping from the limestone into the sea. The fresh is on top, the sea water below, the visibility is therefore strange but the coral colours and shapes and the number and variety of fish were incredible.

Firefly is now en route to Tonga. Bizarrely, we left on Friday 30th May but have crossed that day off the calendar as its now Saturday 31st because we crossed the International Date line - we will explain more in the next posting. As usual we are running goose winged in 15 knots of wind towards Tonga, a 250 mile trip - unusually its grey and damp.

Paul and Susie


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