Tonga

We had another week in Tonga—firstly attending a Tongan feast on one of the lovely sandy beaches. The feast consists of parcels of food—fish in coconut milk wrapped in pandanus leaves and papaya in coconut shells cooked in an Umu—the underground oven. This along with lots of other vegetables—some tasty, some not are all spread on the table and you eat with your fingers. It was one of the better local feasts that we had had and more authentic. They put on dance performances and local ladies came in with their handicrafts. We were popular as we arrived with more glasses and perfume and earrings which we gave away.
On our way to our next anchorage we sailed very close to a mother and calf humpback whale. It is such a thrill to be so close and we seem to have lost the curse of being a “whale free zone” boat—perhaps it was Marcie and Don’s curse!!!!
We snorkeled in the lovely bay and were able to collect a lot of lovely cowry shells—we now official “shell collectors”—we were looking at some with a lady at the market who she asked if we were. The more I think about it the more I think perhaps we are as we search every beach and our collection gets bigger and bigger!!! I hope the family is happy with shells for gifts for the next while!!
The beaches here are wonderful and we have spent many hours walking them.
We left Neafu in the Vava’u group of islands; the most commonly cruised and sailed south to the Hapaii group.
These are definitely the ones which the world forgot—they are sparsely populated and the people do not have access to much at all.
We visited one idyllic spot where a lady from the US has had some cabins she had made in Bali imported here and is trying to build up a small resort. I have to admire her courage but I think to operate a business here would be the ultimate test in frustration. The cruisers are all stopping in and helping her out a lot and we had a couple of great evenings with a bonfire and pot luck on the beach entertained by several musically inclined cruisers.
We visited several of the populated islands but found the lack of everything a little depressing. These people do not do much and do not expect anything—we gave a gallon of gas to a local so he could get his boat back to his island—there is no fuel available as the ferry has broken down and no other is coming in the foreseeable future.
We were awoken one morning by two local fishermen who were paddling their wooden dingy with bamboo poles with a couple of pieces of plastic attached as oars asking for pliers to fix their spark plug as their 2hp engine had quit. After looking at it with them Ken found a spark plug in his bag of parts which started the engine and they were able to return home—they had been drifting since midnight. This horrifies us well equipped cruisers as the locals have very poorly maintained boats and engines and if they ever struck bad weather their boats would never make it back to shore.
We walked one island which has a population of 600—most of them children and 7 churches. Two of them are Mormon, 5 minutes walk from each other!!! The Mormons have a huge presence here and local boys are going around the islands converting the populace. They are the fanciest churches and all have a basketball/volleyball court with night lights—the villages do not even have street lights!!! They offer health care and further education to the locals so are very attractive. The Christian churches appear to be run down and although most people on these small islands appear to go to them on Sundays they have their work cut out to keep their flock. We walked around the villages one Sunday when the churches were all having their services and it was lovely hearing the singing all around you, coming from each church.
The Tongan people as we have found all Polynesians are very warm happy people who do not want to work hard and do not desire much. As we travel west the people have become more and more conservative---here they dress never exposing either their knees or shoulders and the lovely sundresses and pareos I purchased in Bora Bora have had to be put away—hopefully to be pulled out in NZ’s summer.
The Tongan’s wear long skirts—both men and women and have a woven mat like skirt wrapped around their waists on top of the cotton skirt. It all looks very hot and uncomfortable but apparently is the equivalent of a suit and tie.
After the listening to the various church congregations singing and greeting them as they walked home we started talking to a lady who turned out to be the principal at the local primary school. We still had some school supplies so offered to take them along with glasses for her and fish hooks for her brother to the school the next day. We were welcomed to the classroom and the lovely 5 and 6 year olds greeted us warmly. They obviously are used to cruisers bringing pencils and things to their classroom and after I asked if I could video them singing they performed a cute kindergarten action song in the Tongan language. These children are learning some English but a lot in other islands we have been to have almost none. The teacher gave us some mangos, bananas and limes but it was obvious by the number she gave us of each that these are very valuable to them.
Our next stop was a small uninhabited island where we had been told you could get lobster easily. Unfortunately the weather was not conducive to going out at night and we could not find any during the day so we are resigned to being a “lobster free” boat.
We were joined there for our last night with our friends Paula and John on Mr John –they have been traveling with us since Rarotonga and every time we say goodbye to them either they show up in our anchorage or we show up in theirs. They have a smaller lighter boat than us so are hoping to wait another few weeks into the NZ summer season hoping to minimize the squalls and big seas often encountered on the passage. We have come to value John’s expertise in getting and interpreting weather patterns and will be happy to keep in touch with them by SSB radio as we go south.
The one wonderful thing about cruising is the close friendships one makes in a very short time. We have made some great friends and hope that some of them will last for many years as we all pursue our different future plans.
The following morning we both set off south, us to start our passage and them to visit yet another island. The one issue in the Hapaii group of islands particularly is the coral which surrounds them and all passages through the islands require careful navigation and watches so the islands are all negotiated during the day and hopefully in sunshine so coral heads and shallow patches are obvious. We were reading recently that 12% of cruising boats get destroyed on reefs each year—seems a little high although we did hear of a boat which hit a reef of the Australian coast and was abandoned last week. We have heard of a number of boats, including us, which have hit reefs with various amounts of damage.
We have loved cruising the Tongan islands which offer many protected beautiful anchorages. The weather has settled and we are told this is the best time to cruise here. We will come back after NZ to spend more time going to some of the islands we missed.
We now started our passage in earnest. We intend going 350 miles to North Minerva Reef where we will hang out for a few days in the lagoon getting some rest and regroup to await a good weather window to do the 800 miles left to Opua in the north of NZ.
We had no wind during our first day so were forced to motor but it did enable us to make water and charge our batteries and by 10pm the wind came up. Unfortunately it came up in the form of a squall and even though we were now under sail we double reefed our mainsail and partly furled in our front sail—we are determined not to be caught in a bad squall unprepared as we were going into Tonga. The squalls remained with us for the rest of the trip and so with shortened sails we were only able to average 5.5 knots of speed which meant we once again were forced to slow down at the end to avoid a night entry through the pass. The seas were rough all of the way and not having had any rough seas for so many months both of us felt a little queasy. We entered Minerva at dawn on our 4th day and it was lovely to anchor in calm waters and sunshine along with the 6 other boats here also getting a break before the passage to NZ.
Once again the cruiser network sprung into action and we visited a NZ boat for happy hour with an Englishman from his boat and they will join us tonight on our boat.
We leave on Tuesday to go to Opua although apparantly we may have some very light winds for part of it and may have some motoring in our future but rather that than too windy!!
I am getting Kristen to post this blog for me and will put the accompanying pictures on when we arrive in NZ.