Niue Check in

Where to start?

Niue is awesomely wonderfully enchanting.

Let's begin at the beginning. My introduction to Niue. We came in after dark--well we could see the island  before the sun set but we had to go around to the west side to Alofa to anchor. I didn't realize how big Niue actually was but it took us quite awhile to get over there.

At first glance Niue isn't inviting. It's the world's largest piece of coral. So the entire island is just a hunk of grey rock. Flat, corally rock. But once we explored a little we discovered it wasn't all that flat and it had some serious jungly greenness.

Besides seeing the island, the best thing about landfall after 7 days at sea was the smell. Bora Bora didn't smell all that great, to be honest, but Niue. Oh man. Imagine the most wondeful flower fragrance you can then multiply it by 10. Then maybe by another factor of 10. I cannot get over how GOOD this island smells! (Side note: the flower smell even permeates when you're on land in the middle of the "city".)

When we pulled in after dark the bioluminescent stuff in the water was bright and gorgeous, the stars were spectacular with the new moon, AND there were dolphins playing in our bow wake as we approached the anchorage.

The new moon, while helpful for stargazing, did present the problem of darkness while trying to pick up a mooring ball. I stood on the bow with the spotlight trying to catch sight of the reflective tape on the buoys around the other boats. The other cruisers had been thoughtful enough to turn on the mast light (anchor light) so we could see where they were--and that gave us a vague direction to head towards instead of completely relying on the chart plotter.

Once we spotted a mooring buoy the rest was nice and easy--Ben's so good at steering that I'm pretty sure I could have snagged the buoy by hand if I could have reached it.

By the time we cleaned up all the lines and covered the sails it was past ten. On passage I had the early watch so it was waaaay past my bedtime but I still stayed up to share a celebratory beer with Ben.

1100 miles in the can! (Maybe more with the detour to Palmerston).

The plan to see Niue in just a few days is to rent a motorbike and zip around the island on that. (Note I'm writing this after the fact so my mother doesn't worry TOO much about us. Which is more worrisome--an 1100 mile sail or a motorcyle?)