Niue. Let's see, where to begin.
Niue was an awesome place- very different from what we had previously experienced. As an ancient atoll that had been uplifted to a height of 200 feet, Niue is made of limestone and is as porous as a bathroom sponge. Due to this, the island is riddled with caves and chasms. From the ocean, the island looked like a long (9mi) pancake, very unappealing topographically, but as we got closer we could see incredible cliff formations along the coast, and a nicely developed fringing reef. We had just spent the last week or so getting hammered by 30-40kt winds on our run from Palmerston Island to Beveridge Reef and then Niue. We were always running with it, so the 15-20ft seas (sometimes breaking) were really no problem, and our windvane kept us tracking nicely. Just as we approached Niue, the conditions began to improve and we coasted around the southern tip into the lee of the island. As we neared the only major town, a yacht passed us and hailed us on the radio. Turns out it was the commodore of the Niue yacht club, and he offered to guide us to a mooring off the main wharf.. The yacht club is a small, somewhat ramshackle organization that houses its headquarters in the local ice cream parlor, and doesn't have a single yacht of its own. They are more like a social club that maintains facilities for cruisers (showers, book exchange, etc) and maintains the 15 or so moorings laid out for transient boats.

In 2004 hurricane Heta hit the island with 300km/hr winds and pretty much destroyed everything. 60% of the islands residents just up and left, apparently finding it far easier to relocate to New Zealand (of which Niue is a protectorate) than rebuild from the wreckage. 3 out of every 4 houses on the island lie abandoned and falling in, giving it a post-apocalyptic feel. That, combined with the custom of burying all loved ones in large concrete grave-bunkers in front yards, along the sides of the road, in clearings in the woods, and in front of public places (much as they do in Samoa) gave Niue an even more war-torn vibe. In addition to the wreckage on land, all the moorings were destroyed and so the yacht club has been re-installing them over the past couple of years. Now they are super nice, with all new anchors and hardware. We felt good tying Shannon up to one of them. I like the move toward permanent moorings in places where cruising sailboats frequent. They save a lot of coral damage (and it is a heck of a lot easier to pick up and release from a mooring than to haul in 200ft of 3/8" chain by hand ,like we do, when we set anchor).

The first thing we saw when arriving was a banded sea krait swimming in the water next to the mooring. As soon as it saw us, it gave a whip of its tail and dove for the bottom. These awesome creatures were everywhere in Niue, and with a venom purportedly 5x more toxic than a king cobra, were quite something to get used to. When freediving, these snakes would come right up to you, get right in your face or attempt to swim around your appendages. They were really cute, and being rear-fanged snakes with tiny mouths, would probably have a hard time getting venom into any part of you even if they wanted to. We heard reports of the boys on the island picking them up and throwing them at the little girls. Awesome. I wrote a post all about them on RTW. Even got a little video. Check it out if you like, it'll probably be posted in a week or two.

So, after we tied up to the mooring, we made the rounds to the neigboring boats and said hi to a few that we knew. We met a nice couple, Bruce and Alene, on a 40ft trimaran who gave us the lowdown on all the cool stuff to do on Niue, which basically consisted of lots of caving.
Whenever we get to a new island group or country, the first thing we have to do is check in with customs, health and immigration. Usually this means shouldering the pack with our bulging folder of passports and boat documents, and hiking around town until you find that one dusty old building that houses the various offices. Niue's customs office was located in the back of a building that looked like it had been a school, right in the heart of Alofi town (back when there were 3x more kids on the island, I'm sure it was a school). The woman inside welcomed us with a deadpan look that said "great, more yachties" and processed us through with automaton efficiency. Immigration was to be found in the back of the Police station, and was staffed by the most jovial woman. She was all smiles and was curious about who we were and where we had come from. Very nice. After taking care of business there,we set off to be proactive about finding a solution to our broken inverter. A man at the wharf had recommended that we go see a guy named Terry, who lived up the road out of town a ways. Ken, Britton, Alina and I set off along the road, walking past Captain Cook's landing place (where he was immediately run off by several Niueans painted up with red banana dye)and the dilapidated Niue Airlines office. Finally, we reached the abode of Terry, who seemed to live in amongst piles of all kinds of awesome rusting junk. Scooters, weedwhackers, transmissions, batteries, computers, chainsaws, sheet metal, shipping containers, piles of rusty springs, bolts, tires, etc. Terry was an older, slightly sweaty Kiwi expat who seemed to have a monopoly on the used appliance/motorized yard tool/computer repair market on Niue. As we shook hands, I notice that like all good mechanics, he was missing a digit or two. We described to him our predicament and he went immediately into one of his shipping containers and brought out what looked to be part of a computer. "Here" he said. "Wire this up to your battery (indicating two wires sprouting from a hand-poked hole in the side of the casing), and plug this in here (he scrounged for a powerstrip). It's just a power supply for a computer, rewired to be supplied by external batteries instead of the ones inside. It puts out 220 volts AC. I made up a couple of them to use with my wind generator battery bank up at my house. You can have it for free."
We stood there dumbfounded. Ok, awesome! Thanks Terry! We were expecting to have to drop at least $100 for any solution to our problem, if we could even find one.... Still a little skeptical however, we walked away with the new device in my backpack. It looked to be vintage 1991, and was only sightly smaller than a Cray supercomputer. Concerned as we were about whether it would actually work or not, we were actually more worried about finding enough space to put the thing, should it fulfill our needs.

Back in town, we walked around and cased the joint. This took us all of 5 minutes, and after we'd seen the Swanson's Limited Supermarket (definitely limited), the spartan bakery/pool hall combo, and a strange little hostel with built-in junk shop, we decided to call it a day and retired to the boat. A half hour after arrival, we had the new power inverter device wired up and it was pumping out 220 volts like a champ! We had to move out a stack of provisions to make room for it in the sliding compartment under the chart table, but once installed, we barely think about it anymore (that was a month ago). We brought Terry a bottle of wine a couple days later to say thanks...

Alofi town could only be described as comatose. Barely a pulse. The whole week we stayed there, we probably saw less than 100 souls, and half of those were at the yacht club potluck we attended one night. Aside from the people we met in shops or offices, the local people very much kept to the themselves, and it wasn't until we had rented a car and drove out into the interior did we start to see more people going about their daily lives (mostly farming taro in the rocky soil). Culturally, Niue seems to be in trouble. With far more Niueans living oversees than on Niue, the local population seems scattered, tired, disjointed, and a little sad. It was really too bad. We tried to track down the saturday market and the wednesday cultural practice, but couldn't seem to find either. Granted, I'm sure I don't know the whole story, but that is just the feeling I got.

So, with that we turned to full-time caving and exploring. First we rented a car, which at only $20US per day, was a steal split between the four of us. It was a tiny silver Mazda mini wagon, which we named Lord Kelvin, and it served us like no land rover could. Trying to get to some of these caves without a car would have been pretty hard. I'll just list off a description of some of the places we went..

Togo chasm:
This was pirates of the Carribean all the way. After hiking for about half and hour through the dense forest on the plateau of the island, we popped out near the edge of the cliff above the ocean. A huge ladder made out of telephone poles and 2x4s took us straight down through a slot in the rock into this amazing oasis at the bottom of the shaft. There were palm trees, ferns, moss, and sand dunes. There was also an extremely stagnant pool of cruddy water that Brit decided to taste to determine if it was salt or fresh. Why I do not know. An offshoot from the chasm led to the back end of a sea cave where you could stand on a rock while the huge breakers blasted in through the mouth and washed up all around.

Anapala Caves:
A short hike from the road led us to a crack in the rock, which after entering, led down down down at least 100 feet until you were left standing at the head of a freshwater pool at the bottom of an honest cravasse about 8ft wide(looking straight up, the sunlight was the thinnest crack). We donned our masks and fins and jumped into the pool. It was crystal clear fresh water (about 68degrees though, which was pretty cold)The pool was deep (40 feet maybe) and filled with awesome dribbling stalactite features and overhangs,etc. We dove down through an underwater opening and came up in another separate chamber. From there we climbed up a steep rockslide about halfway back up to daylight and entered another shaft (Brit and Ken did this while Alina and I stayed at the top). Vines assisted their decent into this cave where they discovered another set of deep deep pools in the bottom, filled with creepy roots and crawling vines.

Talava Arches:
These were some pretty impressive sea arches carved into the cliff along the northwest shore. We came early in the morning at low tide so we could hike around the base of the arches on the reef flat and make it around to Makalea caves further down the coast. Not only did we find Makalea caves, but we also discovered another set of caves further on that didn't seem to be named or marked on any map. (We were searching for a geocache along the coast which we never suceeded in finding) These caves were awesome chambers filled with stalactites, stalagmites, and fully formed columns. The awesome thing about Niue is the feeling you get that you are one of the first to experience the place. There are no signs to any of these caves, and once you get there, there are no ropes or barriers or anything to let you know that you are not the first person ever to have been there (ok, we did see the occasional name carved in the wall) But we were discussing what a similar geologic feature would be like back in the states. Not only would there be excessive signage warning of loose rocks, dangerous heights, deep water,idiot tourists, and potential lawsuits, but the cave itself would be roped off to the point where all the cave formations would be kept so far away that you couldn't really see them, despite the artificial lighting that would have undoubtedly been installed. Here in Niue, if you felt so inclined, you could waltz up and break off several hundred stalactites to take home as souveniers. It appears that no one feels so inclined. Isn't that nice?

Matapa Chasm:
Here, freshwater from the subterrainian aquifer pours out into a tidepool at the bottom of a 60ft chasm located just in from the ocean cliffs. The pool was great for swimming and cliff jumping and the mix of fresh on top and salt water below created a fuzzy shimmering mirage-like layer at the thermocline. Swimming along with mask and snorkel at the surface you couldn't see much, as if you just had your eyes open underwater, but as soon as you dove down a few feet, it all became clear.

Ulupaka Cave:
This one was a nice hike through the Niue Forest Reserve, among huge mahogany trees, banyans, rocky outcroppings and hundreds of spiderwebs inhabited by monstrous yellow arachnids. The person breaking trail had to wave a big stick in front of himself the whole time to avoid being plastered in the face with one of the very intricate 3D webs (that was me). To find the cave, we had to take an overgrown offshoot from the trail (which I think most people must miss) above a steep decent to the reef. Once at the cave, it is an easy scramble back into an inner chamber where there is a skylight and ferns growing amongst the stalagmites.. After investigating every nook and cranny of the chamber we found that this was not quite the end of the road. There was a small hole in the floor with a spiderweb across it that led down into blackness, giving us the distinct impression that we were standing on a gossamer ceiling above a deep chamber. Needless to say, we returned the next day with a rope, and Ken and I lowered ourselves down through the hole. After shinnying down 30 feet of free-swinging line and landing in a pile of animal bones, we looked around at our decidedly different surroundings. Instead of the usual limestone, the interior of this cave was made up entirely of huge slabs of loose sandstone, made up of millions of tiny little shells and coral particles. There were huge chunks and slabs of this stuff hanging off the ceiling, and erosion of the rock had created dunes on the floor of the cave. We saw no footprints on the dunes, which said to us that either no one had been down here in a long long time, or the sand was raining down off the ceiling at an alarming rate... The cave turned out to consist of three separate chambers, the final one containing a large freshwater pool with an island of sandstone in the middle. Hanging off the wall near the shore of the pool was the most gossamer stalactite I'd ever seen. It was about 3 feet long and only as big around as a pencil. It was hollow in the middle, just like a drinking straw, and its walls were paper thin.. After a quick exploration, Ken and I decided not to push our luck and tiptoed back to the opening, trying not to touch anything. We then hand-over-handed it back up the rope and back out the hole (myself somewhat less than gracefully).

Vaikona Cave:
This was the Niue motherlode of caving awesomeness. Our friends Bruce and Alene had drawn us a map of all the chambers they'd discovered in their exploration of the cave, so we had some kind of idea of what to expect. A good 45 minutes of hiking led us from the road to the cave entrance, which again was easy to miss and we had to battle our way through a tunnel-trail of dead pandanus leaves to the unassuming entrance. We felt a little like Team Zissou as we suited up in our wetsuits, booties, gloves, lights, cameras, and tucked our fins into our weightbelts, all the while standing in the woods. (All except for Brit, who has his own built-in wetsuit, the lucky #$%) We all slipped down into the crack in the rock and scuttled like crabs down some slippery sloping limestone to another crack, below which we could see a clear freshwater pool. With the aid of a rope someone had put there, we one by one made the Stallone-like move and stepped across the crack over the void. Once across, we made our way into a huge chamber with a wide open skylight 50 feet up. The floor of the chamber was a freshwater pool, crystal clear. We got in the pool, whooping like banshees at the frigid temperature. The pool ended at the far wall of the chamber, but by diving down about 10 feet, you could swim under the wall through a submerged tunnel, and up into another chamber, nearly pitch black. And so it went, each successive pool had an underwater swim-through leading to another chamber. Ken and I had the only two underwater lights, so one of us would scout the next dive, sometimes diving down only to discover that that particular tunnel was a dead-end and would have to turn around. We've all got pretty good breath holds, but when the water is cold and you're not exactly sure where the next air pocket will be, it's hard to keep your heart rate down. So, our bottom times were definitely less than desireable. Once we had found a connecting tunnel, we'd go back to Alina and Brit and stagger our dives so one lightless person would follow a light. The fourth chamber had us all coming up one right after another into a little air pocket, and we all crowded together to get enough room. I took a photo of us in there, and everybody's eyes are a little wide. There were some little fish in these freshwater pools- little cardinalfish looking guys who never see the light of day. Also, there were freshwater eels 2-3 feet long swimming around in there. If you've never seen a freshwater eel, they are probably the least intimidating of the eel family. They all look kind of dopey and lethargic like they should have names like Melvin or Hermy.
We knew from Bruce and Alene that there was a way out the other side of the cave system without having to retrace our steps, so despite the fact that everyone was very cold, we kept going. Due to a particular incident involving Britton, my light, and a moving rock, my light started to go on the fritz about halfway through the cave. It would randomly turn off without warning, but would usually come back on with a tap or two from the heel of my hand. Nice. After several more chambers, the roofs of which were very close to the surface of the water, and a scramble over some wedged boulders, we finally found ourselves with nowhere else to go but up. We had dead-ended in a large chamber with a high ceiling and a crack that led up about 70 feet to a dim hint of daylight. Ken and I had taken turns scouting down a particularly long submerged tunnel that extended further back, hopscotching tiny airpockets filled with tiny stalactites (a great way to brain yourself when coming up with a strong urge to breath..), but had discovered nothing but dead-ends. So, after returning to our somewhat hypothermic friends waiting for us in the high chamber, we began to climb up the crack. Sure enough, it led out a tiny hole into the daylight and onto the shelf above the ocean cliffs.

Hiking back to the cave entrance was more exercise in not getting sliced to ribbons than it was hiking. The surface of the ground in that particular spot is probably one of the only spots on earth that I could comfortably call "rugged". I really kinda hate that word. It always conjures images of L.L. Bean-clad yuppies posing on some rock outcropping in Maine, showing off their unscuffed hiking boots.
"Hey Jan, it sure is a good thing we bought all this expensive mountain gear."
"You're right Rick, this terrain sure is rugged"....
So, in all but the most deserving circumstances, I avoid use of that word. But here, trying to walk 50 feet over the ground had you doing at least 200 feet of up and down vertical climbing over what looked like piles of giant 10 foot limestone knives, dropped from the sky, and then aligned with a huge magnet to stand straight up, blade up. These knives were interspersed with wiry scrub bushes which did a good job concealing the many gaping holes and bottomless cracks that filled the area. You could either hop like an insane person from knife-tip to knifetip and hope to not slip and impale your nether-regions, or you could crawl like an old man on your hands and knees. Neither worked very well.

The cool thing about all these fantastic caves and chasms on Niue was that we never once saw another person at any of them. If any one of these caves existed on Oahu, there were be hundreds of people visiting them every day.

A few more days were spent in Niue freediving and checking out snakes and sea caves along the shore near the boat. The underwater visibility there was awesome. I read in one of our guidebooks that the complete lack of sediment runoff from the island (because it is so porous) makes for some of the best vis in the world, up to 250 feet sometimes. We didn't see much better than 150 feet, but it was still nice.
I ran into fellow NOAA co-worker Mike Musyl on the pier one night as I was launching our dinghy. He was in Niue tagging ono for some pelagic fish project. Small world.

We had a fairly interesting predicament while on Niue. None of us had much cash. The only bank on the island didn't have an ATM, and would only either exchange money or give you a cash advance on your credit card. The fees associated with that latter option were scary, especially since it was in international transaction, so we shied away from that. We each had a few bills of NZ money left over from Rarotonga... Thank god the car rental agency accepted credit card. It seemed to be the only business there that did. So, we were very frugal and pooled our remaining cash to keep eating. We bought a couple of loaves of bread, a few cans of tomatoes, and a jar of jam. We eyed a very tasty looking cucumber in the store, but after seeing the price tag of $10, we passed. We had jam sandwiches and oatmeal for at least two out of three meals a day. Departure tax (paid only in cash) was $35 per person, and mooring fees were $15/day. After putting aside enough for that and purchasing our bread, we had just enough to pay for a couple of $2 ice cream cones on our last day- our only splurging.
By the time our week in Niue was up, we were one of only two boats there.