Chickens, seasnakes and a whole lot of courage

Niue – population: 1400 people, a pod of dolphins and more chooks than New Zealand has sheep.

It is also an amazing example of courage in the face of disaster.

In 2004 Niue was clobbered by a tropical cyclone that pretty much levelled a large portion of it. Cyclone Heta was a category 5  that devastated the tiny island’s capital of Alofi, wiping out most of its commercial, electronic and communication infrastructure.

Six years later, after an aid injection from New Zealand and Australia, the tourism industry is growing,the marine life is returning, you can scuba dive, swim with dolphins, snorkel and sample the local cuisine. Both Paddy and I agree its somewhere we are happy to see our taxpayer dollar at work.

So technically this blog entry is a little off topic since we didn’t actually sail to Niue, but it ticks the tropical paradise and scuba diving boxes so I’m running with it – It’s my blog and I can bend the rules if I want to! 🙂

Paddy and I have just come back from a week in Niue (though both of us felt we really needed two!). It was essentially meant to be a diving holiday, but we fell in love with the place in the process.

If you’re looking for flash hotels with hottubs and Sky TV then perhaps Niue isn’t the place for you. But if you want to be able to chill out, commune with awesome seacritters, and are happy to operate on island time, you will love it. There is only one plane in and out each week, so you arrive on a plane full of strangers and leave knowing the vast majority of them through running into them at the islands local hangouts (like the Niue Yacht Club that doubles as an icecream parlour or the Washaway Cafe where you pour your own drinks, write down what you bought in a book, put your money in the till and take your own change).

For me the highlights were diving, dolphins and whalesong and I experienced all of these through the fantastic folk at Niue Dive. I’m a bit of a newbie diver and I hadn’t been in the water for a little while so I have to admit I was a bit of a scaredy cat at first. I was by far the least experienced on all the dives we did but Annie, Ian and BJ from the dive shop were wonderfully patient with me and in the end had me doing things that exhilarated and challenged me. I hadn’t had much experience cave diving and we did quite a bit of that, but I was able to do it in my time and at my pace and was really proud of myself when I actually did it. I also went down the deepest I have so far (27 metres) which wasn’t half as scary as I thought it would be.

Sometimes, when you’re inexperienced, you get the feeling that you are holding up the works for those who actually know what they are doing, but I never got that feeling from any of the people we went out with, it was pretty much all in my head. Whenever someone said ‘don’t worry, we’ve all been there’ it didn’t feel like a platitude and I actually really appreciated it every time I heard it.

While the caves were fascinating, and some truly beautiful when you saw the sunlight shining through from the surface, I have to say it was the reef diving I enjoyed the most – just cruising around checking out  clown fish and giant clams and seeing the coral regenerating.

When you are underwater it becomes very obvious how much damage the cyclone has done. There is a vast amount of dead coral, which is sad, but there are also signs of life – and that life becomes all the more vibrant in contrast. The new coral growth and the fish and the sea snakes stand out all the more for it I think.

One of my favourite dive spots was Snake Gully – it had coral and critters, beautiful caverns – and of course, sea snakes.

I didn’t know this, but sea snakes (or at least the ones in Niue) actually swim up to the surface to breathe. It was quite fascinating watching them from the boat before we dived in, their little snakey heads popping up out of the water to gulp a few breaths before slowly slithering back down again. From the bottom it was really lovely to watch, four or five snakes at a time winding slowly winding upwards like reverse reptilian rain.

And yes they are poisonous, but they have such teeny tiny teeth that you’d pretty much have to shove your finger down their throat and squeeze their head for them to be able to do any damage – all the same, I wasn’t game to cuddle one, no matter how friendly they seemed to be!

Whales are another reason people are drawn to Niue, and usually at this time of year mother whales come in to the island to calve. Unfortunately this season, because of the La Nina weather pattern (please correct me if I’m wrong, I always get them muddled up!) the water has been a couple of degrees too warm for them, so there haven’t been so many around. We were able to see some coming in pretty close from the Coral Gardens resort we were staying at, but we didn’t have so much luck finding them when we were out in the boats. We were however able to hear them singing underwater, which was magical.

The dolphins were fabulous too – it was my first time swimming with dolphins and they were just beautiful! The dolphins that hang around Niue are Spinners, named for their habit of leaping out of the water and whirling around like dervishes – apparently just for the hell of it.  I’ve heard that dolphins get all the food they need in 15 minutes a day and spend the rest of their time playing and shagging – and we definitely spotted a little bit of both on this trip!

My favourite was a little baby dolphin in the pod who was trying desperately to keep up with the big kids – when they leapt out of the water he followed with a bit of a feeble splash and he could only manage about one and a half spins before falling back into the water – but hey, he was trying!

Sadly there are a lot of abandoned buildings that still have not been rebuilt and apparently there are three times more Niueans living in New Zealand than there are now in Niue. But as one local said to us ‘if they all came back, where would they fit?’ I guess it shows that those who stayed are the ones who love the place, and that there is the opportunity to leave and make a life elsewhere for those who want to.

Niue is a lovely little place, but it is isolated so the tourism industry is vital for it. So go there, it’s gorgeous – and if you don’t believe me, here are some more pictures to make you jealous 🙂