Boats from the Cooks to Niue, American Samoa

Has anyone got any experience of hitching a ride from the Cook Islands across to Niue or American Samoa (and back)?

I have been told there are no scheduled services, and the only flights seem to be via NZ... but I would rather see if I could get a local boat if possible, and am trying to plan ahead and find out in advance of actually arriving in the Cooks in February.

Any help is very much appreciated :)

The chances of getting ANY boat from the Cooks to Niue or AS in February are just about zero. No int'l shipping line serving the Cooks take passengers, so that's not an option ever. And 99% of yachts don't travel around the SP during the cyclone season, which is Nov to April.

Even May to Nov it's a hit and miss thing with yachts, it might require you hanging around RAR for a month or more to find a yacht that would take you to Niue or AS.

So, nice idea, but probably not do-able.

<blockquote>Quote
<hr>it might require you hanging around RAR for a month or more <hr></blockquote>...which, along with the money required even for hitching a yacht-ride, may well cost you more than flying.

BTW Raro, any news of a new Rarotonga-Nadi flight starting up?

Hi Laszlo---
I've been overseas for a few months, but my friends there have not mentioned anything about that. Maybe JeannieJ on this TT branch might know. Nothing on the CI News website, so probably nothing will be done until just before or after it stops (end of Oct.), or not at all. That's what happened when the RAR/PPT route stopped, Air Raro got together with Air Tahiti a few weeks afterwards.

Due to all the int'l bodies with HQ's in Fiji, there is a lot of official and NGO travel to and from Fiji, so some airline might pick this up. But for tourists it would probably be a separate ticket, like the new PPT/RAR routes.

Someone should start courting Air Pacific - the best hope, I think! ;-)

Air Pacific is a good choice. They had actually started a route from Austr to NAD/RAR/PPT and back a few yrs ago. But then the George Speight coup happened a week later. So it did about three RT's to PPT. The last one had only two passengers, as tourism to Fiji went to almost nil due to that coup, so they stopped it.

Thanks for your help everyone. I'll have to consider flying then - as my idyllic ideas of travelling round the South Pacific in a little boat have another nail driven into the coffin :'(

Might start up an airline myself if there's a gap in the market... anyone know how to fly? ;)

trotsky---I think you should keep the dream alive, just start it during May or June, and plan on taking six months or more, to give you time to get on a yacht. By November the yachts will stop, for the most part, due to cyclone season.

There are actually a few retired and amateur pilots on this TT branch. Maybe "Trotsky Air"---well, maybe better go with "Neon Air"---can get off the ground in the coming future!

Hey! Air Trotsky does have a ring to it. And, given the increased attention from China, these days, it might just work!

Re #3: There haven't been any murmurs about new flight options between here (Rarotonga) and Fiji once the current service ends, unfortunately. I'll post something on TT if I hear of anything.