1999-2004: The South Pacific 

Our next stop after Samoa was the most northern Tongan Island of Niuafo'ou, considered in many ways one of the remotest islands in the world. It is equidistant from Nuku'alofa (Tonga), Savaii (Western Samoa) and Taveuni (Fiji). A supply ship comes by maybe once a month. The island has had only three boats visit this year, and no boats last year. Very remote. Niuafo'ou is an active volcano, with very rugged terrain and beautiful crater lakes in the interior. There is no good anchorage and Sam swam to shore since it was too rough to even get the dinghy in. He met a local who told him of the only landing on the Island,and we moved Rhapsodie and anchored off the landing. We went in with the dinghy to a very rough beach where the locals were there waiting to help pull the boat up before the next wave hit. We got a tour of the island on a cart attached to the back of a tractor all decorated with flowers in honor of our visit_ Everyone on the island waved as we passed, it felt like we were in a parade. We swam in warm crater lakes, and had the tractor meet us on the other side of one lake so we could swim across. Great exercise.

Nivafo'ou is also called 'Tin Can Island" since it is too rough for supply boats to anchor, so the supply boats, and passing cruise ships, throw the mail into the water in tin cans for the locals to pick up. They used to swim out to the cans, but there was a fatal shark attack, so now they use their outriggers and hope for quiet seas.

We have on board Rhapsodie every National Geographic issue on CDs. There was an article on Tin Can Island from the 1920s that we printed, pictures and all, on our little Hewlett-Packard DeskJet 340 (love it, love it) and gave to out hosts. They got all excited by some of the pictures, and claimed to be able to identify some of the people in the pictures. The article explained how Nivafo'ou has been nailed fairly regularly by volcanic explosions and lava flows which have wiped out several towns, including the capital.