Niue
Niue is the biggest coral formed island and also the smallest country in the world, with only 1500 habitants. On our arrival at the Island after a 2 day crossing we observed some distinct landscape changes with very dense green, high and steep hills close to the water. It felt so good to see land again, like we had a second chance if something goes wrong, instead of Beveridge that would make us think twice before any action. Niue shore access was tricky, every time we wanted to land there we had to use a crane to lift up the dingy from the water; normal for locals that pull their fishing boats up and down here every day. There were so many caves on the coast here to paddle board and swim inside. There was no surfable waves around the island as there were no shallow reefs that the waves could break on, all the waves broke mostly against inhospitable walls of coral. The amazing thing about Niue is the diving, they say because of the coral formation there is no dirt flowing to the ocean because it filters it all, and so they have crazy visibility under water, 100 metres sometimes, it is probably the clearest water in the world, a diver’s paradise.
Tonga tripping
The Vava’u Island group in the Kingdom of Tonga was the last destination for us, with the wind helping us it was a short 2 days passage. Along this crossing we had a crazy surprise, one of the rudders broke, but luckily catamarans have two. The bad thing was the loss of the auto pilot, but nothing serious, we just had to helm manually until we reached Tonga. Tonga was the highlight of the trip; the landscape was a bit similar to Nieu but also a mix of the Society Islands, with some white sand beaches, many islands, whales, waves, passes and lagoons. This is the last kingdom of Polynesia and the people are very religious and conservative. Nana had to wear my T-shirts to go on the street, because they think it is disrespectful if you wear short clothes. There was so many reefs and islands to check and incredible lineups. I wished we just had more time to wait for one big swell to really make the most of their potential. We scored some fun waves to windsurf and kite on the islands south of Vava’u. It made me realize that it isn’t easy to find a great spot that has wind and waves together in the correct direction for wave sailing. But that is the beauty of exploring unknown spots, you never really know what you will get until you arrive at the spot, and finding spots like Tonga where probably nobody has ever sailed before on those waves is an awesome feeling, because you open doors for other friends and sailors that want to adventure into something different and unique. Thanks to Mario and Paula for the awesome stay in their boat for our 2 month voyage, it was a blessing to be able to sail 1300 miles in the best part of the Pacific ocean.
Aloha!!!
Kauli and Nana.