We sailed from Aitutaki with sometimes too lively wind and waves from the back, anchored for almost a day at Beveridge Reef, and resumed our passage with a pleasant sail to Niue on our spinnaker. The forecasted weather forced us to cut short our visit to Niue to only 1 day before continuing onwards to Vava'u in the Kingdom of Tonga.


Departing Aitutaki 9-Sep Saturday 11:00

We left Aitutaki with a forecasted wind that looked quite manageable, of up to 25kts from the back, gusting to 35kts. Here is the forecast I received from MetBob on 8-Sep for a departure on Friday the 9th.


Our self-generated forecast (using PredictWind) was not much different.

As we left the Aitutaki harbour we passed by another boat that had recently arrived, and a woman on that boat shouted to us that we had "rough weather" ahead. I remember not liking what was obviously a warning, but finding our forecast to be reasonable, went ahead anyway. A few weeks later while in Tonga, I met that woman, and it turned out to have been none other than Jeanne Socrates, the oldest multiple solo world circumnavigator in the world. I had actually met her before in the Marquesas, but did not recognize her in passing. Unfortunately, I forgot to ask her what she had based her warning on. As it was, I think she had it right when she warned us.

The passage started out well, with a fresh south-south-easterly wind once we were out of the shade of Aitutaki.

After we were underway for 8 hours, I got this updated forecast from MetBob. Forecast winds were stronger than in the previous forecast by about 5 knots.


As we progressed the actual winds became stronger, and the waves, from the left quarter (back) became progressively higher. At the same time, we gradually reduced sail until we had only a small piece of the headsail deployed.

The most memorable thing of that passage is that Ruth was much more sea sick than usual, lying almost all the time in the bunk below, and only came up once in a while to throw up over the side. This went on for about 2.5 days. The misery was very much hers, but also not easy to watch for the rest of us.

At some point the waves became so high and were breaking, with some waves splashing into the cockpit area, and I started to feel uneasy not knowing if it would get still worse, and had the following message exchange with MetBob, Obviously, I wasn't feeling very comfortable. Note that the dates/times of at least some of the messages probably reflect the time zone in which they were printed from the screen (GMT+3), while the action took place in GMT-10.


At some point MetBob reacted, and I counter reacted:


By then we were already in more benign weather.

We were all tired from the episode, and I decided to change course slightly more southwards, and pay a visit to Beveridge Reef, on which I had had an eye anyway, and have some rest there.
The actual track of our passage:



Bird on boat and Beveridge Reef Arrival 12-Sep Tuesday

On the way there we received a guest for a few hours. After a bit of research, I find it fits the description of the "short tailed shearwater" which is supposed to migrate from N-America to New Zealand and Australia in October (this was September, so it was an "early bird"). Probably similar to us, it was in need of a rest from some rougher weather... For more info about this sturdy bird see here.




Approaching Beveridge Reef was a bit scary. I had read that the maps have it located in the wrong location (off by a few miles!), and even at low tide it sticks out of the water very little. Also, it doesn't appear on Google Earth, nor in my tracking program at all!

The Beveridge Reef is an old extinguished isolated steep volcanic mountain on the 5000 meter deep bottom of the sea, which has slowly sunk back into the sea, at a rate that allowed the coral growth on top of that mountain to keep up with the sinking rate, and just keep the top of it at the water surface. It is known for having caused the loss of quite a few vessels that did not notice it in time. It falls under the jurisdiction of Niue.
So, as soon as I knew we must be near, we kept a careful lookout.
And yes, at some point we did notice it.
In this picture we were already right next (north) to it, going around it (the passage into the lagoon is on the west side) and still it is hardly visible, only when enlarging it. It stretches over all the picture, from the left of Gauthier:


Here is a satellite picture of the reef (taken from smithtribesailing.blogspot.com):


It was a strange sight, and we were all curious about it:


I believe this was taken while we rounded the north-west corner:


After we passed through the entrance to the lagoon (in the centre the lagoon is deeper (7-12 meters) and darker blue).


We then passed the whole width of the "atoll" lagoon back to close to the east edge, where we would have the best protection from the south east winds, or more exactly - from the waves, and there we dropped anchor at around 17:30 on September 12, a bit more than 3 days after leaving Aitutaki. I'm sure we dived to check if the anchor was well dug in, but no pictures of that.

We were the only boat in the whole reef. Even though the reef provides protection from the waves, it is not s complete protection, as the waves can come over the reef during high tide, but I don't think we were disturbed by that.


Beveridge Reef Departure 13-Sep Wednesday 12:00

The next morning, we did some swimming/snorkeling near the boat, but there wasn't much to see there, and no one was eager to swim to the reef itself, where one would probably be able to see more objects of interest. As soon as we arrived, Ruth felt well again, and took a swim as well.




Around noon, we got ready to leave and continue to Niue. Then I got the idea that the most exciting place to snorkel would probably be the entrance/exit to the reef, and that floating with the boat, while it would pass through the entrance/exit, would probably be an interesting experience. I proposed to the crew and both Mats and Gauthier were immediately enthusiastic. So we prepared two lines connected to the boat that they would hold, while I would steer the boat through the entrance. Because there is a lot of water coming in over the reef from the east side, there is always an outward going current through the entrance on the west side.
Here are some screen shots I took from the navigation app on my phone during the whole exercise. While Mats & Gauthier were in the water, I put the engines in neutral, but the engines were on, just in case.


Here is a video of Mats & Gauthier floating through the passage:


Back on board they described it as a fantastic experience. Passing over deep canyons and seeing lots of fish.
And then we went on our way to Niue.
By now the weather had calmed down completely, and we had a very comfortable sail using our Parasailor sail.


Here is the track of this passage


This time, for one of the first times, Ruth had taken seasickness prevention medications (Sea-calm) prior to our departure, and it changed everything for her. No sea sickness at all. Suddenly she was active and well mooded during the passage!



Niue Arrival 14-Sep Thursday

The next day, a bit after noon, we had Niue in sight.


Seen through a tele lens, it looked more interesting:


And when getting closer, even more so:



About Niue

Niue is a "raised atoll", which is an island that started as a volcano with a coral reef around it, then sunk away, leaving only the reef, becoming an "atoll", which was then lifted up by tectonic forces. The result is a flat island, with no mountains and rivers and a high rocky coast. Mauke, which we had passed by arriving to the Cook islands was another example of such.

Niue is about 4 times the size of Rarotonga, a self governing state ("ïn free association with New Zealand"), with currently only 1600 inhabitants. Consisting of the island of Niue, but also including Beveridge Reef in its economic zone. All Niueans have New Zealand citizenship, and New Zealand is where 90% of Niueans actually live.

Niue is sparsely connected to the outside world - it has two weekly Boeing 777/787 flights to Auckland (mostly serving tourists), and a cargo ship serves it once every 4 weeks

There are 14 villages in Niue, lying on the coast around the island (map taken from Niue tourist office):


The capital is Alofi, lying on the west coast, which was where we were headed. See track below:



Niue yacht facilities

The Niue Yachting Club (NYC) (see here for more information) has installed 14 moorings (a piece of concrete with a buoy attached to it) just outside of the port of Alofi. We had reserved one such mooring before we left Aitutaki:


See our arrival track below:


The port consists of a pier, the surface of which is about 4 meters above the water, with a small landing area just above water level, with a staircase leading to the top, and a crane next to it, with its hook hanging a meter above the water. There is no room for a yacht to tie to. One has to arrive with a dinghy, connect the dingy to the hook of the crane, go up the stairs, lift up the dinghy with the crane, and swing it with the crane to lay it down in a free spot next to the crane.

Amongst yachties, Niue is pretty (in)famous for this arrangement, and I have heard of people who bypassed Niue to avoid having to deal with it.
I found it manageable, if not completely relaxed, once I had understood that one needs to install appropriate lifting lines attached to the lifting points of the dingy (taking into account the effect of the heavy outboard motor on the centre of gravity) before one leaves the boat. It needs to be set up such that you can quickly attach the lifting lines to the hook of the crane, as there can be some other customers waiting to use the crane. See also the video below:


We went through the entry formalities in the Niue government building (taken from svtoucan.com with appreciation):


It is not in many countries that you can see the parking spot of the prime minister, and walk past the offices of him and his 3 cabinet members...

Afterwards, we walked about a bit in the area, ate a pizza in a restaurant, and made some pictures of our boat lying off the Niue reef:





Niue day trip & departure 15-Sep Friday

The next morning, I studied the weather forecasts for what would be a good weather window to continue to Vava'u in Tonga. I had intended to spend around three days in Niue, but that was not supported by the weather forecast. A reasonable weather window was available, if we would leave by the end of today, or stay for a period of more than a week. On basis of this I took the decision to leave at the end of today, towards midnight. Later on, this was confirmed by MetBob, The earliest next window he saw was 9 days later.

So that left us with one single day (today) of getting to know Niue. Ridiculously short of course, but we were going to try to make the best of it.

The port area was quite busy when we went to shore:


We went first all together to the government building to check out.

Then Ruth and I went to rent a car for this one day, with the agreement that we would fill it up in the single petrol station on the island (!), during opening time (!), and would leave the car open (!) next to the rental agency in the evening.

Then back to the tourist office, next to the port, to pick up a road map, and choose what we would be doing in this single day of our stay.

They were advertising a large number of possibilities:







There was also this exhibit on the Uga (Niue Coconut Crab), supposed to be a delicacy, but we did not have the chance to confirm that.


There was also a modest exhibition of some of the shells one could find on the island


For lunch we had an appointment with our compatriot Avi, whom we had heard of and contacted on arrival, who (so I understood) had married a Niue local woman some 25 years ago, remained on the island since then, and had built a small empire of restaurants (including the one we were sitting in, called The Crazy Uga) and guest houses on the island, while also being active in all kind of other commercial ventures on the island.


From The Crazy Uga we again had a good view on our boat:


Then we set out for a drive around the island.

Our first stop was at the Limu Pools Sea Track (13:00).

In Niue, all the walking tracks to the sea are called "sea tracks". I think there are some 25 registered and published sea tracks, and the Limu Pools is one of the more popular ones:
Here some pictures of this charming creation of nature:





Then we moved on to the Matapa Sea track (14:00)



We then travelled on for quite a while before arriving at Matalau on the north of the island, where we walked along the coast a bit, and got to a place where we found canoes belonging to locals, stored in caves, with no one there. This is a picture of the coast in that spot (17:00).


There we noticed a whale passing by, leisurely, and once every few minutes it would jump out of the water. Seemingly just for his pleasure. A wonderful sight. Here is some of the action, although we did not manage to film the best parts:


Further south, on the east coast we came upon a sign saying "Hikulagi Sculpture Park" (17:30).
It turned out to be art work made from junk yard items. Original and fun, not really beautiful, but definitely prettier than a junkyard. For more info about this park press here.




When we had almost completed our full round of the island we got to a place with nice views across a bay - the "Ana'ana Lookout" (18:15).

Note the warning signs. Of course, that just raised my interest, and I went on to the edge, where the view was great, but no special events.


Turns out that this point is well known for its blow hole and sensational water spray spectacles, but we did not see that.
We then filled up the rental car, and had a pleasant dinner at the Vanilla Café (there are quite a lot of good eateries on Niue) (19:30).


At 21:30 we returned the rental car (left it at the rental car agency, as agreed).

At 23:30 we departed, after having spent an unreasonably short time in the very attractive country of Niue...