Niue

Jarek
Sat 18 Oct 2003 09:09
Thursday, October 16, 2003
We sighted Niue on Wednesday, early in the morning from about 15 miles away.
The sky was overcast with the cumulostratus type clouds and wind was gusting
from S to SW. A front coming from Fiji had arrived. The island looked
surprisingly flat and low and only the distance we could see it from
indicated that it rises over 200 feet over the water level.
Niue does not have a harbor per se. It is all surrounded by the fringe reef
and its only "harbor" at Alofi, the capital of the island located at a west
coast bay, consists of a roadstead and a big concrete wharf accessible
through a narrow passage in the reef. Yachts can tie up to mooring buoys or
anchor close to the shore in 60 - 80 ft deep water. The swell is always
breaking at the wharf so dinghies as well as fishing boats have to be lifted
from the water upon arrival by a self-serviced crane and stored on the wharf
until the next launch. The whole operation requires some skills and agility,
usually acquired at an expense of getting wet and sometimes bruised.
The island's shore is basically made of about 100 ft high cliff with very
picturesque caves and blowholes carves by the relentlessly pounding water.
There is a number of small white-sand beaches lined with palm trees. To get
there one has to climb down the cliff, sometimes equipped with a ladder.
Henry Skorek, a Pole who settled here a few years ago, will take us for a
trip around the island tomorrow. The weather is still not too good: cloudy
and windy, with occasional showers. The forecast says it should clear up by
tomorrow.
The following is a note made during our passage to Niue on Monday, October
13:
In the previous Web diary update I complained briefly about uncomfortable
sailing down the wind with a heavy swell. Poseidon did not like it. The sky
was overcast with stratus-type clouds that day. Just few hours after I had
dispatched the update darker cumulus clouds appeared at the southern horizon
and soon an ominous horizontal roll of lighter colored cloud formed and all
started moving towards our boat. The squall line was coming. The mainsail
went down in no time and we took the spinnaker pole of the genoa. Undoing
the spinnaker pole downhaul took a little while though, due to a knot snug
and there was no time to partially roll the genoa. We had to take the squall
with full genoa up. A flexing wall of rain with a 40 knot gust rushed at the
boat from the starboard aft. The autopilot quit and I had to grab the wheel.
No wonder the autopilot could not handle it. The squall was veering and
backing with every gust and I had to turn the helm as hard as I could to
keep the boat broad reaching. It was over in some twenty minutes but it
surely felt like much longer. The boat and two of us were nicely washed down
with a lot of fresh water. Another half an hour and we were running free
with a moderate wind, just as before. I hailed Andrzej on the radio. He was
all right, having taken a similar squall with practically no sails up. Well,
two hours later the same scenario was replayed . This time, besides of
having the main down we rolled in half of the genoa, so autopilot handled
the gusts no problem. The gusty wind was slowly backing to north, then west
and south, so soon we were sailing back home. When the wind calmed down to
twenty some knots we gybed and pointed our bow at Niue. For the next day or
so we were nicely beam reaching on our course at 6 - 7 knots. What hit us,
was the dreaded South Pacific Convergence Zone. Fortunately, it passed over
us rather quickly and ended up as a one day event. We were quite fortunate
to get it during the day as the squall clouds are much harder to spot at
night. Of course, taking the hit unprepared with too much sail up is no fun
and straight dangerous. Poseidon just wagged his finger at us this time and
then, smiled again.