I think it's Monday 30th. Not sure. Who cares.

Another gorgeous day here today although the wind has come round to NW, directly into the anchorage. There's no lagoon as this is a sea mount rising directly up from thousands of feet. So it's pretty lumpy. We had a bad night's sleep. However, we were swimming with whales before breakfast. So cool!! I was right above two about 5m below the surface just slowly rolling over, lying on their backs and gradually rising to the surface. Not a bad start to the day.

Had an hour with the Premier of Niue yesterday - his sister is a student of Janet's. He was a bit superior and seemed not to know stuff he should, like why Niueans leave Niue - 1000 here and 20,000 in NZ - esp as his stated primary goal is economic development to encourage fewer to leave and more to return. He argued that NZ aid is not aid but a short term overdraft facility and that, because most of the NZ money is used to buy goods from NZ the relationship benefits NZ as much as it does Niue which to me is curious economics. This is a fertile island but most fruit and vegetables are imported from NZ and very little locally grown stuff is available at the market. Local restaurants and food outlets can't get reliable supply locally and are obliged to buy expensive imported produce. Go figure!! I was hoping for an informed analysis and a strategy that had a chance of being achieved. Instead I met a man content with having achieved the office and focused on shoring up an economic arrangement guaranteed to keep things pretty much as they are. Disappointing.

But this does not stop the sun shining and the whales and trade winds blowing. We have rented a car with another boat for a week to have a good explore of this island. There is said to be a lot to do especially exploring extraordinary rock formations, caves, some with underwater access, scuba diving and this morning starts with a weaving class somewhere out of town.

Cheers David

Good morning. We were woken by whoops of joy from neighboring boats as they sighted 3 humpback whales meandering through the anchorage just metres from us. Fabulous. Janet jumped in the water and I jumped for my camera.

Life’s unreal. Unexpected delights are offered up unbidden each day.


That little black dot to the left of the diving whale is our friend Alene getting up close to the whale.

And that's Bruce, of Migration, next to the whale. Janet was in the water too but a little out of position when this whale surfaced. Very special.

We've borrowed our neighbor's antenae and have fabulous internet connection so we've been able to receive a number of emails in response to our last mass mailing. So good to hear news from friends and family. It seems that the blog is working pretty well, at least for those we've heared from. Any feedback is most welcome.

Here's our next account of Niue and there's another on the way.

Last night’s nocturnal snorkel with Bruce and Alene from the yacht Migration.

What a trip it was. On this island the reef extends as a shelf to about 100 metres from the shoreline cliffs. The reef is exposed at low tide and covered to a metre or less at high tide. At its seaward edge it drops off almost vertically to about 7 to 10 metres. Everywhere are canyons and crevasses, and fissures, holes and caves in the reef. The canyons are often quite deep to a sandy bottom. Some wind a good distance through the reef. Others are huge holes surrounded on all sides by cliffs of coral. The surface and walls of these coral formations are rich in sea life of all kinds. We saw a few wary crays and captured none but the sea life after dark and with a torch was magic. It’s the dark and torch light that does it. Many more creatures are out feeding, some sleeping or dozy, and with a torch the colours are terrific: bright oranges and reds, electric blues and greens, glowing yellow and red eyes of creatures we could not see, orange coloured lion fish named for their mane of white filaments, one huge red crab that was missing a claw and casually feeding with the other. There were black and white banded sea snakes meandering around and Janet saw a small yellow and white eel. Thankfully no sharks although earlier in the day Alene was annoyed by a white tip shark.

Swimming in the dark is spooky, as you’d expect. You can’t see anything except where the torch beam is directed and anything could be lurking outside that comforting ray of light. It’s easy to lose your sense of direction in amongst the canyons and crevasses and from the reef it’s not altogether clear which of those wee anchor lights bobbing in the distance belongs to your little haven. But the dark and torch beams dancing through the water, picking out extraordinary and beautiful sea creatures also created a magic that we loved.

Janet and I began to get cold, even with wet suits and so swam back to Navire leaving Bruce and Alene to keep searching for crays. While having desert of truffles and lemon cello, listening to music and playing cards I heard an unusual noise from outside. “Quick. Turn off the music.” I said, dashing outside. “It’s whales. Pass up that torch. They’re everywhere. We’re surrounded!!” I could just about see them and smell them. I definitely heard them. As I fumbled to get the torch on, that low, long note of whale song erupted in laughter and my beam of light picked out Bruce and Alene bobbing in the water and in hysterics as they realised how completely they had fooled us. To add insult they reported this morning seeing the real thing from their boat a few hours later into the night.

We’re off shortly to Alofi, Niue’s main town, to listen to a local whale research report complete with musical entertainment and games. Could be interesting.


David
Niue
28.8.10

Samoa to Niue
26.8.10
David

We’re in Niue!! I can’t believe it. And it’s wonderful. In our planning we had said we’d sail to Tonga and see what happened next. There are 171 islands in Tonga – more than enough to keep us out of trouble for 6 months. But perhaps we’d go up to Samoa too and if so we’d definitely stop at Niuatoputapu on the way. And, if ever we get the right winds, which are rare, maybe we’d sail east to Niue, which, in sailor’s lingo is ‘uphill’ because it’s normally against the trade winds that blow east to west. And here we are.

It was a good run down here. We left wonderful Samoa late in the day to a rousing farewell from the boats in the marina and motor-sailed along the top of Upolu, directly into the wind but fortunately it and the seas were light. It was slow going none the less. Late that night we rounded the island and lay our line for Niue. The full moon lit up the sea and the nights were glorious and warm. I frequently did my watches wearing only my shorts. Early on we caught a decent sized tuna and hooked three more, two of which escaped with the lure and the other wriggled off right by the boat. Damn!!

For the first time I found myself marvelling and somewhat awestruck by the fact we were bobbing along in a tiny plastic bubble, all on our own and hundreds of miles from anywhere.

Niue came up over the horizon a little before dawn on our third day, just as our GPS said it would. It’s the tiniest spot of rock in the middle of a big piece of the Pacific and a million miles from any other spot of rock and just fantastic. Fantastic to be here because it’s uphill and we were not sure we’d be able to get here. Fantastic because, well it’s just lovely. Not so hot and humid as Samoa, hugely friendly, the clearest water ever, fabulous snorkelling, endless caves and dramatic rock formations yet to explore. Some friends, Bruce and Alene, we’d met in Tonga, when Lily and Jackson were with us, arrived a few hours before us quite by chance. Most of the 15 or so yachts here have come from locations to the east and we expected to know no one so it was a delight to see Migration here. We’re going snorkelling with them tonight to see if we can get some crayfish and maybe spear a fish or two, in the dark, with sharks – whoa!!
Niue is a low, flat island similar to Tongatapu but much smaller and relatively sophisticated with internet, cafés and restaurants, shops with the essentials, a yacht club who have laid about 30 well maintained moorings for yachts that used not to stop here and much more. It was the easiest landfall we’ve made with no reef or harbour to negotiate and no anchor to lay. We could have done it in the dark as many have.

However, the landing presents an unusual challenge. You motor your dinghy in along a huge concrete wall lined with tyres a mile high for big ships to bumper on. You let your passengers off onto a steel ladder. While they scramble up to the top you grab a heavy rope dangling in the air which you use to manoeuvre the dinghy under a massive steel hook onto which you loop your dinghy’s hoisting bridle. By now you’re thankful and relieved that your dinghy has such a contraption because without it you’re stuffed. If you’re lucky your passenger has found the control buttons for the crane and raises the hook enough to hold the dinghy in place. You then use the dangling rope to pull yourself onto a ledge from which you scramble to the top where you hold the hoisting rope (and therefore the dinghy) away from the harsh, dinghy-crushing concrete wall while your crew operates the crane to gracefully lift the dinghy up and onto a waiting trolley. You detach the massive hook and wheel your precious dinghy to a parking space where you lift it off the trolley which you return for the next user of the hoist. This hoist is big enough to lift small ships. So far there has been little swell to contend with but we are informed that this is not always so. We are told that when the swell is in, landing is an altogether different story.

The brother of one of Janet’s students is the Premier here. We have a date to meet him on Monday. And also to meet Christian, a policeman friend of Rhoda, our wonderful Samoan host. So we have some local contacts. We shall see what happens.

We plan to hire a car with Migration. There is quite a lot to do and explore ashore. And I plan to do a scuba dive some time. There are whales around although far fewer than in previous years.

This morning we attended an assembly of the local primary school who celebrate the week’s learnings each Friday. I was kindly told off for clapping at the end of a song of prayer. “We don’t clap after prayers.” To me it was a rousing gospel song for which it would be rude not to show appreciation - a clash of cultures.

Food and drink accompany just about all social exchanges as they do everywhere in the world. And everywhere Janet’s offerings are accepted with glee and frequently a request for the recipe. And so it was when we took an entree for dinner with Migration. She made fresh tuna sushi and seared tuna with a peanut sauce, all knocked up in minutes. Bruce and Alene’s eyes popped. Sushi!! Wow!! She is a marvel in the galley and with local ingredients. For her the first stop in a new place is the market to search out exotic fruits and vegetables as well as the staples we need.

Samoa blog Aug 17
Janet and David

Samoa has been an absolute blast. We came here for a couple of days to re-provision, not really expecting much of the place, and have been here for over two weeks. This country is fabulous. The people are really friendly, the weather is great, the shopping is awesome after Tonga, and it is such a luxury being on a marina. We have had such a rich experience here and ironically with blogs when you have time to write them there is not much to say and when there is lots happening there is not much time to write about it.
We upped anchor from Niuatoputapu and headed north. We had to motor some of the first day till a nice breeze came up. It was a pleasant trip, sighting Samoa on our second day. We sailed through the passage between the islands, Savaii and Upolu, then had a rather tiring night trying to get east to Apia and hove-to off the harbour entrance till dawn. We have seen hardly any ships at sea but at dawn off Apia Harbour a large one was heading straight for us. I took the tiller off autopilot and moved out of its way pretty smartly but they had seen us and headed away as well.
Our arrival was fantastic. We’d heard that the marina wasn’t very good; suffering from surge and officious port authorities, and Apia wasn’t much of a place to visit. Wrong on all counts. We were escorted into a lovely marina by a small port boat and who should we see but one of our neighbours from Chaffers Marina in Wellington. The only other boat from Wellington, Distracted, that was up in the Pacific. And another NZ boat Obsession, whom we’d met in Tonga and got to know on the radio. We had a welcoming committee! Distracted hosted drinks that night for us to all catch up and set the tone for the rest of our stay.

The next day we headed to town to check out the provisioning. It is a half hour walk around the waterfront, and passing the ubiquitous churches. We thought Tonga was littered with churches but Samoa really outdoes them. Every village has at least 5 churches and these are no glorified village halls. They are absolute monuments to God, huge stone edifices some of which would look right at home in medievil England. It finally dawned on me that here in the Pacific, Samoa in this case, it is not a question of whether you are religious or not but which religion you follow. Seemingly every last soul has religion.

In town we found large supermarkets, by no means the monstronsities like Pak N Save but much bigger than the corner store variety in Tonga. And the range!! For us it was delectable. Interestingly for a boat here it was rather limited; they clearly hadn’t been to Tonga! We have higher speed internet, not as fast as Wellington, but so much faster than Tonga. Don’t get me wrong about Tonga, The cruising has it hands down over Samoa and that is what we are here for.

In Wellington a Samoan woman David works with from time to time gave him a few contacts here, which he followed up so we had some of them around for a drink, Alberta, Alfred and Rhoda. Alfred and Rhoda adopted us and they became our guides to Samoa. Their hospitality was superb. They gave us a meal of traditional Samoan food, and drove us around both islands.

On our first Sunday here we got up at 4.30 and went into town to the local fish market. It opens early so everyone can get their fish for their post-church Sunday lunch. It was a glorious site. You couldn’t have art-directed it better. There are long marble benches where everyone had laid out their wares. The fish were all in lines, lines of blue parrot fish, red mullet, and large crabs with their legs still waving in the air. There were rows of huge fish heads and enormous whole tuna and Wahoo. Squid were laid out with their tentacles spread out and it was all cheap. It was expensive in Tonga and earlier when we were in the Cook Islands. We bought a piece of Wahoo which we had as fish stew last night.
Then we headed for church to hear the singing. We decided to check out Alfred’s church. This was not the beautiful island singing we had experienced at Niuatoputapu but a full on revivalist praise the lord oration of two and a half hours!
Then off to Rhoda’s for the Samoan lunch. We had mackerel cooked in coconut cream; delicious luau which is coconut cream wrapped in taro leaf and baked, a sausage noodle stir fry, breadfruit, green bananas baked in coconut cream, corned beef (not tinned) and more.
After lunch we went to Alfred’s parents place to do our internet banking. We only like to check it on secure sites, not on the wireless. We met his parents and sister and were made to feel very welcome.
Then came the first part of the island tour. We headed east. Out of Apia, Samoa is a series of villages. Most homes are open fales, a large open structure with concrete or wooden floor and a tin or thatched roof held up by a series of poles and usually brightly painted – no doors or windows so all living is done in full view although some have curtains. There are also plenty of ‘Palangi’ houses and many combinations of open fale with a corner or more enclosed with doors and windows. But the open structures are so sensible for the heat here.
We checked out a resort that had been completely rebuilt having been destroyed by the tsunami. I’m not a big fan of resorts but this one was beautiful. If I win lotto this would be my first port of call. We bought a bottle of wine and sat in a beautifully appointed bar out over the sea.
On the journey home in the early evening we noticed pairs of young men in white shirts who, we were informed were curfew police. Between 5 and 6 all residents must be in their fales spending time in prayer and with family who will be fined if one of their members is found out of doors during curfew time. There is another curfew at 10pm. It seems this society is quite strongly regulated in ways unfamiliar to us. We were required to have a letter signed by the CEO of the Ports Authority to be allowed local visitors to our boat. Names of all visitors and dates of their visits had to be specified. We needed a permit, to cruise these islands. This was free but took two meetings to secure.
The next day we toured the other half of the island seeing more brightly coloured fales and beautiful coastline. We went to the Pilau pools, freshwater pools on the coast that go into caves. We dived through a pass that took us from one cave to another.
We headed inland and saw the lush bush of the interior. When we reached the eastern end we started to see the remnants of the ravages of the tsunami last September. Whole villages have been reshaped. Where once dense housing had stood, new houses were sparsely scattered. Many people have relocated inland. Not an attractive proposition given the heat and bugs, and the fact that many people had family buried on their properties.
On the eastern end we saw a long wharf being rebuilt. This is the place where ferries ran between Western and American Samoa. A new wharf at a cost of nine million dollars had just been built, and the tsunami just ate it up and spat it out.
All along the Southern side of the island we saw evidence of rebuilding, spaces where houses had been and some remaining debris. Over 100 people lost their lives.
Here we started to experience the irritating but understandable practice of everybody charging for everything. You cannot go to a beach, check out a waterfall or even take a photo in some places without someone wanting money. All land is privately owned which includes the foreshore. We just wanted to stop and eat our picnic on the beach but had to pay in the end - minor flaw.
During the following week we continued to provision and get boat stuff and party on the boats. I am not after any sympathy but all quite exhausting in the heat. (and it turned out I had a cold which explained some of the exhaustion – a result of overdoing the partying I think)
We visited the Samoan home of Robert Louis Stevenson, a beautiful historic mansion up on the hill. He was in Samoa just 4 years and yet occupies a position of considerable honour. I suspect it’s just another case of making the most of an association with a famous person.
Last weekend Rhoda and Alfred took us around the other island of Samoa, Savaii which, by the way, is said to be the island from which voyages to Tahiti, Rarotonga, Tonga, Hawaii and many others originated and gave Hawaii it’s name. We headed off on the local ferry, worryingly reminiscent of the Lady Ashika (Tongan ferry that went down). I was tempted to try and count the life jackets and David noted that there was no way all the passengers were going to fit in the couple of life boats present.
Savaii is mountainous and has a road around the perimeter lined with brightly coloured fales. We visited waterfalls, swam in fresh water and generally saw the sites. We were hoping to stay in a fale on the beach but ended up in a kind of resort, just as well as it poured with rain. Beautiful beach and some of the food was quite good.
One of the highlights was visiting a pool full of huge turtles that we swam with. Later that day we saw a place called the Lava Fields, a huge area covered in lava form an eruption in 1905. And right in amongst this area of black rock many have rebuilt their homes. This rock holds a tremendous amount of heat, guessing 5-10 degrees more than the ordinary land. Maybe they built there because it was their family land and all they had although most of the villages relocated to an area on Upolu.
We had planned to hire a car or motor bike to do this site seeing but having Alfred and Rhoda was far more fun and informative. They explained many local customs, pointed out features we might easily have missed, told us some of the folklore involving giants and dwarfs and Sina and the Eel and a great deal more. Alfred is an engineer employed by the Land Transport Authority so he was able to describe the tsunami damage to this infrastructure and work required. Rhoda works in the Disaster Management Office and was closely involved with Samoa’s tsunami response. She is currently trying to get 2 containers of tsunami aid released from Customs that have been tied up in incomprehensible bureaucratic red tape since late last year for one container and May this year for the other. The paperwork for one said it was clothing but was in fact all heavy industrial electrical cable. There is a dispute over who should be liable for the wharf fees which have grown to $27,000 and Customs is trying to charge duty on the contents. Rhoda has explained this to us several times but I still don’t follow the saga.

We took Rhoda and Alfred out on the harbour along with Alfred’s 2 sisters and his parents. It was a treat for them to be out on an ocean going yacht and to see their city from the water. They were astounded that anyone would willingly go to sea in something so small. We were reminded that living aboard is quite a specialised life style and not everybody’s cup of tea. Back in or berth we made some music.

It’s been a very social time here with meals and drinks on other yachts most evenings and loads of music courtesy David who teamed up for a time with a harp and ukele player. One boat here with two gorgeous preschoolers aboard brought a guitar and sax, each parent intending to learn in their spare time. But with 2 children they have yet to find that spare time. However, Scott heard David play in Niuatoputapu which inspired him to dig out his guitar and David taught him a 12 bar blues in exchange for advice on a water cooling dilemma. David says that if he had to pick a single highlight of this adventure it would be the music – playing with others and being listened to with such appreciation. It’s done heaps for his confidence as a musician. Among our first questions now, when we meet another yacht is “are there musical instruments aboard?”
Our neighbours are Swiss, German, Canadian, Australian, American, from Vanuatu and NZ of course.
So now we are getting ready to go to Niue if the wind is right. Janet is putting the final touches to a Niuean courtesy flag. Quite fiddly to make as it has a Union Jack in the corner like the NZ flag.
Xx
Janet and David

Today’s blog is in the form of a letter to a friend who has sailed to Niuatoputapu before so I’ve added a few details in brackets.
(Hi Meg, I’m writing this for the blog too but I have you in mind as my principle audience, so there are a few details in there that you know already)

Hi Meg,
So good to get your news from home, even if it is absolutely freezing there. We’ve been out of phone and internet contact for nearly two weeks while on passage and in Niuatoputapu. We are now in Samoa and it is really hot – 30 degrees. However the locals don’t think so, we had three Apia residents over last night and they said they were using duvets at night – we don’t even use a sheet!

But let me go back a bit. We had a good sail from Vavau (160 nautical miles) to Niuatoputapu, sailing overnight and arriving early the next day. We had lots of wind so rocketed along at 6 & 7 knots, despite the 2-3 metre swell and moderate sea. At last I seem to be suffering less from sea-sickness; it makes the passages so much more fun. I like the shorter passages too.

You are right, the entrance to Niuatoputapu wasn’t so bad (the entrance is surrounded by coral reefs just below the surface). We were greeted by the first dolphins we have seen on our trip, then we had to get the sail down, and suddenly we going through the markers. The markers were relatively good (for Tonga) a few bent over from the tsunami, and the leading marks were still there and worked. It was glorious to come in from the rough sea to the calm lagoon. And yes C-map worked up there. (Our electronic chart which doesn’t read correctly for the rest of Tonga as their charts don’t correspond with GPS).



The shapely profile of Niuatoputapu as we appraoached from the east.


There was one other boat there who we quickly befriended in true cruiser style. We spent the rest of the day recovering; even one overnight sail (with night watches) is exhausting. The next day we went in to the village, despite not being cleared in. As you go north in Tonga the whole customs thing gets easier and easier. We checked in and out on the same day but didn’t leave immediately.
In the village we met Niko and Sia, two fabulous locals who were to be our hosts for the next 11 days. Because of them we had the best experience of our whole Tonga stay.

Our first exercise was to climb the mountain in the centre of the island to see the view – whose idea was that! It was 30 degrees, straight up and plagued with mosquitoes – but the view was excellent.
(Niuatoputapu is Tonga’s northernmost and remotest island. It has a population of about 800, no power except for a few private generators, and gets a supply ship once a month. About 100 yachts visit in the six month cruising season – which is very few when you compare it to the several thousand yachts that visit Great Barrier Island in January alone. Much of the island was hit by a tsunami in September last year))
We could see where the tsunami had hit. Parts of this island were devastated and 11 people killed. These people didn’t have much in the first place but now many are still living in tents waiting for the government to direct aid to housing (as opposed to the nice new roads they built – hardly anyone has a car – go figure!).

David’s first contact on the island was to watch the Tri Nations game in the middle of the night. A week later I joined in for an All Blacks/ Wallabies game. It was the best place I’ve ever watched the rugby. The venue was a thatched hut, the village hall having been gutted in the tsunami. There must have been 50 people in there all sitting on the floor. At the end of the hut was a TV hooked up to a generator. The TV and generator belonged to a local family as the village one- yes - was washed away by the tsunami.

At the front of the hut was large group of small boys, like a sea of puppies, and at the back a group of older men sitting round a large wooded kava bowl. They were a great audience. They cheered every tackle and half the audience was pro NZ and half for the Aussies.

The next day, Sunday, we went to the local Catholic Church to experience the singing; it was spectacular, natural four part harmony, no songbooks and no choir director. We got welcomed by name and the priest even gave us a synopsis of his sermon in English and contextualised it to sailing.

Then the first of our wonderful meals at Niko and Sia's. We ate at their place every second night for over a week and they never wanted payment (except for the pig – more on that later) so some wonderful trading happened. Because they get so few supplies on the island it was easy to give food them and stuff that they couldn’t get. Also most boats are well set up with tools so between us we managed to fix a few things for them while we were there.

This was a typical Sunday feast. I went early to watch the preparation of food before it went into the umu (sort of hangi style). I sat in this sort of outdoor kitchen. Niko and Sia’s house and shop were destroyed in the tsunami but they managed to find the shop roof and Niko found enough debris to build their three roomed shack. So outside this was a tap on a post with a communal toothbrush attached to it. It free drained into the sand. There was a platform to sit in and a table to keep the dishes on. There were two fire pits, one set up to boil things on and the other to act as an earth oven. The ground was littered with coconut shells and puppies.

I watched Sia make what turned out be delicious parcels of baked food. First she laid out banana leaves, and then put taro leaves on top of these. We picked and cut up pele, a green spinach like leaf, put this in a mound and added fresh fish, and in other parcels tinned mackerel, and corned beef. This was finished off with coconut cream, wrapped in a parcel and put into the umu. Niko sat on his coconut grater and quickly made the litres of coconut cream. Pawpaw was peeled, cut up and boiled in coconut cream.

Everyone was involved including their 3 sons. The kids scaled fish, peeled breadfruit with a mackerel can, prepared manioke (cassava) and chewed on sugar cane. Finally it all went in the oven and cooked for a couple of ours. We ate sitting on the floor of one of their rooms which they had cleared. The food was excellent, moist and flavoursome. And so simple. Apart from the tinned mackerel and corned beef, everything else they had grown or caught. My lowest food miles yet!

The next day we walked into the main village to check in and clear out customs. We visited a beautiful spring and had a bath. It was so glorious to be in fresh water. At that stage we’d been short of water and were salty all the time. Now we have the water maker going and had a couple of down pours that filled the tanks to overflowing, we are much cleaner and fresher.
A couple more boats arrived and we formed a tight knit community for about 10 days. Two American boats, a Canadian one and us.


Our next culinary event was a pot luck dinner at Niko’s. I baked brownie which went down really well as they don’t have an oven (or stove). David brought his guitar in and we had a great night singing. David has set out to play in public more and is doing it really well. Niko and Sia enjoyed this as they had lost their guitar in the tsunami.


A couple of days later we had a kava session. I’d heard it was awful stuff, and while it definitely looks like dirty dish water and tastes a bit odd, it has a very pleasant effect. We sat round a bucket and passed the kava around in half a coconut shell. It made me feel very mellow and relaxed. This was lovely combined with being with friends, warmth, being a in a tropical environment and the sunset. Niko and some of his friends and family sang some beautiful Tongan songs in four part harmony.



Next we all chipped in and bought a pig to roast on a spit. Another wonderful night eating and singing.


Mary, a classical violinist, fiddle, harmonica and mandolin player turned up and we had a final concert and potluck. David’s playing and singing was a huge hit. He has quite a repertoire now. He even wrote a song about Niko and Sia and the kids which they loved.










Song for Sia and Niko – to the tune of “The Crawdad Song”

You get a line I’ll get a pole Niko
You get a line I’ll get a pole man
You get a line I’ll get a pole, we’ll go fishing off Falehau
Niuatoputapu people fine.

Wake up now you slept too late kids
Wake up now you slept too late boys
Wake up now you slept too late
School bus has passed your gate
Niuatoputapu boys fine

What’ll become of these fine boys Niko
What’ll become of these three boys Sia
What’ll become of these fine boys
They’ll be grown men with degrees
Niuatoputapu men fine

What you gonna do with all these cruisers Sia
What you gonna do with all these cruisers now
What you gonna do with all these cruisers, feed ‘em up, be Tongan bruisers
Niuatoputapu people fine

Niko took David and some of the other yachties out fishing to show them how it was done. Alas David didn’t catch anything. Fortunately the others did so we had marinated and fried fish that night.







We were sad to leave but the wind was finally in the right direction, and had abated, so we took the opportunity and left. In fact after blowing for a week the wind dropped to nothing and we had to motor most of the first day. But I’ll keep that for the Samoa blog.






The end of another perfect day on Niuatoputapu


This experience of cruising really is extraordinary and wonderful. It has become our reality, it is normal for us to live on our boat floating from one beautiful place to the next. Sure it has its challenges like bad weather at sea, night watches and tiredness, hot nights, sand-flies and boat repairs but on the grand scale of things it really is living life to the full.
Now we are here doing this, it looks so achievable to go on doing it. We meet people every day who have been afloat for four or five years. So maybe we’ll do more in the future. Who knows. Check this space again after our return passage to NZ.

Tsunami stories.
The further north we go the more we see and hear of last year’s tsunami south of Samoa. We have met 3 yachts who survived the epicentre – 2 in Pago Pago, American Samoa, and one here at Niuatoputapu, a tiny Tongan island half way between Vava’u and Samoa. We met Kirk, skipper of Gallivanter, in Neiafu through a diesel container he was selling. Kirk is a larger than life American – talkative, full of stories and loquacious joviality. Wayne, from Victoria, BC and solo skipper of Learnativity ( to my relief he wasn’t pressing Christmas bibles on all comers) we met with Ruby, his adorable miniature black poodle, on our arrival in Niuatoputapu. More measured and serious than Kirk, he was pleased to tell us his extraordinary tsunami experience. Gallivanter and Learnativity were moored to the large concrete wharf at Pago Pago and, for both owners, their first inkling that things were not quite right came when the 10 metres of water under their vessels disappeared in seconds, their keels hitting the seabed and rolling on their sides among the flapping tuna and detritus in the mud. Wayne, clinging to the stays on the high side and hearing Ruby’s claws as she skidded down the deck, let go and managed to grab her by the scruff of the neck as she was passing through the life lines. In an astonishing feat of quick thinking and athleticism, he threw Ruby 15 feet straight up where an 8 year old boy, gazing in awe at the boats on their sides way down there in the mud, actually caught her. Then the water came back in – not in a violent, turbulent rush but rising calmly and very rapidly. The boy with Ruby and his family watched as the water rose and, as it became apparent that it was not going to stop at its usual place a couple of metres below the wharf, they all climbed onto a large planter with small shrubs and a tall lighting pole. The water kept rising. Learnativity and Gallivanter had both been lifted off the seabed. Gallivanter was carried clear over the enormous wharf but Learnativity’s keel became jammed under it and the steel yacht looked for all the world like she would soon be crushed by the immense pressure building around her. Instead, however, she was squeezed like an orange pip and was shot out from under the wharf where she sat upright. Wayne somehow got to the cockpit, started the engine and threaded his way to deeper water through a nightmare of trees, bits of buildings, huge drifting tuna trawlers, sinking wrecks and dead bodies. On Gallivanter Kirk watched as he and his boat were carried over the wharf and, to his horror, directly toward the family now clinging near the top of the pole and swept horizontal by the surge with Ruby wrapped around the boy’s neck and reportedly quite calm. Kirk was helpless as Gallivanter charged the pole and family and Ruby when the surge reached its peak and began receding carrying Gallivanter, engine already started, back over the wharf and Kirk too dodged part submerged cars and wreckage of all kinds. Both yachts survived, damaged but floating, and the family up the pole with Ruby did too. The skipper of the vessel next to Gallivanter was swept to his death as he tried to untie his mooring lines. Both Kirk and Wayne had cut theirs. About 50 others died that day in Pago Pago. For more Google: Learnativity.Typepad.com
In Nuiatoputapu Agnes and Bertil aboard Panacea felt the earthquake even through the water but thought nothing of it until they heard the tsunami warning on the radio. Bertil looked to the reef entrance to see the fringing palm trees peeling off the shore. He had time only to start his engine and turn the boat into the advancing surge. Panacea bounced wildly but the water passed harmlessly under. Ashore all was very different. A year later the devastation is evident everywhere. They lost 9 of their 800 people, several hundred lost their homes and all belongings, crops everywhere were destroyed, many boats were swept away or sunk and all communication with the outside world was severed for weeks. Many buildings are still empty shells with doors and windows gaping. Felled palm trees litter the foreshore. Everywhere people live in campsites with tents, now sagging, faded and often torn, for shelter. The government effort has focussed on repairing the roads and until yesterday the supply of tents has been their only response to the housing need. Yesterday half a dozen building platforms were erected and materials for the one roomed homes to be built on top are said to be arriving next week. There are only one or two functioning boats in this village. Several wrecks are pulled up on the shore, one being repaired. Outrigger dugout canoes are in common use and a new one is being built near where we land. So scope for fishing is limited to within the lagoon. The only VHF transmitter is owned by Niko who managed to recover it from his wrecked fishing boat. None of the port authorities or other government agencies can communicate with the shipping in the area.
Panacea’s satellite phone became the only link with family and officials in the rest of Tonga and the world. Her well equipped first aid kit provided the best medical help on the island. Bertil and Agnes found themselves at the hub of the island’s emergency response effort. These two gentle, big-hearted sailors worked tirelessly for many days on behalf of this stricken community and are remembered with great affection. We heard their account while waiting on the weather in Whangarei. They too were heading for Tonga and Niuatoputapu in particular to meet old friends, see the state of the recovery and to deliver all the much needed supplies their small yacht could carry from NZ. Among these were several copies of a beautifully presented photo album of before and after images from their camera – a valuable treasure and important record.
Listening to these stories of events of more than a year ago we couldn’t help but be impressed by the immense impact on all the sailors. We were eager to hear their stories but they needed to tell them. Wayne frequently interrupted his account with phrases like “even now it seems so surreal. Nothing made sense. I could no longer tell which was up (I’m sure he meant this figuratively and literally). Things that just should not happen were happening like a wild dream and as bizarre.”