Tue, 2 Oct 2001
Arrived in Niue on Friday 28 September after a somewhat blustery five day passage in "reinforced trades". Having lots of gray raining days, generally just brief rain, feels like Seattle a bit but after about a month of this weather our tans area quickly fading. Very nice people here and the water is crystal clear as there are no streams for runoff. When we first anchored we could see the sandy patches on the bottom in 110 feet of water!! We are now on mooring buoy which is nice in 50 feet of water and it is incredibly clear dark blue water, can see all the details of the bottom snorkeling off the boat. Lots of sea snakes and beautiful coral. We are off on a cave tour with Velella and newer Seattle friends on Layla tomorrow then off to explore the island the next couple of days. Lots of great chasams, it's a very interesting different place, an uplifted coral reef. Speaking of new uplifted things have you guys heard about the new island in Tonga? Not sure if we will be going close by or not but pretty cool but we have the coordinates of the new island just to be sure. Nice to be somewhere off the beaten path for a change.
Thinking about being here for about a week so may leave on Saturday 6 October for the two day passage to Vavau in Tonga. Will let you know when we leave. Anyone can send us emails as it easy to get in and read them and reply to sender is okay just can't get into our address book. Will check email again before we leave.
Working on the logs but can't do cut and paste here so hope to have something to send from Tonga.
Hope everyone is well. We have not had much detailed news lately but things sound a bit scary in terms of sending US forces into Afganistan. It must be very hard in the US with the barrage of media coverage, we are thinking of you all frequently.
All our love -- Suzette and Paul