Anchored between Kapa and Nuku Islands

Kapa Island with Nuku Island in background

Swallow's Cave - dinghy right in!

Definitely more pigs than people!

Carol on Nuku baech

Anchored between Kapa and Nuku Islands 

July 7, 2015


We are enjoying a quiet respite from traveling and thoroughly enjoying this anchorage. The small island of Nuku has a beach and reef but nothing else and most of the time we have been the only ones here, or one other boat. It is well sheltered from the wind and waves. The engine has started a few times now with no problems so we are starting to relax about it.

We have hiked around a few places on Kapa. They say there are more pigs than people and I would believe it now. We took the dinghy to the end of the island where there is a large cave, Swallows Cave. You can drive the dinghy right into it ,huge in width and height, and clear to the bottom. pretty awesome sight!

There has been a NZ boat next to us that we met in Lape. When we arrived they invited us for dinner .There are 4 aboard. The captain, Jeff, has made the trip to this area for 8 years now so has a wealth of info to share. It was particularly helpful to talk to someone about Fiji, our next stop, and get their ideas. It is not a scheduled BPO stop so we are light on reference material. We photocopied pages from a guide book and copied some charts. Fiji is a difficult area for navigation with lots of islands and reefs and rules about where you can go. We had them back for dinner last night and got to talk more about NZ. We are looking forward to a visit there (by plane) in Sept. They have offered lodging in the Hawks Bay area if we would like.

I wouldn't want to be in NZ right now. We are getting their cold forecasts as part of our marine weather. Locals have never seen it this cold for so long. There was an earthquake in the Tongan trench each of the last 2 days, 5.2 and 6.2, 50 nm away. That is 8 so far this month. Another unusual weather event has been tropical cyclone, Raquel, in the Solomon Islands. This is well past the "safe" season. There have been 3 more in the Pacific just north of the equator, which is unusually early for there. The remnants of Raquel are crossing Tonga today but further south.

An aside: One other year when Jeff was in this same anchorage, he extended an invitation to drinks then dinner to a boat anchored next to him. At the end of the evening when they exchanged contact info, the captain said he was the producer of Lord of the Rings. Another time it was the director and a dancer from the Sydney Ballet.