Day 3 and 4 on Niue on board FGT Mon 23 & Tue 24 August 2010
Position Lat 19-03S Long 169-55W moored at Niue - Zero Cape Petrel miles to Niue. (1274m from Whangarei NZ)
Trip log 21325 at Noon today Days run - forget it - whale watching
Wind 10 to 20 knots East - South-East. Boat speed av 0 knots. Barometer 1016 steady
Sails - none!! Until Tue - main with #2reef to steady her down boyo.
cloud cover - puffy trade wind numbers Air temp 28C water temp 28C
Really bright full moon but only at night
Fakaalofa Atu from Oma Tafua - or Greetings from Our Treasured Whales
Yesterday morning bright and early we set off to look for whales. The crew were Karen, Karlos, the Sm, Olive, Cara, Ben and Fia Fia our Niueian founder of Oma Tafua - Our Treasured Whales. OT was set up to educate mainly Niueians about whale conservation as us falangis have managed to destroy 90% of whale stocks. Niueians want the whales - mostly humpbacks - to hang hereabouts, firstly to monitor their health and also to enjoy the whale watching which is a visitor attraction. The Sm can personally tell you that the second coming of BiG Bill the Humpback Whale surfacing right next to the FGT on the mooring at night and telling the Sm that his boat doesn't look as tasty as some he has rubbed up against, is definitely a significant emotional event - think of a large bull grunting before it charges followed by a whoosing blow sound and brother your jaw drops in amazement. Oh no I hope he keeps tooling off that way. He did.
Anyway back to the boat - we cruised along the North shore for a while until we saw BB's cousin fooling about outside the Coral Gardens resort. That's the current residence of Anne and Gerry so we can only surmise Cous was stopping by for a chat. He/she slid off - we slid off after him/her whereupon Cous must have done a back flip under the boat and headed back to the resort. Fia Fia said ' poor guy - let's leave him/her in peace' so off we went spotting one more before we packed it in 'cause we needed to report to the Police and Immigration. We managed the Police ok but Immigration had closed so Karen, Karlos and the Sm ( the folks staying on FGT )inspected the shops on the main drag of Alofi. We met Moka at the Tourist office, Carmen at the stamp shop, and Mamata at the Niue Yacht Club (a mini-version of BHYC). Then a tropical rain shower saw us sitting under a porch from which we made sure all who drove by waved at us - actually mainly vice versa. Friendly ain't the word for it!
Strangely we were pretty hungry and tired - nothing to do with getting up early and being bounced around in the sun all day.. so the rain stopped, the smiles continued, and a couple of beers at the NYC proved just the thing as the crowd gathered for the Monday night sausage sizzle. The whole gang turned up, Olive, Cara, Ben, Fia Fia, Vanessa, Helen, Sue, Chris, Gerry, Anne, Karen, Karlos, the Sm, Joan and Jim just to round out the table - and when the SS was ready the Sm made a minor blunder by rushing the food and tucking away the first one, then casually arriving back there 3 more time - guess he was hungry greedy guts.
Olive gave the most amazing presentation - perhaps done once or twice before? - on conservation of whales in general and humpbacks in particular - the Sm was so impressed he is now an official Whaleyman, and has taken up the challenge of WhaleAwareness. Not sure how that works but it's to do with primary school presentation around Oakville Canada - the old home town.
Back on the boat last night the whales were having a right old time - singing away to beat the band - Karlos heard the singing in the metal hull - kind of doing their version of that yoga chant 'oh ooomah' but the Sm fell into a deep sleep and woke up this morning at 5:25am to help Karlos and Karen do fresh goodies shopping at the local market - which we did and then with Gerry and Anne on board went whale watchin'.
And we saw'em - a pod of Sei whales giving us a very good view as they quietly swam along with us off to the side mostly close to the surface with a bunch of blows - all seems very relaxed.
Arrived back at the mooring kind of latish -7;30pm so we did a nice 12 hours tooling around and finished with a beautiful moonlite sail along the coast - music playing - couple of beers - tropical - v nice.
Now for dinner whipped up by our crewmate Chris at her motel - aah the hard living life.
More whales tomorrow - hope Big Bill stays away tonight.
Mutolu Kia from the FalconGt crew
Don't forget to check www.svfalcongt.com and www.thekermadecs.org
