What a great day we had! It was a cruiser's day, since we spend the entire time visiting and traveling with other cruisers, one couple from Oslo, Norway, the other from Australia.

Yesterday, we ran into the couple from Andande, a 53-ft Jeanneau from Oslo, at the Niue Yacht Club. Hans and Liv (pronounced like "leave") are genuinely nice people. He was an electrical engineer who fell in love with the computers that he constantly worked with and started his own Norwegian computer company, and Liv was an IT person. He invited her along and she agreed and became as much an explorer and sailor as is he. They bought their boat in Norway as it was being built so were able to have it customized for their use. They'll sail it to Fiji, then on to Phuket in Thailand where they've arranged to have it put on a freighter and delivered to Turkey where they'll rejoin it and continue on home. What a trip!

They had told us that they were going to rent a car and invited us on a drive around the island. We accepted and we had a GREAT time! We stopped wherever we wished and visited things that we would never had gotten to do. The entire trip was only 60 km, so it was a short drive other than the stopping and exploring. The north end is almost 210 feet hight and the south end is the inhabited end. There are about 1200 people on the island, with 24,000 Niueans in New Zealand. Amazing. There are 14 communities, some completely deserted by locals moving to NZ for great opportunity and education. A few do return home and work for the government.

They had enjoyed a great sushi meal at the (get this) New York Style Pizza and Sushi restaurant, run by an Israeli ex-patriot. Ari is an interesting man. He made his money in Los Angeles with the original pagers, he said, sold out and found Niue as a place to live and not work. Various short stories ensued and he ended up with a long liner fishing boat. He supplied the locals with fish and he finally started the restaurant. He hired a Japanese sushi chef and started the business. No locals remember how to fish so he has to import Malaysian fishers. The new world order, it seems, has reached Niue. The meal was expensive but the best sushi that I've ever eaten. The tuna was from his boats that morning and fresh. I've got photos on the site.

The island's land is completely owned and deceased family members are buried on the land in private plots. They appear everywhere with no central cemetery. The Mormons, the Jehovah's Witnesses, and a few other sects have trained the poor locals to wear clothing and be shy, but the islanders are extremely kind and welcoming, and the missionaries couldn't eliminate that, thankfully. Leave it to the missionaries to introduce original sin where none existed. Sigh.

After lunch, we got to talk to the French guys on Iskander, both very nice and very French. One has a DeGaule nose.

In the yacht club, we ran across Peter from LBO, whom we had met in Rarotonga. He and his lovely wife, Veronica, own the large and beautiful catamaran LBO (named, I believe I've mentioned, by the previous French owner Leveraged Buy Out or LBO). Tacky, I think. At any rate, these two Australians are the soul of kindness and invited us, along with a few other cruisers in the mooring field, to a cocktail party. We took showers and motored out to LBO where we enjoyed meeting and talking to our Norwegian friend, a couple of guy from a new catamaran just arrived, us. Conversations flew around and encompassed everything from boat issues to climate change. How incredibly interesting they all are. With any luck, we'll meet up in Vava'u, Tonga in a few days.

All of the others will leave tomorrow and we'll leave on Thursday, day after tomorrow. We've checked the weather and find that we'll have decent weather for the trip and should be there in 2-1/2 days, much faster than the 6 days here. Sheesh, that was difficult.

We're making water just now, since we were out, and then we'll hit the hay. Tomorrow, we'll be all alone but must do all of our prep work for an early morning departure on Thursday: stowing gear, deflating and stowing the dinghy and motor, performing engine checks and all of the other tasks before a crossing.

Niue is on the cusp of development but they're hesitant to become another Bora Bora. That won't happen since they have no beaches, but unrestricted development would still be very bad for the island and they're cognizant of the issue. We were very impressed with the care with which they are planning the next stage of development but they are also aware that they need some cash income and all the ventures have failed. They're under the financial gun to get some outside source of cash in the works. I wish them well and we'll try to keep in touch with a few people whom we've met here. Ari, the owner/manager of the sushi restaurant, is the president of the Chamber of Commerce and a good source for information.

I thought that I'd mention how one gets to Niue's land via dinghy. There are NO beaches and the dock is a big concrete affair much above the water. Once motors to the steps and unloads items. There is a LARGE hook attached to a cable system and then to a huge crane. One has fabricated a lift system on one's dinghy and at a control center on the crane, the "UP" button is pushed and the dinghy is raised from the water to the dock where it's manhandled onto a small cart and hauled to a parking space. Boats then stroll into town. We've read about it but never seen anything like it. We've posted photos.

On the way to the dock this afternoon, we saw a small powered fishing craft struggle with its outboard. They were locals and the wind was inexorably moving them out to sea. All they had were some old oars, so we felt obliged to help. We took them in tow, with Conni holding on to the tow line as I steered toward the dock. Finally arriving, they received a huge ration of grief by the other fishermen, first for needing to be towed, second by being towed by yachties, and third because a small white woman actually held the tow line. They were contrite but grateful and we were very glad to have been able to offer them some help.

We're now sitting at the yacht club, having achieved our check our for tomorrow. We'll do our web work and return to the boat to stow all of our gear and try to leave early tomorrow. I'm not sure that we will send updates this time, but we'll be fine. When we arrive in Vava'u, Tonga, it will be Sunday (great planning B and C) and will be forced to stay aboard until Monday morning. What dummies.