Destination: Nieu, No Harbor, Lots of Heart

Tiny South Seas Island Issues You Its Own Drivers License (Gallery)

Peter Swanson Jun 3

Thirteen-hundred miles of open ocean lie between French Polynesia and the Kingdom of Tonga. There are very few places to stop. The single-island nation of Niue (New-Way) is one. It’s not only a great rest stop; it’s a worthy destination unto itself.

The Savage Rock

Captain James Cook, who, after three attempts to land, famously dubbed it “Savage Island” due to what he perceived as a hostile reception (it was, in fact, locals painted with red fe’i banana). Today, it’s called the “Rock of Polynesia” as it pops up out of nowhere in the middle of the Pacific. I’d suggest calling it “Friendly Rock” because of the friendly, enthusiastic islanders who genuinely love having “yacthies” visit their island.

There is no protected harbor on Niue. It’s a deep, open roadstead. You can’t anchor. The local yacht club installs 15 moorings every season. These are in excellent condition and well maintained. They remove them during the off-season to refresh all of the components. You have to reserve one and pay for it in advance.

Running from the WARC

We were fortunate to get a reservation. We are running in front of a large group of boats participating in the World ARC—a rally of 26 boats who sail around the world together over the course of 15 months. They had reserved all of the moorings and were behind us in Bora Bora, hot on our heels. The Niue Yacht Club gave us three nights. We’d then have to leave to make room for the WARC boats. For now, we have the bay to ourselves.

Diving Niue

I’d heard great things about scuba diving in Niue. I wasn’t prepared for what I experienced. Caves and sea snakes. And crystal clear water. And big coralscapes.

The Niue Blue dive operation is based in New Zealand. The Kiwi crew and guides rotate through every few months. It’s a well-run operation. Guides Jackson and Ant picked me up from our boat one morning. They had one other long-time client with them. Only four of us. One guide remained in the boat while three of us dived.

Jackson: “Hey Jim, how do you feel about caves?”

Ant: “Hey Jim, how do you feel about snakes?”

I think I mumbled something about my life being in their hands. With that, we blasted off across the bay to their first favorite spot—Bubble Cave.

We saw hundreds, if not thousands, of Niue’s famous Katuali venomous³ sea snakes. Outside the caves, they swim freely. In the caves, they are wrapped up in tight mating balls—some several feet in diameter. Above the surface, they lounged on the stalagmites and rocks inside the caves.

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This is the kind of place where I could see spending a week, diving every morning and never getting tired of it.

Driving Around Niue

Pam rented a car to tour the island while I was diving. Unlike pretty much everywhere else in the world, Niue insists you get a local driver’s license. I’m not sure why they have this rule, but they are serious about it. Tourists apparently like it because it’s a cool souvenir to take home.

Pam tried to get one, but the police station ID card printer was broken. They let her drive around without it while various people came and went from the police station trying to fix the printer. So much for the serious rule about having a local Niue driver’s license.

That afternoon, we went back by the police station to see how the printer was doing. Despite my objections, Pam often volunteers me to help people with their computer problems⁵. The police chief was eager for help. Instead of intervening directly, I introduced her to Google Gemini and let them work things out together, which they quickly did. The printer was again spitting out ID cards. Pam got her license. We were legal. And, Niue has a resident AI expert now.

The loss of the Anastacia

A week earlier, we sat out some bad weather in Aitutaki, Cook Islands. That same disturbance passed over Niue. It caused the wind and seas to swing around and come from the west, making Alofi Bay a dangerous lee shore.⁶

There were several boats on moorings. Two left the mooring field and took shelter in the lee of the island on the other side, sailing back and forth on the east side for 48 hours. Two boats decided to ride it out on their moorings (despite warnings against it). One survived; one did not.

The Swedish-flagged, Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 44i, Anastacia, was lost when it broke free of its mooring and foundered on the reef in front of the town. It didn’t take long for the waves and the rocks to reduce it to small bits.

I won’t speculate on the skipper’s decision-making. These are always complex situations. It’s impossible to fully appreciate what they were facing. She wrote about it on the ship’s blog.

What we did see was the aftermath. The day after we arrived, the town citizens met with the island’s Prime Minister to confront the issue. The theme was a proposal to remove all moorings from Alofi Bay so that something like this would never happen again.

The wreckage left behind an environmental calamity. The fiberglass hull had been reduced to a kind of fiberglass fuzz that was all over the reef surface. Locals were engaged in a daily surface clean-up operation. The dive shop was running afternoon clean-up dives in an effort to get the debris off the bottom. It was a mess. People were angry.

Decisions that seem clear-cut after the fact are not so clear-cut in the moment. I think about our own experiences. Like a few days earlier in Aitutaki, where we had wind gusts to 44 knots. A slightly different weather trajectory, and we might be telling a different story. Often, we are more lucky than good.

Weather to stay or go?

We watch the weather closely when we are preparing for a passage—especially in situations where we are exposed without a harbor of refuge or shelter nearby. Like here in Niue. The early season South Pacific Convergence Zone is notoriously difficult to forecast precisely⁷.

The forecast models showed another disturbance forming near Tonga a few days out. It was forecast to track toward Niue. Some of the WARC boats seeing this, diverted north to Samoa. This freed up some of the moorings in Niue. The yacht club let us know we were free to spend another day or two should we so desire.

We could have made it work. But Anastacia’s fate was on our minds. The sea state was forecast to be smooth for the next day—less than two meters. The wind was blowing in the right direction. It would be a good chance to make the run to Tonga with good weather margins. Our weather router, MetBob agreed with the plan.

We woke to our alarms at midnight, slipped our mooring lines, and sailed west out of the bay and into the black night toward Tonga.

Highlights

• Niue Blue Diving: outstanding dive operation
• Fana Cafe: easily the best food on the island

Fees for Visiting Yachts

• Mooring Fee: $30NZD per night
• Customs Departure Tax: $150NZD per person (yes, that’s a lot)
• Clearance Fee: $50NZD
• Clearance was handled ashore on the wharf and in the customs office. Nobody came to the boat.

Gallery

Criminals at Sea. Bye Bye Bouys. Super-Termites Along for the Ride

Four Bite-Size Stories

Peter Swanson Jun 1

Spouted, Touted, Pleaded Guilty

He spouted conspiracy theories and touted anti-vaccination positions while anchored in the Dominican Republic. Now, Australian Richard Sydney-Smith is waiting to be sentenced for drug smuggling and hoping for less than 10 years in prison.

Sydney-Smith arrived at the country’s hurricane-hole harbor—Luperon Bay—sometime in 2020 in what had been a beautiful steel ketch named Christina. She met her end as scrap in late 2023 after demonstrating a tendency to take on water at anchor.

Next thing we know, according to court documents, a Dominican drug figure named Orlando had hooked Sydney-Smith up with associate Onasis Lisandro Garcia, and the two of them were piloting Easy Times, a 44-foot sportfisherman, en route from the Bahamas to Fort Lauderdale. She was packed with 157 kilograms of cocaine.

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Easy Times was intercepted on the evening of October 27, 2024 about two nautical miles east of the entrance to Fort Lauderdale.

With the jig being up, Sydney-Smith and Garcia quickly went into cooperation mode. Authorities switched out the cocaine with fake stuff and allowed the two men to arrange a rendezvous with their shoreside connections, bringing the total number of arrestees to five.

What some readers may find amazing is how cheap Sydney-Smith and Garcia were willing to work, given that the sentence for smuggling ranges from ten years to life. They told investigators they were paid $3,000 up front with a promise of “$5,000 to $10,000” upon delivery.

They are pleading guilty in hope that the court will grant them mercy, something along the lines of a five-year sentence.

Swaggering Keys Grifter Self-Deports

Jan Kanafoski is a Polish national whose criminal career began in Georgia, where he did time for theft. After that he engaged in a series of escapades—and had another criminal conviction—involving boats that burned, disappeared, were repossessed or given to him as gifts by older men who (one assumes) admired Kanafoski’s swaggering streetwise demeanor.

Kanafoski, 45, became a fixture along the Key West waterfront and, for a while, at Isla Mujeres in Mexico.

The Grift: How an Ex-Con Stole Our Boat And Got Away With It September 11, 2023 Read full story

Kanafoski’s latest ride is Baba Yaga, a 66-foot catamaran, which was provided to him by an “investor” who was told the boat could make money in charter, according to Kanafoski’s son. Baba Yaga is a famous witch from Slavic folklore.

According to Baba Yaga’s most recent AIS coordinates, she was crossing the Atlantic after a stay in Bermuda. Her last available position was 40 days ago, just west of the Azores.

While at Bermuda, Kanafoski took the time to explain his plight in a Facebook post.

His “kid” denies informing on dad. Kid said he believes that the ICE story is made-up. Kid believes dad actually has self-deported, heading back to the mother country because he has cancer and wants to take advantage of Poland’s national health care.

Bouy Removal Breakdown by Sound and Light

The Coast Guard plan to discontinue 350 navigational bouys in the Northeast has been met with widespread chagrin in the maritime community, and the deadline for comments is fast approaching.

The latest criticism comes from the Maine Legislature, which last week passed a unanimous resolution opposing the whole idea, arguing that it represented false savings at the expense of public safety.

But since the Coast Guard comment structure appears built around the question of whether to remove each bouy individually, it is not clear that opposition to the entire concept will carry much weight.

Coast Guard Proposes Eliminating 350 Nav Aids in Foggy, Rocky Northeast Peter Swanson   ·   Apr 24 Read full story

Ted Arisaka is a cruiser and Loose Cannon correspondent who actually took the time to break down the buoys in question by type. His analysis showed 48 sea bouys had been targeted for removal, and further broke them down…

By State and Light Type (0=No Light)

By State and Sound Type (0=No Sound)

Termite Love Child Going to Sea?

Loose Cannon recently published a story quoting scientist Thomas Chouvenc, who believes boats are exporting Florida termites to who knows where. Now, he’s learned that it’s actually worse. He’s discovered a hybrid termite and expects this new super species will also be stowing away.

“Having the two of the most destructive termite species in the world hybridizing here in Florida is a real concern and it is unknown if in the long term it will be a major economic problem that would be compounded to the one already caused by both species,” Chouvenc said.

In his just-published essay in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society, Chouvenc wrote that invasive Formosan subterranean termites and Asian subterranean termites have gone from coexistence to cross-breeding. Chovenc is associate professor of urban entomology at the Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center, a branch of the University of Florida.

The university’s news release on Chovenc’s study concluded:

With the presence of established hybrid colonies now confirmed, scientists warn that the consequences could extend far beyond Florida. Fort Lauderdale, dubbed the “yacht capital of the world,” is a known hotspot for the introduction and spread of invasive termites via recreational boats. Chouvenc’s previous research has shown that private vessels are a major pathway for spreading these species internationally.

“This may be a Florida story now, but it likely won’t stay just in Florida. Give it time,” he warned.

Has Your Boat Been Infiltrated by Termite Stowaways? Apr 11 Read full story