So, on another note of why the open ocean is dangerous, let’s talk about Cookiecutter Sharks. You may be saying to yourself “What in the world are you talking about!? Cookiecutter Sharks? Sharks that make cookies! AWESOME!” And we would agree except for what the sharks use a cookie dough…because that would be flesh.
The first time we ever heard of these vicious little suckers was when we were snorkeling with dolphins in Niue. Now, I don’t have any footage to show you of our snorkel trip, but it was awesome! We were in a couple of inflatable dinghies on our way to a dive, when a pod of Spinner dolphins started swimming off our bow. (Called “spinners” because of the amount of spins they perform on their jumps.) No matter how many times you’ve seen dolphins while underway, it’s still an amazing experience and what made this even better is that we were able to get in the water and be towed by the boat so we could swim with them. It was fantastic!
While we were in the water, I noticed a few of the dolphins had circular wounds on them in various places.
The first thing that came to my mind was that they had some sort of flesh eating disease (which worried me since I didn’t want to catch it!) Continue reading “Sharks That Make Cookies?!”
All that was left to do in Niue was to go shopping to restock our boat for the voyage to the next island chain. We have found that the simple day to day things, like shopping, can often provide keen insight into the difference between the island way of life and our own.
We get underway a bit sobered this time. You see, the reason we had the opportunity to help the whale research team is because the boat that originally volunteered capsized when it was sailing to Niue from the islands of Tonga. The crew was rescued but the boat is still out there – upside down, unlit and floating just above the waterline. This is the exact same patch of ocean we are sailing over right now. Continue reading “A Bad Place to Sink…”
Did we say the Humpback whales woke us up with their singing? Well, if that’s not enough to get us roused and play then they get a little more insistent by rubbing themselves against the hulls of the ships at anchor! While they didn’t do this to our boat, other people in the anchorage reported it happening to them. Tiffany was even startled one evening out on the deck while we were moored when a whale blew off the stern of the boat. It was pitch black and unfortunately we couldn’t see it. Our current captain never being one to pass up an opportunity to play with whales, we “volunteered” to help out a visiting whale research team by taking them out for the day. The fact that we benefited from being able to use their gear to listen to whale songs and track down the whales ourselves was purely coincidental.
We learned that the researches were primarily interested in pictures of the whales’ humps and the undersides of their tails.
The absolute best place we went to was Togo Chasm. On the opposite side of the island from Alofi, the chasm is reached by hiking through a forest. Which as we mentioned before is not a normal sight on an island made of coral.
In fact, no one is really sure how these trees arrived. Unlike Rarotonga which had a thriving forest, Niue no longer has volcanic soil. It’s just coral with a thin layer of sand and organic debris. Not much for a tree to thrive in, but somehow these do. The trees are related to mahogany, but we never did figure it out (hey, we’re sailors not botanists!).
We took a driving tour around Niue with a few of our cruising friends in order to better see all that Niue had to offer us. The car let us reach a few really amazing places: Limu Pools, the Talava Arch, the King’s Bathing Chamber and Togo Chasm.
The most striking thing about the flora of Niue is the massive amount of diversity contained in such a tiny island. It took us less than a full day to drive all the way around the island while making several stops and during this time we saw tropical rainforests, mahogany forests, went spelunking and climbed over ancient coral mountains to find soft sandy beaches at the bottom of a 30 foot gorge. Niue does a lot of nature and it does it all ridiculously well.
Let’s start our exploration of what is arguably the most beautiful island in the South Pacific with the diving. Hey, you know what? Let’s start with just the freaking snorkeling, because it was that good! The water here is crystal clear and no, not what you’re imagining – it’s better. By more than a little. You have not seen water this clear in your lifetime. Ever. Seriously.
One of the advantages to having almost no one on the island a tiny tourist industry is that there is almost no pollution. Not having a coral reef encircling the island means that what little runoff there is gets immediately swept out to sea. Continue reading “Then we swam under the island!”
Here’s the sad truth about Niue: there are more dead people here than living residents of the island. Like we said, Air New Zealand runs a weekly flight out to Niue year round and it wouldn’t surprise me if they made that flight at a loss. So this is good right? Niue is connected to the world! Not exactly as all around good as you might think. You see, the advent of regular air travel decimated the Niuean population and not through disease but by mass exodus. Remember how we said there were more Niueans living in Auckland than on Niue and that all Niueans have dual citizenship? Well, most young people want the quality education and job opportunities that Niue’s sponsor country of New Zealand provides and really, can you blame them? Since there is now a weekly flight out, a lot of people leave and only return to visit families on holidays or just to occasionally check up on the family house. Speaking of homes, the majority of residences in the villages & businesses are abandoned or at least not lived in and squatting tourists are a big problem for the local law enforcement.
For some other Polynesian countries, like the Cooks and The Society Islands, air travel may take some of their youth but it also gives back in the form of tourism. This has not happened on Niue and the island remains mostly unvisited.
Ok, nothing to do with anything but come on, it’s awesome. You stop, there are coconuts, what more could you possibly want?!
So the thing about Niue is that the entire structure of the island is so very different from the other islands we’ve seen so far. It doesn’t fit into the mold of Darwin’s Theory of Atoll formation (which if you remember from this entrythe island forms from a volcano and then as it slowly sinks and erodes, it is surrounded by a coral reef until there’s nothing left except for a lagoon in the middle of a coral reef). As we mentioned earlier, this particular island is an elevated atoll. So it used to be a lagoon surrounded by coral, but the lagoon is now more than 30 feet above sea level and a narrow skirt of coral creates tide pools around the island.
The locals have adapted to this by finding various paths down to the coral shallows, using natural chasms and caves to lead them out to the open water.
And being as lugging your canoe straight up a massive wall of coral would not be the ideal end to a long day of fishing they also had to find ways to store their canoes.
And yes, in case you were wondering – those rocks are very sharp. They’re made from dead coral, and are very jagged. Think razor blades. Great for defense, suck for sea access. As the ocean crashed over them, they don’t get worn down, they break off into new jagged peaks.
Tiffany managed to scrape herself pretty badly on one of them…
This was a smaller example of the Niuean coconut crab which all reports point to being delicious. Take a giant Polynesian crab. Feed it coconut for its entire life. Cook and eat. Mind the vorpal blades on its hands. The gastronomic rapture should be rather obvious. Continue reading “Free WiFi!!!”
Look, it’s not like we don’t think this trip has profoundly affected us or something but when multiple people come up to you and say that within hours of arriving, it begs the response:
Us: “Yes we did. Um, how did you know?”
Local: “Because you’re new here and it’s not Friday.”
This answer mystified us until one Friday we came ashore and everything was closed. Literally the entire capital village…er…city of Alofi was a ghost town. Then two hours later everyone showed back up. We later found out that on Fridays the one Air New Zealand flight that services Niue, The…One…Flight… arrives on Fridays at about 1pm local time and everyone goes up to meet the new tourists.
Anyone else just flash on a little short guy shouting “de plane! de plane!”? Glad we’re not the only ones.
Funny fact: Niueans love KFC. They love it so much that locals have their family members who are flying home pick up KFC in Auckland. We are told it is extremely common to have a couple of buckets of the Colonel’s special recipe onboard the 4 hour flight.
So we’re off the boat and into the “big city” (cough, hack, giggle).
First stop, the bank. We need currency and this is where we run into our first problem. See again to remind you, there are about 1300 people total on this island. Now these 1300 people have exactly 1 bank and that one bank only accepts exactly 1 type of card: Visa. Which we don’t have. We are actually saying to you that MasterCard is not accepted in this country. At all. So when Greg walks up to the bank teller and hands her his ATM card to make a withdrawal, she hands it back and says “sorry, we don’t accept MasterCard.”
Greg: “It’s an ATM card not a credit card.”
Teller: “Sorry, we can only process Visa cards for anything.”
Greg: “Ok, no problem, is there another bank in town where I can use this card?”
Teller: Sorry, we’re the only bank in the country. (emphasis added by us)
…
Holy cow we’re in Visa commercial! Where’s the voice over guy!?
It ended up being OK because luckily, we carry some cash for emergencies. But the emergencies we were thinking of were more like “abandoned in a foreign country and need airfare” vice, “hey I’d like some local currency to buy lunch.”
But an emergency it was and we were very grateful to have the cash. So lesson learned – always carry some extra cash because you never know when the one and only bank in the country won’t take your ATM card. Because not everyone takes MasterCard, but it seems greenbacks are still universally accepted.
Like this article? For more learn more about our varied shopping adventures in Polynesia by clicking on “Haven’t had a pig roast yet…”
About the authors
Greg and Tiffany are traveling around the world on sailing yachts and keep a video blog of their (mis)adventures. If sailing to Tahiti on a 44 ft sailboat, getting pooped on by seagulls, opening coconuts with dull machetes, sailing past tornadoes and ukulele Christmas carols are for you, then check them out at www.CoastGuardCouple.com!
