news are very welcome to us. nordlys (at) mailasail.com

 

 

I write this as we bring to a close our visit to the world's smallest independent nation, Niue.  Since I wrote the last webdiary entry we have enjoyed a pleasant three night 380nm passage from  Penrhyn to Suwarrow, a four day visit to this lovely atoll.  Another pleasant 520nm passage to Niue.  Little motoring was done on any of these passages and there were no moments of note!

 

Suwarrow is technically an uninhabited atoll in the northern Cooks.  In practice two wardens, Baker and Papa Joane (pronounced John) live there for all the year except the hurricane season.  The atoll is best known amongst the cruising community as the home of the New Zealand hermit Tom Neal, who moved there in 1952 when his wife left him, eventually he was removed in 1977 when dying of cancer.  In the only area of settlement there is a very simple attractive stone monument to him.  In 1998 the Cook Islands/New Zealand governments tried to sell the atoll to the Japanese for a resort.  This idea was fought off by a very active group of  environmentalists from both countries and the atoll is now a national park.  Alongside the site of the original house is the living quarters of the two wardens and near that is a new building put up by the group who defeated the sales plan and who go by the name of 'Friends of Suwarrow'.

The setting is exquisite, turquoise sea vistas through well tended palm trees.  Yachts pay $50US and for that can fish and gather food to your hearts content.  In practice most of us went with Papa Joane on his expeditions.  He goes to the remoter motus and collects tern's eggs and coconut crabs.  He also trawls for fish, usually barracuda.  The motus are home to over 200,000 sooty terns and Papa Joane assures us the numbers are increasing rather than decreasing.  His large harvest of eggs made some of us wonder at this.  Hunting coconut crabs in the undergrowth is a hot sweaty job with clouds of mosquitoes around you.  Papa Joane was very proper in his rejecting any small crabs and his usual crop was about ten crabs per expedition.  These numbering three a week in the yachtie season.  Again one hopes the motus can sustain this loss.  At this point I have to say that while tern's eggs are not to everyone's taste coconut crab legs taste delicious. Barracuda cooked his way in palm leaves was also an unexpected pleasure.  I tell this story with some worries because it is due to the delights of the place and the help and interest of the two wardens that the numbers of yachts are way up on a few years ago.  When we arrived there were ten others at anchor and when we left there were twenty four.  Three fantastic meals per week for this number of people is going to put a severe strain on the local wildlife.  I would like to say however at this stage that the two wardens are doing a marvellous job of keeping the place clean and tidy and provided the 'crop' is kept within sustainable limits then nothing but good is being done to this little bit of paradise.  In many places we have been to a museum to see how the locals do their thing but with the hot jungle around you and the air full of mosquitoes to see Papa Joane calmly wield his machete and provide himself with a palm frond which he then swiftly turns into a basket to carry the crabs in is a very real experience in local lore.  His other act was to  tie his ankles together with another piece of palm leaf and to shin up a very tall palm tree to collect fresh coconut for us to drink from.  This man is seventy one years old and on the day when we went with him  the two mile walk over harsh reef coral, the hour spent in the blazing sun collecting eggs,  the hour and a half in the jungle hunting the crabs and finally the by now nearly three miles back to the boat caused him a lot less grief than it did to the rather younger author of this missive.  I am rather proud of the fact that I can by now snorkel to somewhere between fifteen and twenty meters to untangle an anchor chain.  In his youth Joane used to get down to over forty meters to collect oysters for pearls and could stay submerged for five minutes which puts my achievement in perpective.  Baker was also a man of action as he whisked Christabel off to his room to show her his artefacts.  At least Chris says this is what he did.  All I know is that he was very keen for Nordlys to leave minus a crew member.  The poor man's wife died last year and Chris was obviously his idea of an idea replacement.  The man obviously has taste but I felt that for the good of Lymington I had better take action and whisked her back to the boat and off to Niue.

 

Niue is not an atoll.  It is a coral island that has been formed by two distinct uprisings of the earth's surface.  The first has formed a plateau that is covered in vegetation and forms ninety percent of the land.  The second layer some thirty meters lower used to be under water but now forms a ring round the first uprising.  Around this second uprising is the reef which perhaps one day may rise to make this a three layered country.  The real problem that this small but proud nation is going through is that most of the younger members leave for New Zealand and its many attractions.  Almost instant dole money being one of these.  The villages bear witness to this exodus and almost half the houses are derelict.  The official population is seventeen hundred but apparently fourteen hundred is nearer the mark.  Two hundred left last year and in the mid nineties the population was over four thousand.  This does not stop the remaining population being quite delightful.  Nowhere have we met more charming and welcoming people.  Both the New Zealanders who live and work here and the locals.  One way they are making money is by selling the Nu ending for internet sites.  This has brought in a lot of money which is immediately apparent by the free internet cafe and the free provision of radio connection for laptop users.  It was good to see the local youngsters working away on the internet.

There is no harbour as such.  Just a series of buoys laid in over 30 meters on the western side of the island.  This anchorage can be very rolly and for thirty six hours of our visit a south westerly swell broke clean over the quay and caused the dinghy crane power to be shut off.  This crane caused much amusement and not a little anguish as one came alongside, hooked on and with one crew member on the controls the dinghy is winched ashore.  There were many occasions when getting ashore was a wet job as the leap from dinghy to quay steps had to be judged with skill and to hesitate was courting disaster as the swell receded. 

We toured the island by car, we walked from the road through the various layers and climbed down to the sea, we ate often at various local restaurants, I have enjoyed four dives in the crystal clear waters with some really interesting underwater cave exploring and finally we experienced a memorable evening at a local village which finished with the children giving a dancing display and then a fantastic feast of local dishes.  This sounds as if it was rather touristy and perhaps embarrassing.  The reality could not have been more different.  We, the audience, seemed to enjoy ourselves as much as the locals who put on the display.  The casualty sister at the local hospital who had dealt with my septic foot lead the local group with her guitar. Everyone went home having had a really good evening.  On several occasions we heard whale song through the hull at night and on one occasion Chris put her head out of the companionway just in time to see a great blow of phosphorescence from a surfacing humpback.

Again all good things must come to an end and as I put the finishing touches to this we are bowling downwind at seven knots on our way to Niuatoputapu the northern most  of the Tongan islands.  This small island of fourteen hundred souls in three villages is apparently not over visited by yachts and we are looking forward to the island, its people, its renowned swimming and snorkelling/diving plus a smooth roll free anchorage!

 

                

Papa Joane creates the basket.       Coconut Crab goes into same.  Chris,Baker, Annette Papa Joane

 

 

Niue school children dancing

 

As ever happy times to our readers

David Annette and Christabel