At bloody last, we're here. Yes, we can certainly manage a two-person watch schedule, but I don't like it. I saw Conni only as we switched watches and before heading below to grab all of the sleep that we could on our time off. For the most part, we had no more than four hours of sleep at a time. While it added to a lot, it's not the continuous sleep to which we are accustomed.

We had a not-uneventful trip. The harbor at Rarotonga was getting rough and we decided that if we weren't going to sleep well anyway, we might as well make some miles, so we started a bit earlier than we had planned. The first night, we had some big wind and had to hurriedly reef some sails, something that we had not had to do in a while, we weren't very handy. It was Conni's watch and I was called from sleep to hurry on deck to help.

We had a lot of cloudy weather, a bit of rain, and a bit sun toward the end, but interesting weather throughout. About 70 miles out, the wind just stopped and we were forced to crank the old engine and motor the next 15 hours to the island. Jeez, I hate motoring, but I also hate sitting and bobbing, too.

We arrived at sun rise and motored straight to the mooring field. The Niue Yacht Club has dropped 4.5 ton concrete blocks on the bottom and one attaches to the ropes that are floating on the surface.

Most of the island in the Pacific are volcanic and Niue is, in a way. At some point in the far past, the Niue volcano rose from the deep ocean, the typical coral reef was formed, and the system lived through its cycle, and the mountain subsided and eroded below the surface. Much later, the reef atoll was pushed above the surface intact and the island of Niue was formed. It has no surround coral reef and is steep sided with no surrounding coral reef or beach landing. How those original Polynesians landed is beyond me.

The island is all coral and not volcanic. There are no rivers or streams so when it rains, the water enters the coral and percolates through to the ocean where a large reservoir sits on top of the denser salt water. The islanders have a lot off good fresh water at their disposal, and what water enters the ocean is very clean. Niue's surrounding water is some of the cleanest and clearest in the Pacific. When I grabbed the mooring ball, the bottom was 40-feet down, and I could clearly see the mooring weight and rope. Wow!

There is no beach, as I mentioned, so when we dinghy to the one and only concrete pier, we scramble to the concrete steps and use a big electric crane to bring our dinghy onto the dock. Never did that before.

As we approached Niue, we once again were able to smell the warm earth/greenhouse smell that characterizes all islands around here. A bit closer and the perfume of the flowers survives the wind's battering and we can smell the moist greenhouse with a top end of frangipani over it. Lovely.

Now at the mooring field, we began to hear the cocks crowing: we're in an island community again. A kid in a big-wheeled truck with booming rap music just drove by, too, so once again, American culture has conquered a foreign land. Crazy!

I'll have internet while we're here, so more later.