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   SEPTEMBER , 2010
EXPLORING TONGA


August 11 – August 31, 2010

We spent three weeks in the Ha’apai (hah-ah-pie), Tonga’s central archipelago.  In this group there are 61 islands, which spread over an area approximately 60nm north to south.  We were drawn here because our cruising guide says that this cruising ground is “replete with picture-perfect South Pacific scenery: coral reefs, azure blue and turquoise water, lush islands with sloping white-sand beaches, swaying coconut palms, fruit trees, and verdant foliage”.   However, we had also been told that many yachties avoid this group and sail directly to the northern group, the Vava’u, because it is difficult to find adequate shelter with the low lying islands and the southeast trade winds.  Nevertheless, we had lots of time and we didn’t want to miss experiencing a large part of Tonga.

Our first day into the Ha’apai was a long travel day.  We chose to head for the western side of the group and the closest island that looked as though it would provide good shelter that evening, Nomukai’iki Island.  We dropped anchor inside a large reef just before dinnertime.  We were not feeling well at all and this illness (queasiness and abdominal cramps with diarrhea) lasted for almost two weeks.  We later attributed it to something that we had eaten, either at the resort the night before we left or at the market during that last day in Nuku’alofa.  We quickly ate a very small leftover meal and went to bed early.

The large reef offered only small protection from the southeast swell and we bounced around quite a bit all night.  In the morning, still feeling sick, we were delighted to see two whales with us inside the reef, although at quite a distance away.  We decided to try and find better shelter from the swell and moved around to the north side of the island.  We tried for about 30 minutes to find a better spot to anchor before giving up and heading north to another island, about 12 miles away.

We worked our way around several reefs to get to Matuku Island.  We reminded ourselves of the caution in our guidebook about moving around in Tonga – only travel on good visibility days and try to get to anchorages when the sun is still high or behind us due to the high number of shoals and coral reefs.  Many boats have come to grief in Tonga.  The electronic and paper charts are reputed to be about 0.3nm off and a good lookout is advised when entering an anchorage or avoiding shoals and reefs.

We had hoped to stay at Matuku Island for a couple of days to visit the village and for good fishing opportunities for Paul but again, there was too much swell.  We moved after breakfast and headed for Ha’afeva Island, only 7 miles away.  Finally, it looked calm enough to spend a few days in one place and rest.  The island and two reefs to the north and northeast were providing shelter from the wind and swell.

The Ha’afeva village is on the east side of the island and we walked across to the other side via a rough and narrow dirt road.  Our guidebook said that the villagers are fond of foreigners and welcome visitors.  We were disappointed that this is not what we experienced in our first opportunity to visit a village in Tonga.  We had loaded up our backpack with trading goods, and lots of small items to give to children.  We were first met by three pre-teens who did not speak any English and then by a young man who seemed to claim himself to others as our tour guide.  He spoke a little bit of English, at least enough to ask several times if we had any beer or rum to give him.  We didn’t really need any fruit or vegetables as we had just left Nuku’alofa but we did buy two papayas from our ‘tour guide’.  We had to work very hard to get a response from anyone when we said hello or good morning as we walked around the village.  We actually saw very few people – almost as if they disappeared when we arrived.  We were stunned to learn that there are churches from six different religions in this village of only 200 people.  The largest church was Mormon, with a large white building enclosed by a tall locked fence.  Enclosed in the yard was a 35-foot, high speed powerboat.

On the way back to the boat we saw a large ship, the Sitka, approaching the anchorage and learned from several men waiting on shore that it would be delivering supplies.  There is a dilapidated wharf on shore and we wondered if the ship would be tying up to that somehow but instead it anchored quite a ways out.   Some of the men on shore jumped into a few small runabouts and motored over to the ship.  Wanting to get some good pictures of what was going on, Paul dropped Mary off at Bella Via and then roared off to the ship as well.
The Sitka transports anything and anyone that needs transporting between the many islands that are Tonga.
    Notice the woman in the long red skirt on the far right of the centre picture.  She is about to be heaved over the rail of the Sitka, which is about as high as she is tall.  Paul was polite enough to not photograph her most awkward moments with two men pushing her ‘behind’ up and over the rail..
Paul observed passengers both embarking and disembarking, empty fuel drums being taken aboard and full ones craned out and even a small run-about lifted aboard for delivery elsewhere.  The ship simply anchors in deep water and the villagers come out to it in their many and various launches.


The next day was Sunday and we had planned on going to the village and attending the Tongan church.  However, we did not feel well and decided to spend the day quietly on the boat.  It is Tongan law that no work, noise, or swimming is allowed on Sunday.  All cruisers are asked to honour Tonga customs and laws.

On the Monday we decided to head for the eastern chain of islands in Ha’apai, in the hope that we could find a calm anchorage.  We had a wonderful sail to Uoleva Island, which offers two excellent anchorages, separated by a wide reef, and good protection from the strong southeast trade winds that we were experiencing.  We chose to anchor in the south anchorage as it offered the best all-round protection with shelter on three sides.  Finally, calm water!  We had the anchorage to ourselves for the first two days and then several yachts came and went over the time that we spent there.  We were so comfortable that we spent ten days at Uoleva, and slowly healed from our gastrointestinal woes (with help from the travellers’ diarrhea antibiotics that we have on board).

Uoleva is surrounded by a wide, sloping beach and provided us with a few good beach walks.  Paul was able to snorkel and fish in several locations, which meant good fish dinners and extra for the freezer.
One day Paul went trolling in the dinghy and came back with this beautiful dogtooth tuna caught on light tackle.  In the background is the stunning white sand beach of Uoleva Island.

Shortly after we dropped anchor on our first evening at Uoleva, we noticed three Tongans in a long motorboat unloading stuff from their boat to the beach. It looked as though they were setting up camp.  Sure enough, we could see a campfire later that night.  In the morning, Paul went ashore to see what the men were doing, as there was lots of activity on the beach and at the tree line.  He returned three hours later, with lots of information and to pick up our supply of used eyeglasses.  One of the Tongans needed a pair of reading glasses.
The previous evening, the three Tongan fishermen used their dogs to hunt and kill one of the many wild pigs that live on the island.  This is Hanui standing beside the pig where it had been left hanging over a smoky fire for most of the night.
He then cut it down from the tree, chopped it into smaller chunks with his bush knife and boiled the chunks of smoked meat in seawater for a couple of hours, after which the chunks were then tossed into a plastic bin aboard his wooden fishing boat.
While boiling the pig, Hanui melted some lead from old fishing sinkers to make himself a lead weight with a barbed point at the base of the weight.  The lead was melted in an old tin pan then poured into a mold that Hanui had made from a freshly cut coconut husk. Hanui will tie a line to the top of this weight and use it to pick up sea cucumber from the bottom of the seabed.
This is Liki (LEE-key), Hanui’s brother-in-law, with his new reading glasses.  Liki’s home is Niuatoputapu (NEE-oo-ah-TOH-poo-TAH-poo), one of the most northern islands in Tonga, located some 240 miles north of where Paul met him on the beach.  Liki has been staying with Hanui for the last six months to help Hanui with his fishing business.  Liki is 60 years old.  As a young man he completed some college level education and his command of the English language is excellent.  As a result, Paul was able to learn much about Tonga and Tongan culture during the three or more hours that he spent on the beach chatting with him.


Liki talked of the elections to be held in Tonga this coming November, to elect a parliament for the first time in Tongan history.  Tonga is presently one of the few, if not the only true kingdom on Earth.  The King and his appointed commissioners currently rule the country.  Of greatest interest to Paul was Liki’s heart stopping tale of how he and his family escaped the tsunami that struck his tiny island last September.  When Liki saw the sea rapidly receding from the beach he immediately gathered his family and ran as fast as they could up the only hill of their tiny island to escape the oncoming wave.  Liki ran with his five-year-old son in his arms looking back over his father’s shoulder at the oncoming wave, crying, “Run faster father, the water is coming”.  The wave reached a height of thirty feet as it washed over his village.  They know this to be true because of the marks that the high water left on the palm trees in the village.  The entire village - homes, school, hospital, everything - was completely washed away by the wave while the survivors watched from the hill.  Sadly, six villagers died in the disaster.

During Paul’s conversation with Liki, Liki asked if Paul had any extra books that we could give him because he likes to read.  It was at that time that Paul learned that Liki needed glasses and so Paul was not only able to provide him with a few books from Mary’s excellent collection, but a new (used) pair of glasses from our collection of glasses that friends and family have given us to bring to the islands.

While we were at Uoleva Island, Paul went to the next island, Lifuka, by dinghy (5 miles away) to check in with Customs and buy some fruit and vegetables.  Customs went smoothly but the pickings were very slim for fresh food.  We would have to make do with our tinned and frozen fruit and vegetables until we went north to the main town in the Vava’u Group.

We spent the remainder of our three weeks in the Ha’apai staying at the remaining islands in the group.  Our favourite was an island 10 miles northwest of the eastern chain of islands, Ofalanga.  Ofalanga is described in our cruising guide as a day anchorage or an overnight stay in settled weather.  The weather looked pretty settled for the next few days so we headed for Ofalanga on August 29.  An extensive coral reef surrounds this beautiful palm-studded island.  We anchored on the southern side in a gap in the reef that allowed us to get in fairly close to shore.  The surrounding reef gave adequate protection from swell.
A white sand beach surrounds the island and we went ashore every day.  The island is uninhabited and we were able to burn our garbage.  Paul had some excellent spearfishing opportunities at the reef.


It was at Ofalanga that we had close encounters with whales.  Each year humpback whales make the 6000 km journey from Antarctica to breeding grounds, including Tonga’s tropical waters.  They begin arriving in June and most new calves are born between July and September.

Here is what Paul wrote in two separate emails to our children:  

Email #1 –  “We had a pair of whales lounging less than 50 metres from the boat just before dinner.  I couldn't resist trying to see them in the water.  After donning fins and snorkel I swam as quickly as I could toward them.  Although they moved further from the boat during my swim, the adult surfaced and blew when I was only 20 metres away.  It startled the hell out of me.  Although I continued toward them hoping to see them under water, it wasn't meant to be.  YET!”

Email #2 -  “It happened this morning just after breakfast.  The same pair, mother and calf, were lounging in exactly the same location, about 100 metres from the boat.  Mary agreed to halve the distance by taking me in the dinghy.  I rowed the 50 metres so as not to scare them away.  With fins and snorkel I swam about 40 metres before I was rewarded with an underwater view of the mother and her calf.  It was a strange sensation as I approached them before I could see them through the water.  They were lounging close to the surface so I could see how close I was getting by simply popping my head up.  But whenever I put my head back in the water looking forward I felt afraid.  I think I was afraid of suddenly having them immediately in front of me with little warning.  As it was, they gradually came into view.  And what a view!  Both the calf and the mother were facing me diagonally such that I could see the mother's starboard side and the calf's port side. The mother's head was below the surface of the water and the calf's pectoral fin was below the mother's head.  As if her head was resting on the calf.  They were definitely in contact with one another. The calf was much smaller than I expected.  When I got to within 10 metres I stopped and stared.  I'm sure the mother was looking at me.  I could see her right eye.  I was only in view of them for a few moments, probably less than a minute before the mother decided to move away.  She very slowly began to move her giant tail propelling herself gracefully away from me, and the calf followed her motions positioning itself on her hip, so to speak.

There you have it.  My first but hopefully not my last underwater experience with humpback whales.”  End of Paul’s emails.

We have friends from Australia coming to Bella Via for a stay at the end of September and these emails were also sent to Steve and Bettye, as it is Bettye’s dream to be able to swim with whales while they are visiting.

September 1, 2010

The wind shifted to the southwest during our last night at Ofalanga, which meant that it was time to continue heading north to the Vava’u Group.  We had a whole day of travel ahead of us so we set out early and had a good sail.  Unfortunately the weather deteriorated in the afternoon and by the time that we reached the southern islands in the Vava’u Group our visibility was very poor due to heavy rain. 

We stopped at one of the southern islands in Vava’u, called Euakafa Island, and dropped anchor for the night.  We had good protection from the southeast wind and only a minimal amount of swell coming around the point of the island.

In the morning we noticed that we were anchored near another Canadian boat, “Paikea Mist”, and the owners Gloria and Michael stopped by for a chat before going ashore for a hike.  Gloria and Michael are from British Columbia.  They had been in the Vava’u Group for a few weeks and gave us valuable information about the different island anchorages and about listening to VHF channel 26 at 0830 every morning for the “Cruisers’ Net” for weather and other information.
We left that island later that morning and motored over to Vaka’eitu Island, which offered good protection from most wind directions.  We wanted to be in the main town of Neiafu in a few days and in the meantime we tried out a few of the different anchorages.  We were planning on spending three months in the Vava’u Group and had lots of time for exploration.

The Vava’u (vah-VAH-oo) archipelago is composed of 60 islands distributed over a sea area of 18nm east-west and 16nm north-south.  Vava’u was the last region of Tonga discovered by European pathfinders.

Much of the archipelago features deep seaways that wind, fjord-like, around islands more than 300 feet in height.
This is the “Hine Moana”, a traditional Tongan sailing catamaran called a ‘vaka’.  This one is 22 metres long and 6.5 metres wide.  It does day and over night tours out of Vava’u focusing on Tongan culture and the environment.  Notice the immense rudder that is used to steer the boat by a very strong young Tongan.  During tacking maneuvers Paul saw two men on the rudder using it as a scull to help the vessel come through the eye of the wind.


On Monday, September 6, we went into Neiafu, the administrative centre of the group.   We needed groceries, to check in with Customs, and to find a welder who could fix the small hole in our starboard engine muffler.

There was lots of activity in Neiafu.  It is the base for two charter yacht companies and there are moorings all along one side of the deep-water harbour.  As well, two dive and whale watch companies operate moorings for rent.  We asked for and received one of the last few moorings in this busy harbour. 

The next couple of days were filled with trips ashore to check out the best places to get groceries and the numerous cafes and restaurants.  Paul was able to find a welder for the muffler but, even after two trips to the shop, there is still a small leak.  We will deal with it when we get back to New Zealand.  Mostly we wanted to look at what is available in the town because we will be back at the end of the month to provision for our friends’ stay aboard.

We had learned on Cruisers’ Net that there was going to be a Canada Aid fundraiser on Lape Island on September 11 and we wanted to attend.  The villagers were hosting a Tongan feast to raise money to rebuild their wharf that had been destroyed in a cyclone.  Canada Aid would donate 3 Pa’anga dollars for every 1 Pa’anga dollar raised.
 
We headed over to the Lape Island anchorage on Thursday as the anchorage is not very big and we wanted to be sure and get a spot.  We were with one other boat the first night and then by Saturday night we were totally surrounded by other boats. 

It was laundry day when we arrived at the anchorage on Thursday and after Paul helped with that chore, he went ashore to check out the village.  He came back a few hours later and reported that he had met the one and only village schoolteacher, Daniel, who has only five students from grade 1 to 5 in his class.
Paul was quite exited because Daniel had just received a brand new Toshiba laptop, photocopier, and generator from the Tongan government (with only a few hours of instruction).  And he needed lots of additional instruction from Paul!!  Over the next few days, Paul spent several hours per day adding to Daniel’s skills in using this equipment.


On Saturday, September 11, we went ashore in the afternoon for the feast and were greeted by several children, all of whom received a balloon from Paul.  When several of the yachties had gathered on shore, Daniel proudly gave everyone a tour of his one-room schoolhouse.

The event also included a demonstration of traditional weaving and the children of the island singing while dressed in traditional Tongan costumes.  The buffet table was covered with more than twenty platters of food, including no less than fifteen different Tongan dishes, with a roasted pig front and centre.  All had a great time.

The villagers were very pleased to accept a donation of over 1500 Pa’anga from the yachties in attendance.  This sum was in addition to the many generous donations that had already been promised by various businesses in Neiafu.
Mary is receiving a greeting and a flower necklace from Kolio on arrival at the Tongan Feast.
The children in traditional Tongan dress.  It is very hard to get Tongan children to smile.  They are very shy!
Daniel, the schoolteacher, carving a piece of roasted pig for Claudia from the Swiss yacht, “Dreamtime”.
As you know, Paul has done lots of snorkeling and spearfishing but it wasn’t until the Lape Island anchorage that he was able to snorkel with someone with an underwater camera.  Here is Mary’s hunter, gatherer in action!  Unfortunately the fishing is not great in Vava’u, probably due to the amount of boats around.  Thanks JoDon for the great picture.


September 18, 2010

We have been anchored in a peaceful, sheltered anchorage at Hunga Island for several days.  There have been strong winds out of the east and we have been very comfortable.  Today, we will be moving closer to Neiafu and heading into town on Sunday to get ready for shopping and more town business on Monday.
 
May you always be ready to dance and enjoy life, no matter where you are or what you are doing!

 

    Journal 2009
    
Tongan Pig Roast