Remember the days when you were driving down the road and you waved to everyone you passed coming the other way and everyone waved back? If you do, do you remember why you did it? Typically you knew the person and to do anything different would be rude or you didn't know the person and to do anything different would be, well, rude. Keep that thought in mind. Now add a tropical paradise isle which is constantly ranked in the top five dive sights of the world for its visibility that often reaches 70 meters (not a typo-meters) and has such an abundance of coral patch reef that you could spend days just diving in the mooring field alone, amazing rain-forests with the elusive coconut crab, underwater and shoreline cave systems, great food, some powder-sand beaches, amazing cuisine, and a Commodore of the yacht club (Keith Vail) who is such a nice guy he may just hail you on the radio out of the blue(as he did us) and take you on an afternoon dive of some of their premier sights. That is the great isle of Niue.
As we make our way to Fiji via Tonga, we wish we had just stayed in Niue and bypassed Tonga altogether. Niue has everything good that Tonga has and far more, and none of the bad. Tonga, from what we experienced in our days in Nieafu and around Vava'u, is a self-imploding society that could take a lesson from former Mayor Guilianni in "broken-windows theory" crackdown on crime and a good category 5 Cyclone to clean its streets of the rubbish. Alright, the cyclone comment may be a bit harsh but the so-called "successful street clean-up" projects that were hailed by the local yachties on the morning net were not noticed by us. It is a place of filth.
The tiny island nation of Niue, at the other end of the spectrum, is blessed with that small-town feel that I hope most of you reading this will understand and if you never experienced it, you still can and do it in a verdant tropical paradise. Be aware, though that Niue is also known for its abundance of sea-kraits, a highly venomous, front-fanged member of the Elapidae family (cousin of the cobra packing one of the most potent neurotoxins in the world). But it seems, even the snakes know to be nice as bites are basically unheard of, though quite possibly fatal if you are the one to foolishly grab one in the water while impressing your love for the last time. I swam with hundreds of them over the course of a few days. At one point while photographing three while I was on the surface, I felt something tap me on the back. Turning around, the tail section of a banded sea-krait rubbed against me and the snake bolted for the bottom. I'm quite sure the snake's intent was to give me a little krait love-rub with its head because I saw this same behavior shared among the snakes on the surface as they came up for air. So, even the snakes know to behave here. Though, even for a herpetologist like me, that was a little too close for comfort.
Christian values are the norm here and regardless of one's religious beliefs, the notion that tourists be treated with respect and friendliness is carried on from the elders to the young ones. Crime is not tolerated here and nearly unheard of. On Sunday, not only do people not work; fishing and swimming is considered taboo. Besides, most of the people are dressed in their lovely white suits and dresses to give praise to the Lord and then head to the family cook-out. Sound familiar for some of you?
Niue, translated, means "Behold, the coconut tree!". It is also know as "The Rock" because it is one of the largest uplifted coral islands and because it is a diamond of a place. The beauty of it lies in the fact that the locals don't let on that they known how special their island is. They don't rest on their laurels and treated us as in a genuine way while being a unpaid welcoming committee. They understand how much a smile as you pass by and a wave from a car means to a new arrival. Because this place is a little difficult to get to, even though it has an international airport (one flight a week, I believe) it is a place that is not yet commercialized, nor over-run with resorts. I know in my writing, I may sound as if I have been paid off by the tourism board, but from the amazing time I had in Niue, if I get just one of you to go there and experience it, I will be happy that I helped their economy that was hurt and still a little scarred by a Category 5 cyclone that washed over the island causing catastrophic damage. Considering the way we were treated in Niue, I feel like I owe it to them to sing their praise. Since the cyclone, they have rebuilt and put on a campaign for tourism. Now's the time to go and when you arrive you will notice how cheap crafts, food, car rentals, and all other touristy things are. That's a nice bonus to mitigate the cost of what it will put you back if you intend to fly here.
Dad and I had a great time driving the back roads at night looking for one of the 1300 coconut crabs that reside on the island. That's actually a healthy population and we found many signs of their existence in the coconuts on the ground that had been peeled and snipped into by their extremely powerful claws, but no luck in actually seeing a live one. The health of their numbers is more land-dependent which is why 12,000 acres of this tiny island has been protected as the Huvalu Conservation Area A limited harvest of coconut crabs is allowed and we were fortunate enough to get to try this delicacy. It has a nice, sweet smoky flavor.
As for our time sailing around Tonga it wasn't all that much to be praised. The islands are pretty, but the coral was not as vibrant nor as abundant as Niue or the Tuamotos, which surprised me, and the number of ornamental species far outweighed those of the game species. However we did manage to find one chunk of coral where I did take a couple of nice grouper and lost a monster peacock grouper. The only place we found any spiny lobster was on our plates at the local eatery. Our great excitement occurred at the isle of Ovalau, oddly a pick-me-up after the burglary, was awakening to realize our anchor had pulled in the heavy winds (a first for our marvelous, 40 kilo rocna due to steep anchorage and heavy winds) and to find our boat adrift. Tragedy possibly averted as it is a labyrinth of islands in those parts. One has to put things in perspective. The Skip, treated our short-term crew-member, Fabian, and me to a steak and lobster dinner for saving the "BEG". Well, at least, for preventing us from waking up in a different anchorage. As always, love and miss you all. Te amo, Merce.
"Brown-Eyed Girl" out...
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment