by Judy Handley | Oct 6, 2006 | Sailing Logs Year 1, Tonga, Vava'u |
Day 353, Year 1: Quiet Day in Neiafu
Date: Friday, October 6, 2006
Weather: Cloudy, Rainy Day
Location: Port of Refuge, Neiafu, Vava’u Group, Tonga
I got in big trouble with my daughter Heather for “complaining” about the 78 degree F water temperature here, so I’m going to have to go easy with my descriptions of the beautiful weather. No problem with that today. We woke up to cloudy skies and then the rain began. It looks like we might have this kind of weather for the next couple of days, so we’ll just kick back and get some of the indoor projects we have been working on completed. I am still working on Samoa pictures and Mark is reading and rereading everything he can get his hands on about weather and the passage to New Zealand. It was actually very nice to have a day off and I enjoyed it tremendously.
Mid-afternoon we visited the ‘Utualonggu Market again and then went to a place called the Aquarium. This is an internet cafe that serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and arranges dive and whale trips. There is also a shop with local crafts there. It is just next door to the Moorings and is very close to where we are moored, so it is very convenient. We did internet weather research and uploaded pictures from Samoa to the website. I am still not finished naming all of the Samoa folders, but it feels good to get a few folders uploaded each day.
We had a quiet dinner back here on Windbird tonight. Not much else to report. If the weather stays like it is now, we will probably have a repeat day tomorrow. If it clears, we are going to an out island. We’ll report in on that decision tomorrow evening.
by Judy Handley | Oct 5, 2006 | Sailing Logs Year 1, Tonga, Vava'u |
Day 352, Year 1: Tonga—What a Special Place
Date: Thursday, October 5, 2006
Weather: Beautiful Clear Blue Sky, Sunny Day
Location: Port of Refuge, Neiafu, Vava’u Group, Tonga
We’ve only been here one day, but we can tell that we are going to love it. It is very different in many ways from anyplace we have been. The town of Neiafu truly combines the old with the new. It is set up for tourists and has many wonderful little restaurants. There are Italian and Mexican restaurants, plus a myriad of small places on the waterfront that specialize in everything from New Zealand beef to the most delicious local lobster ( I had that for lunch.) It is not quite as cheap here as Samoa. There a cheeseburger cost $6.50 Samoan Tala which is only $2.00 plus a little US. Here a cheeseburger at the most expensive restaurant costs $15.00 Tongan which is $7.50 US. But a cheeseburger here is about 6 inches high with layers of Canadian Bacon, cucumbers, green pepper, and tomato, in addition to the hamburger, and comes with a huge helping of home fries. Not particular healthy, but lots of food. Most dinners cost anywhere from $15 to $30 Tongan or half of that US, so that’s not bad. The food market here is much smaller than in Apia, but it has a greater variety of vegetables, including lettuce. There’s nothing fancy looking here, but things are not really rundown. The people are poor, but you can tell that they are a proud people. So basically it is a very small town that centers around tourism and government work with very friendly people trying to hold on to their traditions.
Since Neiafu is a small town and the government center for the Vava’u Group of islands, there are a lot of government workers. They all dress in uniform, which right now consists of a black dress for women or black shirt and lava lava for men with a tavalu or woven mat worn around the waist. The reason for the black is the mourning period for the king. Young people are not wearing black, but almost everyone over 18 seems to be honoring the official mourning. The woven mats called tavalus are charming. I have seen pictures and thought they looked strange, but in person, they are beautiful. Each person has a different kind and some of them are of a very fine weave and decorated with woven scallops that look like fine crocheted lace edging. We are fascinated with each one. The quality of the weaving here is better than anyplace else we have been.
Our morning began with the check-in procedure. We had been told that we would have to pull up to the dock, but when Mark went over this morning to check it out, he could see that there was no way we could fit. A mega-yacht is tied to the wharf and takes up most of the available space. So Mark and John of Splashes decided to take their chances and just show up at Customs. They did and it worked. But then they went to Immigration and the Immigration Officer insisted that he must board the boat. So Mark and John brought him out to the boats. His name was Sunia Lilo, probably around 40 years of age, maybe younger. We had a delightful conversation. He wanted to know all about our sailing experiences and about our children. We, in turn, asked about his children. He has two girls, one eleven and one thirteen, and an eight year old son. We talked about schools, and I mentioned to Sunia that I have some children’s books onboard that I would like to donate to his son’s school. He got very excited and explained that they have a real shortage of books here. Sunia is going to make the arrangements to take us to the school to visit and deliver the books. I’m looking forward to that. He also talked about visiting his brothers that live in the United States, one in Fort Worth, Texas, and one in Long Beach, California. He said that he feels very lucky to be able to live here because he doesn’t have to worry about machine guns in the street outside his home. Evidently his brothers don’t live in the best part of town. This was one of the first times we have been reminded of the violence back home in the US. There’s some theft in the South Pacific, but not the kind of violence we have in US cities.
After check-in, we spent the rest of the day walking about the small town. We had lunch at a place called the Roasted Duck (correction–the Dancing Chicken) with Tom and Bette Lee of Quantum Leap. We saw some old friends-Kelly and Kelly of Moorea and Bob and Diane of White Swan. They were with us in Raitea and in Rarotonga and it was fun to see them again here. There are probably a hundred boats in this Tongan group right now, all waiting for the perfect weather window for the passage to New Zealand. We had hoped that Windcastle would be here today, but they stopped in the northern Niua Group at Niuatoputapu. They were fighting the wind and decided it was smarter to stop and wait until the wind is going the right direction. Actually Mark is talking to them on the radio right now and Doug is explaining that they might end up leaving from Niuatoputapu and going directly to Fiji. I’m hoping they will come here first.
Tonight we are going out to dinner at Tongan Bob’s with John and Janice on Splashes. Tomorrow we will stay here and then on Saturday we will head out to one of the out islands. That’s where the snorkeling is and that’s where I want to be.
by Judy Handley | Oct 4, 2006 | Sailing Logs Year 1, Tonga, Vava'u |
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!
