Niue

Leaving Suvarrow was hard, we knew and know, we will not see a place like that anytime soon. But we were going to Tonga and all was looking up. Catching up with sailing and land friends, and Tonga itself its a "not too bad" (I never quite got this kiwi expression... seems so negative when it actually means the exactly opposite!) place to be.

But alas, it was not be, we had no wind and no desire to use our engine so we decided to vear a bit further south and call into Niue.

What a great unexpected surprise! First it was like being home, without actually being home. Everyone was so NICE. The local yacht club offered great service with the mooring balls which we totally believe need to be used as the holding would be pretty difficult with such a rocky terrain.

The clarity of the water was the most incredible thing I have ever seen anywhere in the world. You could easily see 40 to 45 meters. We could see the coral clearly from our boat, 15 meters down, even when we swung to the deeper side at 30 meters we could still make out the little fish around!

Sea snakes are abundant and after our experience in Sumatra (where one came into the galley after the beans I was cooking in the pressure cooker) we stayed away from beans and kept the hatch well closed.

The weather was not fantastic but good enough to allow us to go for a swim in one of the many crevasses around the island and explore some of the lovely caves.

We attended a local fund raiser that loaded us with lovely bubbly and delicious local feast/hangi. It was a great night and Brisa danced the entire time!

One of the hints we were getting closer to home, was when we walked into the yacht club in Niue and Russell bumped into his primary school mate, Fiona Tarlton! We had a great time with her and her son Tane

The only down side was having to hoist your dinghy onto the dock everytime we went ashore. It was quite a mission everytime, but well worth it.

But it was time to move on to Tonga as we had Trevor and Gill (the previous owners of Moonwalker) coming and we were really looking forward to catching up with them and being in Tonga!

Suvarrow

After an amazing week in Maupiti we had a very benign but uncomfortable sail to Suvarrow in the Cook Islands. With the wind right on your stern we decided to use the wing on wing/ butterfly approach to sail dead downwind for the first time.

We used the genoa to one side and the storm jib to the other. It worked really well. We had about 20 knots most days but the motion onboard wasn't very pleasant and for the first two days I wasn't much help (Russ by now is getting used to that) and Brisa wasn't too flash either on the first day.

It took us about 5.5 days to get to Suvarrow and we arrived in the morning with bring sunshine and quite a bit of wind.

How can I describe paradise? Suvarrow was everything we expected and more. It was Chagos all over again with added benefits.

Snorkelling was great, shelling, fishing, mantas, sharks you name it it was there for us. The bird life on the islands of the atol was amazing. What was so incredible about it was the variety of birds species. In one little bush you would see a Tropical Bird nesting on the ground, a tern in a branch, a Booby on another branch, and further on a Frigate bird. It was such a mix match os species, nesting side by side it was the most ecletic environment I have ever visited!

We made many friends, amongst them the two care takers of the island in front of the only authorized anchorage in the atol. They provided us with an excellent venue everynight for our pot lucks and general entertainment

It costed us US$50 for the park fees which we gladly paid. Visiting other islands (apart from the anchorage Island) required a presence of a caretaker, which they were happy to oblige us with in exchange for fuel as the Cook Government sent them there with half the supply they had organized promissing another supply ship within 2 weeks. Well the supply ship never materialized and they had to fend for themselves. Yachties are pretty good and generous people by nature and Harry and Ants got all they needed and more from us all as they were wonderful hosts.

Brisa once again was in ecstasy! Lovely calm beaches (if you didn't mind sharks which she didn't), swing, hammocks, many friendly people, a cat, loads of shells to play and did I say swing-slaves? Yes she had many of those ready at hand to swing her to her heart's content. Her first swing slave was her Grandpa in the USA. Any chance she had she would drag him to the local playground and they would be there for hours.

3 weeks passed in Suvarrow without us even noticing. We loved our time there, made many friends and have vowed to come back in a near future. I will let the photos from the link bellow talk for themselves!

https://picasaweb.google.com/108718390294505747992/Suvarrow?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCNOd6Li08ZnR0AE&feat=directlink