Niue, Polynesia
Kahia
Paul and Catherine Davis
Wed 3 Oct 2012 23:59
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19:03.26S 169:55.44W
The wind dropping down to next to nothing for
the next couple of days has made the decision easy to stop in Niue, one of the
world's smallest states, but the largest block of coral!
in 1774 Captain Cook charted the island, in 1900 it
became a British Protectorate and today Niue is an in dependant nation in free
association with New Zealand.
We picked up a mooring buoy and are standing by on VHF
radio channel 16 for customs-, immigration- and agriculture officers to come
back from their Lunch break and clear us in.
As we sat on deck sipping cold lemonade,
celebrating our arrival, a humpback whale sounded, raising it's huge
tail into the air and a few minutes later jumped out of the water, twisted on
the side and fell back with a huge splash! Amazing.
We have been sailing 8 days in "Whale-land" and
only today spotted one. What a beautiful welcome. Sorry it all happened too
quickly to get the camera out, but we are sure there will be plenty of
opportunity to take a picture.
Although the moorings are in very deep water, we can see
the seabed. There are 7 other boats here and we are waiting
for "Moonwalker" to arrive tonight or tomorrow. The only downside
is that we are rolling in the ocean swell, which is slightly
uncomfortable. So we look forward to stretch our legs hopefully soon and
explore "The Rock" in the middle of the South Pacific
Ocean.
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