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!