Day 351, Year 1: Lost a Day with Arrival in Tonga
Date: Wednesday, October 4, 2006
Weather: Sunny and Considerably Cooler
Latitude: 18 degrees 39 minutes S
Longitude: 173 degrees 59 minutes W
Location: Port of Refuge, Neiafu, Vava’u Group, Tonga
Yesterday’s glorious afternoon turned into a challenging night with winds right on our nose. Yesterday we had north winds, then west winds, and then, switch, the winds were coming at us directly out of the south. This is all because the low that was sitting on top of Tonga moved southeast a couple of days sooner than expected. We made it to Neiafu, even though the north winds persisted all the way. The clouds cleared, however, and we had another glorious blue sky day as we entered the Kingdom of Tonga. This is the only monarchy remaining in the South Pacific and it is the only Pacific nation to never be brought under foreign rule.
Yesterday was Monday and today is Wednesday. We just lost a complete day. Tonga is just west of the International Date Line. They had the date line moved from its normal longitude of 180 degrees to just east of Tonga so they could use the marketing slogan “where time begins”. Some of the guide books do a take-off on that and say the slogan should really be “where time stands still”. Evidently life here moves a slower pace than life in most places in the 21st century. As we motored into the Vava’u group of Tongan islands, Mark and I were both struck by the totally different look of the islands here from anything else we have seen in the South Pacific. It looks more like the Whitsunday Islands in Australia, and that is because these islands are uplifted coral atolls. Once there were fiery volcanoes here. The volcanoes eventually sunk into the sea and the coral polyps began to build up the islands. Tonga has four such groups. In the south there is the Tongatapu Group. North of that are the islands of the Ha’apai Group. The next group north is the Vava’u Group where we are, and north of us are the Nuies.
Tonga means “south” and because we are further from the equator, the weather here is much cooler and a lot less humid than the Samoas. As we came in today, I felt like I was sailing in Maine in the summer. Blue skies, deep blue water, lots of green islands, and a cool wind from the 78 degree water-but you have to add coconut trees for here. We have been soooo hot for so long that maybe we will enjoy the cooler climate. Since the water temperature here is 78 degrees F and I think that means we will be wearing our dive skins. Snorkeling is supposed to be fantastic, so dive skin or not, I can’t wait.
Evidently this is THE place to gather in October before heading south to New Zealand. Once we were in VHF radio range today, we heard one boat after another that we know calling each other. Some boats we haven’t seen since Rarotonga are here like Ohana Kai and Wind Pony. Other boats that were in Apia with us are all here-Quantum Leap, Jade, Zephryn, Ababy, Kika, Noa, and on and on. Gdansk was with us in American Samoa and they are here. And we were delighted when we got a call from Savior Vivre. We haven’t seen Jamie and Lucy since the Marquesas, so we are anxious to get together with them. There are almost as many boats here in the main anchorage as there were in Balboa in Panama and everyone we talked to today said that is a fabulous place. We talked to Wind Pony who has been here for five weeks and they plan to stay here until the end of the month when they will sail south to New Zealand. The more we heard, the more we thought we might just stay here and not go on to Fiji this season. If Tonga is as good as the reports, I think Windbird will be here snorkeling day after day for the next month. Sounds great to me!
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| 061004 Day 351 Tonga, Vava'u–Arrival in Neiafu |
