Day 356, Year 1: Water Day–Snorkeling and Boat Bottom Cleaning
Date: Monday, October 9, 2006
Weather: Beautiful Blue Sky, Sunny Day
Location: Vaka’eitu Island, Vava’u Group, Tonga

Our day began as usual by listening to the two different radio nets. We first listen to the Coconut Net at 7:30 am and then to The Rag at 8:00. The Coconut Net is run by those of us out here cruising. Different people volunteer to be net controller and then those of us that are underway check in with a position report. Once you have checked in as underway, you must continue to check in daily until you arrive in a new port. If a boat checks in and then is not heard from, measures are taken to find that boat. There is also one person who has taken on the overwhelming task of giving a daily weather report. Jeff on Kauila has been our weatherman for many months, but he will not be doing weather for the passage to New Zealand. That is where The Rag comes in. This net is controlled by the same guy everyday. He is in Fiji and has been there since 2002. Another person here in Tonga helps by reading the Grib files everyday. These guys give the weather report for the western Pacific and down to New Zealand. It is a great service and we are now listening more intently as we prepare for the 1,000 mile passage to NZ.

Doug from Windcastle checked into The Rag this morning and reported that he was 44 miles from Neiafu. Later this afternoon, he called us on Channel 16 to let us know that he was entering the pass into Neiafu. We can usually hear boats within a 20 mile radius on 16 and nothing here in Vava’u is any further than that. We are thinking of going back to Neiafu tomorrow night to see Sylvia and Doug, drop off some garbage, use the high-speed internet service there, and then coming back out to a different anchorage. If we do that, we will do some exploring on land here in the morning before leaving. It takes about three hours total to get back to Neiafu, so we have the time to do some exploring before returning.

We started our day today by snorkeling on the inside of the reef that is between two islands. We have read that the nicer coral is on the outside of the reef, but it is much more difficult to get there. We didn’t see fantastic coral, but we did see lots of beautiful blue sea stars, some mustard yellow biscuit stars, and an array of interesting fish. When we returned to the boat, we kept our dive skins on and went to work cleaning the bottom of Windbird. The cooler water, along with the wind, requires some sort of protection to stay in the water for extended periods. Our dive skins seem to be perfect and they kept us nice and warm as we worked to clean the waterline and bottom of the boat. Mark was under the boat for quite sometime today and he did finally get a little chilly. We didn’t finish the cleaning job, but we sure got a good start on it.

While we were cleaning the bottom, Quantum Leap left this anchorage. I think I have mentioned that the anchorages here are numbered, so they shouted out the number of their next destination as they left. Zephryn and Iron Bark also left today, and a boat named Cheshire Cat with Mike and Deirdre came in. Just as we were finishing up our cleaning job, we saw that George and Uta on Miami were leaving. We met George and Uta in Bora Bora and then again in American Samoa and we wanted to go over and say hello before they left. We had heard that they are having serious problems with their rigging. They have stress cracks where the rigging is attached to the chain plates at deck level. When we went over, Mark and George brainstormed some short-term safety measures that they can use on their way to New Zealand. If the rigging goes, your mast comes down, and that is certainly not something you want to happen on the way to New Zealand. It was great to see them again. They headed down to the Ha’apai Group this afternoon, and we will probably see them there next week as we head further south.

I ended the day by doing a laundry while Mark fixed dinner. He made a great chili that hit the spot in this cooler climate. The cooler temperatures also make for much more comfortable sleeping, and it’s almost time for that!