Our second Paddle Against Plastic on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast was set up to finish cleaning Stumers Creek after a team of 18 paddlers had managed to pull 107kg of debris out back in June. We had a focus of cleaning up the area closer to the mouth and with the obvious meeting point being at the Off the Leash Dog Beach at the end of Stumers Creek Road, that meant we had access to clean Read more
Coming to the end of a big journey like this is bitter sweet. The feat of actually finishing is one thing, however the fact that it is over is another thing all together. When you add to the fact that you are departing Fiji, well it really is a mixed feeling. We both loved Fiji and wanted to spend more time, but home was calling and the need to get home and get back to Read more
One of the things I never did in Fiji when I was here last was go diving. We were running windsurfing and kitesurfing tours so a few snorkels were about as close as we got to the action. There were two dive sites in particular we wanted to check out. The Salamander Wreck and the Supermarket. The Salamander is a 30m cruise ship that was deliberately sunk and lies in 27m of water. The Supermarket Read more
Waking up in Fiji means waking up in Fiji time. There is no hurry to do anything and as we had a whole weekend to fill in before we could get to the islands, that’s exactly what we did. We arose and had a casual breakfast before heading off to catch the bus into Lautoka to go to the markets. The bus comes to the front gate of Vuda Point Marina. They are basic buses Read more
In 1998 and 99, I ran windsurfing tours to Plantation Island in Fiji from Sailboard Headquarters in Melbourne. I took a photo on one of those trips of my friend Brendon windsurfing back towards the beach. In the distance behind him is a yacht sailing past a white sandy beach. It was the inspiration behind getting a yacht and running windsurfing charters in Fiji which I succeeded in doing in 2002 with my good friend Read more
After two spectacular days exploring the land in Niue, Monday morning was time to return the car and then meet Remi from Magical Niue Adventures for a day of diving. We dropped the car off early morning, went to the yacht club for a bit of internet time and returned to our yacht to get our dive gear ready. Just after lunch, we saw their rigid inflatable launched at the dock and they came over Read more
Our second day on land in Niue started at a reasonable hour. We headed straight across the island to Lakepa Village. The drive across the middle took in so many different types of vegetation, you thought you were in different countries every 5 minutes. 1 minute you are amongst trees and grass fields, then you are in a dense rain forest and then you switch to tropical bushland. There wasn’t a lot to see in Read more
Our anchorage on the south east corner of Niue was perfect. We got a great nights sleep and in the morning woke up to find the wind had rotated around to the south quicker than expected. We had breakfast and set off on a slow journey around the northern end of the island. We were in no hurry as we needed the swell to die off on the west coast and that would take hours, Read more
The trip from Maupiti to Niue is 1020nm. We could have gone via the Cooks Islands, however Raratonga is fairly south of the direct path and Aituataki doesn’t have the depth in the channel suitable for anything other than catamarans. So a direct path to Niue was the best option. Our forecast showed us 24-36 hours of steaming before we got to the wind and it ended up being about 42 hours but then the Read more
Technically we had 24 hours to leave French Polynesia from the time we walked out of the Gendarmarie’s office in Bora Bora. As we spent the night still in Bora Bora, that meant we had till lunch time to depart the country. There is a problem with this, Maupiti was on our way out and it had a great reputation of being more like the Tuamotu islands, a pristine, undeveloped atoll with a lagoon. Maupiti Read more
