Category: Niue
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Update from the 2009 Regatta Vava’u Cornhole Champs : )
The passport prizes have been rewarded, the free internet available during the regatta is long gone, and the harbor here in Vava’u is slowly beginning to empty. This morning we said farewell and wished safe seas to our dear friends, Geoff & Julie, on s/v Flashback. I knew it was going to be hard to say adios to them but it was especially hard to hug Julie goodbye. For me, having Julie around was like having one of my greatest friends, Courtney, right here by my side. Their advice, their ability to listen, and this incredible sarcasm that they both possess is like one in the same and I have told Julie so many, many times. I will greatly miss talking, laughing, sharing glasses of wine, and just being girly for a bit with her. They’re both just amazing, amazing people and whether it be New Zealand to ring in the New Year or another year further down the road, I know we will see them again and I am already looking forward to that reunion…
For those of you who have not heard the news yet, by the grace of the sea gods watching over us, our dinghy has been found! A local fisherman found our beloved water craft off the coast of Niue, an island we had sailed away from just a few days before. The dinghy was upside down and we assume it flipped over the reef leaving Beveridge, making the entire journey to Niue’s coast with the outboard underwater. For roughly 15 days it traveled approximately 140 miles and luckily for us, right into the hands of a very honest, local fisherman. (added by Drew…here he is! The hero! His name is Ape (pronounced Ah Pay) and he is from the village of Vaiea on Niue.)
Once turned over to the Niue police, our dinghy was impounded and placed in its own jail cell. Literally locked up for misbehavior. The good news reached us via Marc & Jane, s/v Imagine, who heard about the dinghy while they themselves were in Niue. Drew and I have learned in our time here on the water not to ever get your hopes up about anything so until we made contact with the commodore of the Yacht Club in Niue and exchanged serial numbers, we weren’t believing it. Low and behold, turns out it was ours, in good shape, and the local fisherman was even able to get the outboard engine up and running again! A reward was sent via Western Union here in Tonga, obviously to be handed over to the guy who found the dinghy, and a ceremony took place to officially release the dinghy from the Niue Police Department into the care of the Yacht Club. Drew and I have bailed out the dinghy before but we’ve never had to bail it out in this way! Now we sit and wait in hopes that a sailing vessel will come through Niue large enough to throw our dinghy up on board and bring it the 250 miles to us here in Tonga. Jokes were even made that they could throw it off the wharf in Niue and it’d find it’s way back to us here and of course now we can laugh at that. Need be, we’ll return to pick it up but chances are in our favor that someone will be able to bring it with them. Drew and I would like to extend our sincerest thanks and gratitude to the fisherman, the Niue police, the “Imaginary” family, and especially Keith Vial, the commodore of the Yacht Club who spent a lot of time going back and forth with us via email to get this all straightened out. We cannot begin to tell you the relief you have brought us and we are so incredibly appreciative!So for now Drew and I will sit patiently in Tonga awaiting news that the dinghy is on its way. As I write I sit and watch as Drew slowly picks through cabinets and cubby holes taking pictures of all that will be sold both separately and with the boat. I have to admit his last post about the boat going on the market drew mixed feelings for me. As I read it for the first time, alongside all of you, it brought tears to my eyes. There has never been a single moment in our relationship, even when we weren’t living aboard, that I was unaware of Drew’s love and passion for this particular vessel. I will never be able to comprehend the amount of time and energy that went into making her what she is. I do, however, live in the results of his labor and can physically see the details of the love that went into each inch of Dosia. In even my most frustrated moments aboard, I try so hard to think about the future, when I’m sitting behind a desk or on a couch, and would trade anything for my butt to be on a beach instead, and do all I can to use that as a reminder to live in this moment, relish in it, and take all from it that I possibly can. As the final months of our trip begin to unfold, I am torn on how I feel about the journey coming to an end. I know that Drew and I have an incredible life with great adventures ahead of us and I definitely see another boat, more islands, and more sunsets in our future. Something tells me Drew’s going to make sure of that!
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Photos from Niue
Here I am on the internet and I’ve prepared no new post. How about some new pics? Here’s a few from our last day in Niue. What an amazing place!
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The Wildest Place I’ve Been
I keep on saying it…Niue and Beveridge Reef (a part of Niue) were the wildest places I’ve ever been. Here’s why:
1) The anchorage at Beveridge alone was an experience with the high winds and waves coming over the reef coupled with first time anchor drags and the resulting late-night, pitch-black resets. We haven’t sat calmly still at anchor since Aitutaki. It’s not comfortable but I guess one could see it as part of the wildness. I’d like to say we’ve grown accustomed to rolling around and sudden shifts of the boat while we’re “safely” anchored but screw that. Nobody likes that stuff. It was all part of the adventure though.
2) The whales. From the first sighting outside Beveridge to basically living among them in the mooring field at Niue, the whales defined this part of the trip. People pay loads of money to experience nature like that. We had it outside our backdoor for free.
3) Spearfishing at Beveridge. Patrick and I were all by ourselves in the water for hours on end while the only other people within hundreds of miles, Marge and Rebecca, were still over a mile away on an upwind dinghy ride. It was surreal. Hunting fish through underwater ravines and avoiding the curious grey sharks and the white tips will be a memory long after my blisters heal. The fact I duct taped my feet and ignored the pain of each fin stroke shows just how much fun it was. I’ll never forget losing that last really nice grouper to the white tips. Little f_c_ers!
4) The hikes to the chasms and caves on Niue aren’t too long but nobody can deny they are dangerous. The eroding limestone is sharp and at some points you are basically crawling over the stuff. At other places large holes are hidden by decaying vegetation and still other places are covered in slippery rock. It seems the whole island is made for breaking ankles. And then there’s those huge dropoffs, cliffs, deep chasms and caves, massive seas crashing around everywhere throwing spray 30 feet in the air….basically everything you’re there to see. Check out these videos of us pushing the limits or being just plain stupid. Whichever, it was an adrenaline rush. The rock Allan and I were standing on was actually moving with the power of the waves coming in!
**video will be inserted here** whenever I come to the realization that, yes, sometimes you have to pay for internet and I realize that internet is slow as crap here and I just have to be patient!
5) Vaikona Cave. This place is wild and dangerous and scary and it’s almost ridiculous they allow people to explore on their own. That being said, I loved every minute of it. I’d do it again in a hot minute.
6) Even though we don’t have a dinghy at the moment and didn’t have to deal with it, you gotta love a place where the only dock in the only “safe harbor” on the island has a crane to lift your dinghy out of the water so it doesn’t get destroyed on rocks in the swell.
7) Sea Snakes. I saw them on a dive I did with Seth and Elizabeth from Honeymoon and I saw them on the surface but one morning when I answered a call from a neighbor boat looking for a diver to untangle their anchor from the rocks I saw way too many of them. They are funky and weird and venomous as hell (harmless to humans because their mouths are too small) and Niue was my first time being in the water with them. One more wild thing to experience.
So there you are. The wildest place I’ve ever been. Looking back on the last month, we’ve had crap weather and lost the dinghy but I still can’t complain. Somebody sent us an email saying we should put a donation tab on the site to try and recoup some money for what the dinghy mishap might cost. I considered it for a moment and thought about how much it ticks me off when cruisers or travelers ask for donations on their blogs. Margie reminded me of how f-ed up I thought it was that a certain cruiser was (and still is) bumming money off Latitude 38 readers and they keep on giving it to her. If you don’t have enough to be out here and pay for your lifestyle and your repairs and your f-ups, you shouldn’t be here. Don’t give me money to perpetuate my dream while putting yours off. So Get Lost On Purpose shall remain free of that crap. After all, I’m out here on a sailboat in the South-freaking-Pacific. What could I possibly have to complain about?
