Position: 19 degrees, 03 minutes south; 169 degrees, 55 minutes west

The coastline is so rugged, the only way ashore for our dinghies is on this hoist (Charisma is on a mooring in the background)

Hooking up. If there are any waves at all, this is very tricky-and it's directly exposed to the ocean. Impossible to do when the wind is out of the west.

John showing his special style

Off the hoist and on a trolly and you park your dinghy in the lot

Simple as that

Beveridge Reef (I’ve been spelling it wrong) to Nuie was a little over a 24 hour leg. We left at 1230 on Tuesday and arrived Niue at approximately 1600 on Wednesday. We were helped by a time change that gave us an extra hour.

The trip was a tough one. Squally weather the whole way meant that Charisma was never really balanced for the long haul. That meant that Ann and I were constantly trimming the sails and the wind vane for changes in wind speed and direction over the course of the trip. Charisma didn’t settle down until the last six hours on Wednesday when the wind finally settled into a groove. That means little to no uninterrupted sleep for the last 24 hours. We got here, checked in at customs, made pizza for dinner and now; sleep. Oh yeah, we had a Charisma while watching the rain that’s been forecast start to come in. We got here just in time.

Looks like we’ll be here at least through Monday. There’s lots to do. Snorkeling, hiking, biking, there’s even a tour where they advertise you can swim with the whales. There are a lot of whales here. We’ve heard they even swim right through the moorings. In fact the mooring right behind us is not usable right now because a whale damaged it a couple weeks ago when it got caught in it as it swam by (I don’t know what kind of damage, I just know it’s not useable right now).

OK, time to sleep before I start rambling…