Niue is an isolated independent island nation located 600 nautical miles WNW from Rarotonga. Known as “The Rock”, the island is made up of coral limestone and is 12 miles long by 9 miles wide. There is no surrounding reef and the only mooring is on the west side near the village of Alofi.
Upon arrival, we tied to a mooring buoy, then took the dinghy to the wharf to meet customs & immigration, agriculture, and health officials for check in. Since there is no beach landing, dinghies are raised up 10 feet onto the concrete wharf by a self-operated electric crane. It’s a difficult and scary process when the surf is rough, which it seemed to be every time we hoisted our dinghy. After connecting the crane’s hook to the dinghy lifting bridle, you climb out of the dinghy via a set of stairs to reach the top of the wharf, where the crane controls are located. After raising the dinghy above the wharf, you swing the crane arm around and lower the dinghy onto a flat aluminum dolly, then park the dinghy in an area clear of the crane. Finally, you return the lifting hook back over the water and lower it for the next dinghy to use.

After all the formalities of checking in were complete, we walked around Alofi and found the Niue Yacht Club, who rents out the 20 mooring buoys. The yacht club is a very nice place to relax, use wifi, meet other cruisers, and get information. Ira, who volunteers her time at the yacht club, knows everything about the island. She called to make dinner and car reservations for us, and offered suggestions on what to during our short stay on Niue.
Some of the main attractions on Niue are the caves and chasms carved out of the limestone along the rugged coastline. We rented a car and drove around the island perimeter, stopping at 5 sights along the way. This was the first time I drove a car in 10 months, and after almost a year on a sailboat that moves at an average speed of 5 knots, driving at 45 mph seemed very fast (also scary since I was driving a car with the steering wheel on the right, and driving on the opposite side of the road!). We parked the car at the side of the road and hiked down to the coast on paths called sea tracks. At the end of the sea tracks was either a cave, swimming spot, or chasm.

Here’s our 4 favorite stops driving around the island:

Avaiki
Named after a derivative of the word “Hawaike”, the ancestral home of the Polynesians who first came to Niue on canoes, this site was celebrated by those of high-ranking, in gratitude of their safe passage. A short walk down the sea track, we entered a spectacular dripstone cave. After exploring the cave, we exited along the coast to find small pools of clear water among the coral limestone. These pools can only be reached at low tide and were full of juvenile fish and fragile coral.

Palaha Cave
Palaha is one of the the biggest caves on Niue with rare limestone formations formed over hundreds of years. We hiked down the sea track and entered the cave to explore the amazing stalactites and stalagmites formed as water drips through the cave ceiling. We could see different colors in the formations from various minerals, as well as the glassy look of a new stalagmite forming.

Limu Pools
Limu Pools are near the village of Namukulu. A hike down the sea track ended at the sea where a large sea-water pool is protected by huge rocks. The rock ledges and clear, deep water make this a great place for swimming. Since it was a cool, overcast day, we hadn’t planned on swimming so didn’t bring swim suites…but I couldn’t resist jumping off a cliff into the water wearing my red speedos!

Togo Chasm
Located on the rugged windward west coast of Niue, Togo Chasm was the last stop on our island tour. Along the 30-minute drive there, we passed through several small villages with  houses that were mostly abandoned from when a large typhoon passed through in 2008. Similar to a lot of other pacific islands, Niue suffers from a population decline as the natives seek opportunities elsewhere (like the Cook Islanders, Niueans enjoy dual citizenship with New Zealand). A half hour hike through a coastal forest opened up to the coastline with sharp pinnacles and sink holes. A crude cement path made it easier to walk though this area and at the end was an amazing chasm. To enter the chasm, we carefully climbed down a steep 40’ ladder, which was quite scary when looking down from the top. At the bottom was a long sandy strip of flat land surrounded on all sides by vertical rock walls. A few palm trees managed to grow inside the chasm. We climbed through a small opening in the rocks that led to the sea, where we sat and watched the waves force sea water into and out of the opening. Togo Chasm was an amazing place!

The entire tour took us about half a day. Afterwards, we showered at the bathroom facilities on the wharf, then rewarded ourselves with a nice sushi dinner at Kaika Japanese restaurant, where we had a 6:30pm reservation. The food was absolutely superb—miso soup, fresh seared toro (tuna belly) served 3 different ways, chefs-choice rolls of wahoo, tuna, and mahi mahi, and soba noodles.

Although our stay on Niue was only 3 days, we were very glad we stopped. The laid-back lifestyle and friendliness of the Niueans was similar to that in some of the other south pacific islands. We also met some cruisers from Australia who we would end up buddy-boating with to Tonga. Dan and Sara on SV Brahminy bought their boat in the Caribbean and are sailing it to northern Australia. We bumped into Richard and Geri on SV Panthera who are from England and are also on their way to Australia (we met them in Mexico and saw them again in Bora Bora). So on Saturday, we joined both of these boats in up-anchoring for the 2-day sail to Tonga, keeping in touch along the way via VHF radio with weather reports and whale sightings. We even got close enough (within a mile) to take pictures of each others boat during the passage!

Since we arrived at the north end of Rarotonga at 8pm, we had to wait until the following morning to radio the harbormaster to get approval and mooring instructions. Heaving-to is a way of stalling a boat and is usually used in high winds so the crew can rest. The typical procedure is to tack without releasing the genoa sheet so the headsail is back-winded, then lashing the rudder at an angle. The sheeted-in mains’l provides a little movement to windward and the back-winded genoa provides a little movement to leeward. These two counter-balance each other and the boat stalls facing into the wind, ideally moving at less than a knot. We’ve done this before in winds over 15 knots and it worked well. But trying to hove-to in only 5 knots of wind doesn’t work so well on Apropos. We tried different combinations of reefing the main and genoa while hove-to but the boat kept turning away from the wind and sailing on a beam reach at a speed of 2 knots. Since we would be hove-to for 12 hours, this would put us 24 miles away. Our goal was to stay in the lee of the island. So our only solution was to heave-to for a while starting at point A, sail slowly to point B, then turn the boat around and return to point A and repeat…..all night long! So instead of getting some rest, we would have to take shifts doing this. We thought about just dropping the sails and drifting, but a 1 knot current would take us away from the lee of the island and we’d get blown further away and into rougher seas. We found that going from point A to B took 2-3 hours, and returning to point A took 1 hour. So it took 3 cycles of this until daybreak. We then took the sails down in the morning and motored into Avatiu Harbor after contacting the harbormaster on VHF and hoisting our yellow quarantine flag.
Avatiu Harbor can only hold about 6 cruising boats and is exposed to the north, so any northerly winds makes this a risky place. Boats are required to med tie to a sea-wall. This means dropping an anchor in 20’ of water, backing up to the sea-wall, then tying 2 stern lines to cleats on the sea-wall. The day we arrived, there were no other boats moored here. The med mooring went well and a port worker caught our lines as we backed up to the sea wall. After meeting with custom officials to get checked into the Cook Islands, we took down the Q flag and were free to go “muck about” as the customs official put it. Later another official stopped by to confiscate all remaining fruits and vegetables. The cruising guides say they come aboard to search and fumigate the boat to kill any fruit flies, but he was satisfied with us handing over a few limes and didn’t even come aboard.

Being the only cruising boat in the harbor, we had lots of people stopping  by the quay for a look. A lot of New Zealanders come here this time of year to escape from their winter and we invited some aboard for coffee. We also found the locals to be very friendly. At the marina office I was asking where I could fill up our 5-gallon diesel containers and ended up riding on the back of her scooter while holding onto the two containers, to a gas station a block away. I decided to walk there for the next 2 trips and this supplied us with 30 gallons, enough to top off the tanks. A worker in the cafe located next to the quay offered to drive us to the laundry service a few miles away. Turns out she has a daughter Jacintha’s age so they played together when she was off school. Two other sailboats arrived over the next few days, both flying French flags.

The Cooks consist of 15 small islands scattered over 750,000 square miles. Captain Cook, after whom the islands are named, explored most of them in the 1770s. Rarotonga is only 25 square miles in area. The mountain peaks reach to about 2000’ and are a spectacular sight from offshore. This is the most important of the Cook Islands and over half of the population resides here. The town of Avarua is near the moorage and there is a public market, grocery store, hardware store, and lots of restaurants nearby. A road circles the island and a 50-minute bus ride takes you around the island.

Celebrating
We celebrated our wedding anniversary with a nice lunch at the Rarotonga Yacht Club at Muri Beach, located on the SE side of the island. We took a bus there and hitchhiked back. A young couple from Scotland and Montana picked us up and we invited them on our boat to chat.

I also picked out my belated birthday present–a nice Tahitian ukulele, something I’ve been eying during our 2 months in French Polynesia.

Tahitian Ukulele
I first learned about this type of ukulele, which has 8 strings doubled in 4 pairs and tuned to GG CC EE AA, in the Marquesas. I kept hearing them being played in places like Rangiroa, Tahiti, Huahine, and at the Heiva festival in Bora Bora. The one I chose is made in Tahiti by Raromatai, and is the Onaga model. I chose it for it’s superior acoustics compared to the other models I looked at. It also is a work of art with embedded pearl around the front and side body, carvings on the rear body and neck. A 4cm hole is bored in the back and a 10cm hole is bored in the front, then covered by a thin piece of wood. This works as a wood-skinned banjo and gives the Tahitian ukulele it’s unique sound. I’ve already found some good sources on YouTube for learning how to play it. My other ukuleles are 4-string Hawaiian-type and I mostly play finger-pick style. The Tahitian ukulele is meant to be played in a fast strumming manner.

Departing Rarotonga
After a 4 day stay, we will be departing Rarotonga and sail to Niue, about 600 miles away. We took care of the formalities (port captain, immigration) a day ahead. We still have a long way to go to reach Sydney…

I’m reading the book “The Bounty, The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty”
The HMS Bounty stopped in Rarotonga after their stay in Tahiti. Next they departed for Tonga, which is where the mutiny took place under the direction of Fletcher Christian. The mutineers sailed the Bounty back to Tahiti and some went on to Pitcairn Island where they started a colony which still exists today. Captain Bligh and 20 of his loyalists were placed in a 23’ launch boat and miraculously survived the 3,500 nautical mile trip to Timor. He then went back to England to begin the process of bringing the mutineers to justice.

A funny thing happened on the way to the gendarmerie (official you must visit to check out of French Polynesia). About 50 yards from the office, we saw a poster advertising Heiva, a huge annual festival of Polynesia culture featuring competition in dance, chanting, rowing, and sports. Each Society Island has their own Heiva, which lasts about 2 weeks. We decided to extend our stay in Bora Bora by a week to see the first 2 days of the festival. Our rational—we’ve come all this way so why miss out on something so special! Since we do have a timeline to get to Australia, this puts us a week behind schedule, but by spending a day or two less in the next few island groups (Cooks, Tonga, Fiji, New Caledonia), we can get close enough to being back on schedule. And what better place to spend an extra week than Bora Bora!

So, instead of the last minute flurry of activities preparing the boat for a passage, we kicked back and spent the next few days snorkeling, paddle-boarding, relaxing, and getting together with other boats like Bob The Cat and Maestro. I’m also reading South Sea Tales by Jack London, which is very interesting because some of the stories take place in areas we’ve sailed through or will be sailing through.

Heiva 2015

During the day, we walked around Viatapi, the main village on Bora Bora and site of the Heiva. The waterfront area was transformed into an arena for the evening competitions, huts with Polynesian arts and crafts, and bamboo buildings with restaurants. After the 2-week festival, it all gets torn down and becomes a parking lot again.

Each night there are 2 performances (chanting and dancing) in an outdoor sand-covered arena. Each performance is from a different village on Bora Bora. The performances are judged and a winner is announced at the end of Heiva.

On the first night, the group doing the chanting (Himene) was from Tiipoto. They wore colorful dresses, flower headbands, and shell necklaces and chanted to a flowing, melodic ukulele rhythm and drum beat. The singing and swaying were very beautiful to watch.

The second performance was dancing (Otea) by the village of Faanui. This was done to a much faster beat and featured young women wearing grass skirts, flowered headbands, necklaces, and wristbands, and coconuts. The men wore grass loin cloths and headbands and were also very fit.

It was an amazing evening that started with a nice dinner with Erin, Len and  baby Trent from SV Maestro before the performance. We bought tickets and sat in the bleacher section to watch the 3-hour performance, which began at 8pm. A huge shower came through right at the end and we were soaking wet by the time we dinghy’d back to our boat!

We’ll upload more videos of the performance when we find faster wifi, but here are a few short clips….

Pearl Purchase
Similar to Tahiti, Bora Bora is a great place to buy black pearls. There are a dozen or so pearl shops in Viatapi, and Karen never grew tired of “looking”. By now, we are somewhat educated in pearls since we’ve been to pearl farms, pearl museums, and countless pearl shops. I figured this was my last chance to make a purchase since we were leaving French Polynesia in 3 days. I also figured she deserved it for doing something as crazy as quitting our jobs for a year, squeezing into a boat the size of most people’s living room, and sailing across the biggest ocean in the world.
So Karen found a nice black Tahitian pearl she hinted that she REALLY liked, and I snuck back to the store and bought it. It was sold as a loose pearl and I had it mounted in an 18K white gold stud with a white gold necklace. She chose this particular pearl for its size (13.4mm), quality (grade A round), and color (very light peacock). The owner of Baldini’s Pearls was very friendly and let me watch as he drilled and mounted the pearl.

One More Delay….
Two days before our intended departure, we were munching on some caramel corn at the Heiva festival and Karen broke a tooth (at least we thought so at the time).  Back at the boat, I inspected the tooth with a flashlight while stretching her mouth to try to see in the back. It looked like the break went down to the gum line, which brought worries of infection if not treated. We decided to delay our departure another 3 days so we could have it looked at on Monday. We knew a dentist office was located right next door to the Aloe Cafe, where we spent lots of time using wifi, and hoped we could get a walk-up appointment. Arrived there at 9am and only had to wait 30 minutes until the dentist could see her. Turns out it was a prior filling in the side of the tooth that had broken off. 30 minutes and only $40 later, a new filling was in and we were back at the Aloe Cafe eating bacon and eggs.

Bora Bora is called the “Jewel of the South Seas” for good reason—turquoise water, white-sanded islets, the famous Mount Otemanu and Pahia covered in lush greens, and the friendliness of the 6,000 islanders. The lagoon of Bora Bora is 3 times larger than its land mass. The island is about 7 million years old, and is somewhere between the Tuamoto atolls in age (10 to 40 million years old), and high islands such as Tahaa and Raiatea (2 to 3 million years old). A mere 8 million years from now, the island will have sunk into the ocean and been replaced by a lagoon surrounded by a fringe reef.

We arrived on a Sunday and tied to a mooring buoy next to the well known Bloody Mary’s restaurant. The following morning we took the dinghy to the south-east part of the island to a place called the Coral Garden, an amazing natural underwater park where all sorts of tropical reef fish are found. I was able to get better close-up pictures of fish here since the water was crystal clear, the sun was bright, and the fish seemed less afraid than at other reefs we snorkeled at. After several hours of this, we got back in the dinghy and motored to the Intercontinental Resort where we used the pool, played in the sand, and relaxed.

For dinner we ate at Bloody Mary’s, where you make your selection by looking at the displays of fresh fish and meat on ice before being seated. We had Meka (a type of swordfish found only in French Polynesia), Ribs, Steak, and their signature Bloody Mary (me) and Strawberry Daiquiri (Karen). The tropical atmosphere, sand covered floor, and great food made this a memorable dining experience!

As we moved to different anchorages around Bora Bora, I captured different views of Mt. Otemanu and Mt. Pahia at different times of the day.

Boat Repairs
Dinghy Engine–We use our inflatable dinghy like land-based people use their car. It’s our main transportation once we reach a destination and are anchored. We have a small 6HP 4-stroke Tuhatsu engine that has needed practically no maintenance during its 8 years of use (only changed oil and spark plug). Recently it has been stalling at low throttle, which makes it hard shifting into forward or reverse. So we suspected it was time for a carburetor cleaning. Thanks to YouTube, we were able to follow along the procedure while watching a 10-minute video with the exact same engine model. After removing the carburetor from the engine, we took it apart to gain access to the 2 jets for cleaning. Even a tiny particle can clog the holes in the jets and make the engine run poorly or not start at all. The low-rpm jet probably had some dirt or byproducts from ethanol in gas that was causing the engine to stall at low throttle. Using carburetor cleaner, we sprayed the casing, the 2 jets, and all of the orifices until all were shiny clean, then reassembled and reinstalled the carburetor back into the engine. It started up on the first pull and ran smoothly at low rpm, so we’re calling it fixed!

Zincs—While anchored in the crystal clear lagoon behind Toopua island, I got out our Hookah system (tankless diving) and changed the zincs, scrubbed the prop, and cleaned the hull bottom. Compared to the Marquesas, we’re getting far less barnacle growth on the hull, so it was a quick and easy job.

Sail Repairs—Friends aboard Maestro, a beautiful 72’ Irwin ketch, needed some minor repairs along the luff of their mizzen and main sails. Since we have a Sailrite sewing machine aboard, we offered to help out with the repairs. After transporting the machine to their boat via dinghy, we let out enough sail from their in-boom furling for Karen to sew patches along the bolt-rope where the chafing had occurred. Karen is getting very good sewing canvas and sails and it always feels good helping other cruisers.

Jacintha with Luke and Mathias from Bob The Cat (from NZ)

Just to the north of Raiatea is the smaller sister island of Tahaa with a single barrier reef surrounding both islands. We motored along on the inside lagoon, which was well marked with red (land-side) and green (reef-side) buoys. We chose Baie Haamene on the east side of Tahaa after reading about the Hibiscus Yacht Club in the guidebooks. After tying to a mooring buoy in front of the restaurant, we went ashore to walk around before dinner. We had the restaurant all to ourselves and the owners of over 25 years, Lolita and Leo, cooked a feast of fresh-grilled Thazard (Wahoo), skewered vegetables, salad, pommes fritzs (potato fries), taro, and creme brulee for dessert.  We bought some Tamanu Oil, which Lolita makes from the nuts of a Tamanu tree. It’s used for healing cuts, burns, insect bites, sunburn, acne, eczema, etc., and has a pleasant aroma.

Island Tour–We took a half day tour of the island that included stops at a pearl farm and a vanilla farm.  Our guide, George, drove us and explained the process of farming vanilla and growing cultured pearls.

Vanilla Farm Tour
Tahaa produces 75% of the vanilla that comes from French Polynesia and the vanilla grown here is know for its very high quality. There are over 100 ‘greenhouse’ farms spread throughout Tahaa. What they call greenhouses are just netting for keeping out birds and insects. They also reduce the need to weed around the plants. Inside are neat rows of the vanilla orchid, each with its own concrete trellis. Ground-up coconut husks are used as mulch and help keep in the moisture around plants. When the flowers appear, the caretaker pollinates the plant by hand–one flower produces one bean. Mass produced vanilla orchids in places like Madagascar and Mexico rely on bees to do the pollination. That was the way it was done in Tahaa when the plants were outdoors, but they get much higher yield and quality by doing it by hand. When the vanilla beans turn yellowish, they are picked and are ready to be sun-dried ocw.upc.edu. This process takes a few weeks since the beans are placed in the sun for only 1 hour per day. When the bean turns brown and is limp, it is ready to be packaged. A package of 6 beans of this high quality vanilla costs $20US. We bought 2 packages of vacuum-sealed beans, and a fifth of Vanilla Rum.

Black Pearl Farm Tour
The pearls found in the South Pacific are internationally recognized as a specific variety and given the designation as the “Tahiti Cultured Pearl”. Tahaa has several pearl farms.
The process of farming cultured pearls is fascinating and here’s what I remember from the tour:  An oyster can make pearls naturally when a foreign body, such as a grain of sand, gets inside. The grain of sand slowly grows as the oyster coats it with a substance called Narcre, also known as “mother of pearl”. The color can be black, white, pink, green or combinations. Natural pearls are rarely round and it takes a very long time for the pearl to get big (12mm and up). Cultured pearls start by implanting a nucleus inside a mature oyster. The nucleus (see picture below) comes from oysters found in the Mississippi River. They are machined to be perfectly round before implanting them in the oyster’s sex organ (oysters can change back and forth between male and female). The oysters are then placed in mesh cages that are tied to a structure near a reef in 2-4 meters of water. The oyster continuously coats the nucleus and after 18 months, the oyster is carefully opened up and the pearl extracted. The same oyster can be used for many cycles of this process and an oyster that produces a high quality pearl usually continues to produce high quality pearls. Pearls are priced by size and quality. For size, 8mm is considered small, 12mm is medium, and 16mm is large. For quality, class C has more than 2 flaws and is not round, class B has 2 flaws and is round or teardrop, and class A has 1 or no visible flaws when viewed by the naked eye, and is round or teardrop. A 12mm class A cultured Black Pearl costs around $1,000US from a pearl farm, and of course the price goes up with middle-men and the further away you get from French Polynesia.