Ofu (Vava'u group, Tonga)

[Kyle]Having failed to relax at all at Tapana, we motored the short distance to the next island over, Ofu. We anchored on the north side between Ofu and the tiny little island of Fetoko.

Fetoko is home to a small eco resort, from which much industrious power tool noise was emanating. We rowed over to introduce ourselves and have a look. We were met by a man who appeared to be in his low thirties. He sawed off a couple of fingers and then came over to offer us a bloody stump to shake. Great! Now my hand is all slippery! How am I supposed to grip my beer now?

I’m kidding. He’s apparently better at power tool safety than I would be. It’s a good thing we only have the manual versions.

The new eco-style resort - opens in July 2019

He said they were doing some renovations and weren’t actually open, but we were free to have a look around if we liked.

Yes, please! Their website says their rooms start at $422 (Australian) per night with a three night minimum. That’s plus food, drinks and the boat ride to the airport if you need it. It was nice to wander around and check out the views from various balconies for free. We didn’t even get a chance to overpay for a drink at the restaurant, for which we were fully prepared.

We offered to pitch in with any work, but he took one look at me and decided the staff he had on hand would be sufficient (or at least more capable than we looked). He then gave us a little background.

Fetoko used to be a pot farm (apparently) that very much discouraged visitors. Then it was bought and turned into a resort that preferred that visitors not annoy their well-heeled guests. Ben and his partner just bought it and he insists that when they open, visiting sailors will be quite welcome. They were in the process of doing a major renovation, which they hoped to finish in only five weeks. Oh, and they just bought a 60’ Fountaine-Pajot catamaran in which to take guests sailing. This is to go next to the one they are rebuilding at the boatyard in Neiafu. Not only that, but they are also simultaneously building a charter base and hotel where The Refuge used to be. Ah…well, good luck with that, but it sounds like hard work!

Jeez, I rowed 1/8 mile to circumnavigate a 1/16 mile long island on foot and I’m already ready to call it a day. I don’t suppose he has time to tow us back to the boat? Aw, nevermind, I’ve got it.

Somehow, on the way home, I got distracted and rowed over to the much bigger (1 ¼ mile long) Ofu. Well, since we’re here…

Exploring Ofu Village

Ofu is very pretty. The village has maybe 150 people and the main road is a grass path between the houses and the beach. We walked every road and path we could find and found surprisingly few people. We had seen a couple dozen go by boat to Neiafu in the mornings. The people remaining all seemed to be either school children or their teachers. When we passed by, the kids always quickly alternated between wanting to practice their English on us, and becoming super shy when we responded. Tongans are generally very polite and friendly and everybody’s urge seems to be to ask how we are and if we are enjoying ourselves. Even the kids, who seem not to be sure what to make of us, will build back up their courage and come back to talk to us over and over again.

We couldn’t find a market or a café or anything to spend our money on in Ofu, so by the end of the day, we really were tired, dehydrated and hungry. We went back to Begonia to sort all of that out during a glorious sunset, which was accompanied by a soundtrack of birds, palm trees blowing in the wind and, of course, circular saws.

Our first snorkel in Tonga this year - the reef just off Ofu
Turned out to be more interesting than we expected

Tapana (Vava'u group, Tonga)

[Kyle]Our first remote anchorage in Vava’u was Tapana South. We had been there before and liked it well enough to return. Our plan had been to spend a couple of days snorkeling and loafing, but that didn’t work out quite as intended.

Not such a bad place to be 'stuck' doing chores

Tropical Depression 12 was making for what they call “enhanced trade winds” and the water seemed a bit too rough and churned up for swimming. Instead, we spent two days doing repairs and maintenance to got Begonia back into the condition she was in when we left New Zealand. “Boat maintenance in exotic locations…” I hate that saying, but it is so true.

At least the upwind trip there from Neiafu required a good dose of sailing. We were going plenty fast with two reefs in each sail as we tacked amongst green islands separated by waters ranging from Navy blue to shimmering turquoise. Maryanne and I usually alternate sailing singlehanded, but this time, we got to do the almost constant maneuvering as a team. She’s nice to work with. She knows the boat inside and out and knows just what to do and when. Instead of having to loudly blather a bunch of nautical lingo – (Clear Starboard! Ready About! Hard Alee!), all either of us has to do is say, “Ready?’, wait for the slightest nod in reply and, boom! The rest follows perfectly without having to say another word. That way I can save the lingo for the next time I’m in a waterfront bar and need to sound like a pompous gasbag to the racing crowd.

Neiafu (Vava'u group, Tonga)

[Kyle]Okay, so we made it to Tonga. Before we can officially relax, we had the usual list of jobs with which to dispense. Most frustrating of these was trying to receive the green light from the Health Inspector. We would walk to the Customs offices looking for the guy, only to be told to come back later. “Okay, like when, later?”

Reacquainting ourselves with lovely Neiafu

”Just Later.”

Okay. So every couple of hours, we would walk over there with the same result. Even though it was on the other side of town, Neiafu is pretty small, so it wasn’t that far out of our way from whatever else we were doing. Still, the midday tropical sun can be brutal and any unnecessary walking can seem three times as far as it actually is. Added to this was that there was a tropical depression stalled nearby that was pumping even more moisture into the already humid air. The main thing was that we were in a kind of limbo until we got the all clear, so we had to keep forgoing one thing or another for yet another trip to see the Health Inspector.

In the meantime, we went to the market for some nice, fresh veggies and various hardware and auto parts stores looking for replacements or at least their closest approximations to various things that broke or wore out on the passage. We also squeezed in time for a snack at the Tropicana Café and a long chat with Greg, the owner. Our best errand, if you could call it that, was getting sim cards at the Digicel store. This was mainly because they have really good air conditioning, but also because the nice lady behind the counter could not be stumped by technical issues, no matter how obscure. She was actually a little too good because we could have used another ten minutes in that glorious air conditioning.

By the end of the day, we showed up yet again to the Customs dock with bags laden heavy with booty from our other errands. This time, our “Come back later” was upgraded to “Come back tomorrow”.

Ugh! We pressed him for a specific time and he grudgingly agreed to 10:00am. He seemed to not understand that we were planning on going anywhere other than Neiafu for our month in Tonga.

Since we had spent our first day on “jobs”, we had been hoping the second could be at least primarily “fun”. We just had to pass the health inspection first.

We showed up at 10:00am and of course the guy wasn’t there. Most of the officials we ran into seemed not to know of our agreement and they were too busy with a newly arrived cargo ship to have time to worry about us. We understand that island time is not necessarily like the German railroads, so we made ourselves comfortable. That turned out to be a good move because the woman at the quarantine office seemed loathe to leave us at her unattended office while she went to the ship. She got the ball rolling and made sure it kept rolling. She had nothing to worry about. I actually chased out a curious chicken that had wandered in and was pecking at some guy’s backpack, trying to get to his lunch.

The Health Inspector arrived and was very apologetic about how busy he had been. The health inspection consists of taking a general history (“How are you doing?”) and watching to see if you freak out at exchanging a perfectly good 100 Pa’anga note, which is the King’s legal tender in Tonga, for a faded carbon copy of a receipt, which is not. Well, at least we could exchange our Q flag for a Tongan courtesy flag, which meant we could also leave town whenever we liked.

On to the “fun”. We decided that our first order of business was to climb Mt. Matau, Vava’u’s highest point. Of course, by then it was approaching noon again and there we were trudging up a hill in the sun. We have got to start getting up earlier.

Exploring Mt. Talau - the highest peak in the Vava'u group.

Once we were out of Neiafu, the route was in the woods, so we had plenty of shade. The flat topped Matau had a few different viewpoints looking in different directions. Getting up there ended up being worth the walk.

We had also been hoping to enjoy a nice pizza at The Refuge, but were distressed to find it was no longer there. It wasn’t just that they had moved out. The building had been flattened to make room for something else. That was a bummer. We really liked that place.

Undaunted, we headed off in search of a new pizza place just out of town, based on one brief mention of it on the morning radio net the day before. We walked and walked until we were sure we had gone too far, when suddenly we spotted a sandwich board in the distance. It might have said something about pizza, but we would have to get closer to find out.

Kyle checks in with the local parrot before finally returning to the boat to hoist our Tonga Flag

It turned out it did. And, according to the sign anyway, they were open. They didn’t look open. In fact, it didn’t even look like a business, just someone’s house. We cautiously poked our heads in and saw several tables set up on the front lawn. Then a guy popped out, introduced himself as Charles and welcomed us warmly and insisted he was indeed open. He fired up the oven and brought us menus. While we waited for our pizza to cook, Charles filled us in on his whole story.

He used to be the owner of The Refuge. According to him, his landlord got a much better offer for the prime space from a developer who wanted to build a charter base/hotel there. When The Refuge couldn’t match the rent, they were summarily booted out to make room for the new guy. He seemed happy with his new location, though. Even though it is a bit out of the way, he’s got an even better view of the harbor now, without the previous parking lot in the way. He says he’s got a good reputation and gets plenty of business from not just visitors like us, but locals as well. He credits his partner Happy as being the pizza genius. She didn’t appear until after ours was already made, but it still tasted pretty good to us.

Charles arrived by sailboat in 2004 and decided he was going to stay. In addition to the restaurant, he also wrote the first comprehensive cruising guide for Tonga. We flipped through it while we ate and he gave us lots of good advice on places to go. We thanked him and promised we would return again before we left Vava’u.

We walked off our meal getting back to the boat. We could finally switch flags and go find a quiet place to anchor.

Passage to Tonga

[Kyle]On the morning we left, we made one last trip to the café and the ice cream shop to get rid of the last of our New Zealand cash. We then went into Customs and Immigration and cleared out. We were now required to depart the country without delay.

It was a beautiful sunny day with bright blue skies and a light onshore wind. It seemed like the perfect time to go for another nice sail through the Bay of Islands. It didn’t feel at all like we were finally leaving the whole country in which we had spent the last half year. It was also a bit strange to think we would be underway for over a week instead of the usual day and overnight sails along the coast. We even had a pod of dolphins that stayed with us for a nice, long farewell.

Our only real problem was the onshore winds. To get away, we would have to be tacking for a while. The winds were stronger up north, so we decided to get it out of the way early. The wind was light enough that our forward motion made for a nice cooling breeze, at least during the warm part of the afternoon, and the seas were small enough to glide right over.

Going the “wrong way” half of the time was a little disheartening. Because of the orientation of the North Island, our port tacks had us paralleling the coast toward Auckland, and slowly at that. On my first night watch, I could still clearly see both Cape Brett and Poor Knights lighthouses to starboard. That would have been great if we had been trying to sail to Whangarei. We had to keep reminding ourselves of the big picture. Pointing at Tonga was not the best way to get there. We needed to get east first and we were slowly doing that. Whangarei is south of Opua, but it is also a little bit east, so we were actually making progress, even though Tonga was actually way over the horizon on our port quarter and getting further.

We were able to enjoy some great sunsets
And some NZ candy: Pineapple Lumps - thanks Dave & Lyndon

After two days, we finally made it past 176° East and I decided we had finally made it far enough east that we should be able to make it all of the way to Tonga without having to tack anymore. We still needed to be close hauled on a starboard tack, but at least we could start going north as well as east.

As we went north, the air and water slowly got warmer. The wind and seas also built, which made things less comfortable aboard. We were still heading upwind of our destination as a hedge against even stronger winds further north. I didn’t want us to fall victim to an unfavorable wind shift that would require us to bash into 25-knot winds.

So, two days later on Day 5, we had finally made it far enough upwind to bear off the slightest amount and start a curving path towards our destination. We only turned a degree or so about every three hours. The change wasn’t noticeable at first, but after a day or so, we had eased out the sails enough to be going much faster and we started rolling over a small percentage of the waves rather than bashing headfirst into all of them.

On Day 6, as we were sailing across the Kermadec Ridge, we actually came close enough to spot two of the islands in the group, Cheeseman and Raoul. The Kermadec Islands look on a map like a logical place to stop on the way between New Zealand and Tonga, being pretty much on the rhumb line. It may be for motor vessels, but for sailboats they’re usually in the wrong wind pattern going either way. Our getting close enough to them to see them was a lucky coincidence due to our unusual wind direction and the way we were choosing to deal with it.

It would have been great to stop for a few days and wait for the wind to swing around for us, but it wasn’t to be. Just on the off chance that we may be this way, we had previously researched what would be required for us to arrive legally at this protected wildlife preserve. The long list of requirements is so onerous as to be effectively impossible for us since, for example, we could not provide proof that our bottom paint had been newly applied within the previous five days. So, we had to just watch wistfully as the two big chunks of rock disappeared behind us over the horizon.

Mixed seas for the passage - it was great to finally see land again!

By Day nine, the wind was hovering just under thirty knots. By then we had borne away from it to a 70° apparent angle (from dead ahead). That was from the 40° we had been sailing at the beginning of the passage. Since our forward motion creates a bit of a headwind, that meant we were pretty much beam to the waves. Most of them would slowly roll under us, but every tenth wave or so would be slightly higher or from slightly more ahead. These would break just above deck height and send a shin-high wall of water racing backwards over the boat. Our cockpit enclosure deflected most of it, but it’s not watertight, so we invariably ended up with a shoe or a lap full of water if we didn’t jump out of the way quickly enough. Any excursion outside of the cockpit resulted in an immediate dunking. Going forward of the mast would have been like walking into a car wash. Nothing up there ended up needing either of our attention during the worst of it though, so we were saved that indignity.

We had about a day and a half of this misery before things finally started calming down slightly. By then, we were passing sixty miles east of Tongatapu and had bent our course further to where we were surfing quickly with the wind and waves slightly behind us. The leftover seas were still over three meters and I was worried what the transition from the deep ocean to the shallow shelf of the Vava’u group was going to be like. Tonga has lots of areas on the chart labeled “Blind Rollers”. These are areas where underwater features make big surf seem to randomly appear out of a calm sea. (see Kelefesia – Oct. 2018). I had studied the charts very carefully when I planned our approach, but we still had to go between these areas, all of which are depicted in a very vague way. That makes it hard to know for certain if we’re skirting them or avoiding them altogether or passing through two areas that overlap.

I slowed down a bit on my last night watch, just to make sure we had good daylight for the crossing into shallow water. I wanted to be able to see any trouble in time to turn tail and get the hell out of there if necessary.

It turned out to be fine. All of that worry and no drama… I suppose it’s better than having it the other way around. We had lots of breakers on both sides as we wove our way further into the group. They took the energy out of the sea until we were eventually gliding past palm-covered islands on flat water. We made it to Neiafu just after lunchtime, where we tied up at the Customs dock next to a fishing boat that looked like it was in no condition to go anywhere.

We were the only arriving yacht, so Customs, Immigration and Biosecurity met with us right away. All that was left was the Health Inspector. We were told to wait, he would be by soon. We busied ourselves with arrival jobs for a bit, but when it seemed like business was about to conclude for the day, I went and checked again. I was told we would have to wait until tomorrow. We could come by on foot and we were free to leave the Customs dock and go about our normal business until then. Just don’t take down our Q flag until he tells us.

Alright. So we headed over and picked up a mooring ball by the Mango Café. Neither of us had had a decent night’s sleep in days, so we had no intention of doing anything other than getting a nice, long night of sleep in the same bed at the same time. There was no navigating to do, no sail trimming, no going out in the rain in the dark, just sweet, sweet sleep.

So nice to be back in the tropics!

Last Few Days in New Zealand

[Kyle]Our visas are soon to expire and the cooler weather of Autumn is on the way. The time for us to head north to the Tropics is approaching. Each day, I dive into various forecasts, looking for what might be a possible window of acceptable weather for the passage. Over the last few days, most have settled on about a week ahead. Time to get busy again.

First on the list was a visit to the town of Paihia, where we took up Enola’s offer to use their mooring while they were still down in Marlborough. Paihia has a grocery store a medium distance from shore. It was a bit too far for any long term provisioning, but we decided we could use a nice dose of fresh produce to get us through the next week or so. We had to make a point of remembering we were only buying for a few days, like regular people. That helped keep our packs from getting too heavy.

Since the provisioning wasn’t going to take too long, we made a point of going to the Waitangi Treaty Grounds as soon as they opened so we could spend the whole day there if necessary. It turned out to be. There is much more to see and do there than you’d guess from the ticket lobby. We saw cultural displays and films and plenty of artifacts, including the various versions of the treaty document itself, laying out the terms between the Maori and the new European arrivals.

A full day at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds - site of the signing of the first accord between the British Crown and the Maori people
Lots to do including a fantastic museum, a guided tour of the grounds, and a cultural performance

The merging of the two cultures has had some of the expected bumps in the road, but seemed to have gone off better than most. The main cause of friction seems to have been caused by the fact that the Maori and English language versions of the treaty have a couple of clauses with slightly different wording. The problem was caused by the translator. I think he probably really thought he was being helpful, but rather than make an accurate word for word translation, he changed some of the phrasing to versions he thought would be more acceptable to the Maori. “We will govern you” became “We will govern with you”. “We will have your land, thank you very much” became “We will share your land. Thank you very much”. The Maori make a very good point that the treaty they were presented with and then signed should be the one in force. To their credit, the current government concedes that this is true, although that has not been their position since the day of signing, so there’s still a bit of a mess to sort out. Hence the protests go a little like this:

Maori: “We want our land back NOW!”

Gov’t: “Would there be a chance you have a second choice in mind so that we don’t have to relocate everybody out of the houses and businesses they have already built there because they thought it would be okay at the time?”

Maori: “We’ll think about it and get back to you! But don’t think you can pull anything like that again!”

Gov’t: “Right-o!”

We noticed Ganesh anchored on the other side of the harbor, near Russell. Maryanne messaged them to invite them over for a cup of tea and we were quickly invited over to their boat the next day for tea and a yarn. Cap’n Fatty and Carolyn were going through their own pre-voyage list of things to do and seemed glad to get a break from it. Their job is made harder than ours by the fact that their dance card is pretty much always full, which leaves them less time in which to do it all. I was pleased they made time for us. They are heading for New Caledonia and then Southeast Asia.

If they hang out in New Caledonia long enough, we may see them again, but it’s probably not likely. Our orbits may fall out of sync and we may not get a chance to see them again as one of us gradually pulls ahead or falls behind the other. It was marvelous to enjoy their warm hospitality and the pleasure of just hanging out in Ganesh’s cockpit having a meandering conversation about whatever comes to mind. I still can’t believe we sometimes just hang out like a couple of boat couples. Cap’n Fatty and Carolyn are my Hank Aaron, whoever the hell that is.

We booked into the marina at Opua for provisioning and clearing out. We also had a car rental booked, so we knew we would be in for a long day of errand running. In light of this, we decided to go and anchor in a more remote location in order to remove some of the more immediate distractions of the “city”. That way, we could get Begonia fixed up and ready for the passage without one thing or another pushing important stuff further and further down the list.

We even got lucky with the weather. It rained pretty much the whole time, so there was no incentive to go kayaking or hiking. I did go for a swim, but only to the extent necessary to make sure Begonia’s under-bits were providing the least impediment to smooth water flow. It’s still too cold down here for recreational swimming. We organized and tidied everything and then immediately ruined it all by digging out all of our offshore safety gear. We had one last lie in and one last movie night and then we headed back to Opua for our last big push.

The engines were still tick, tick, ticking away their warmth when Maryanne and I separated for our respective jobs. She took all of our backed-up laundry to wash and I started cleaning the boat and filling our tanks and jugs with all of the water we would need in the coming weeks. She came back via a couple of boat stores and the marina office, where we had mail waiting. That pile of stuff kept us busy for the rest of the day. When night came, we were too tired to cook and clean up, which was fine, because there’s a fish & chip shop nearby!

We were up early to collect our rental car the next morning. Maryanne was clutching a whole fistful of lists. It was going to be a long day.

Cleaning, Fixing, Shopping
Preparing for a passage and some time away from mainstream grocery stores

There were hardware store lists and auto parts store lists (they have 12V electrical stuff and engine oil). We had stationery store lists and clothing store lists and three grocery lists.

We know from experience that people in the world’s remote places get by okay with what they can get and they generally also have plenty to eat, but supplies in these places can be a bit erratic, to say the least. So…if you think you may need batteries sometime within the next six months, you’d better buy lots of them now in case you can’t find them later. Same with the “good” engine oil, bottles of Tabasco sauce, dehydrated peas, jars of olives, pretty much all spices, tortillas and decent chocolate. Also, not all island stores are close to the harbor, so having a car means buying all of the heavy stuff we won’t want to carry on our backs later. This pretty much guarantees that every one of our trips to the store is an ordeal.

Opua and Paihia don’t have the really big stores we were needing, so we drove the forty miles down to Whangarei for our day’s errands

We load up shopping carts with beer and canned food and crates of milk until there is a definite lag between pushing them and moving them. It’s like pushing a railroad car. When they start overflowing, we get another. Since it’s impractical for us to push and guard more than two trolleys each, we often have to check out, go to the car, unload and pack it all in, then return to the same store for another hour and a half to repeat the whole thing all over again. This still counts as only one visit.

Grocery stores are especially wearying. Maryanne has a system. Her system is well thought out and logical, but can be tough to implement in only one day. Her three grocery store lists require four visits to the store. Not all stores have the same inventory or the same prices. Our first store is the one that is generally the cheapest and with the best selection. We load up there and then proceed to store #2 for stuff store #1 doesn’t sell. After that, we go to store #3 for anything we couldn’t find at #1 & #2. Then, anything we had hoped to find at store #2 & #3 but couldn’t, we went back to store #1 to find the closest available approximations to any uncrossed-out items on our three lists. Even by then, we still have enough stuff to warrant the store opening a special checkout just for us. Often, one of the staff will look at us and say, “Weren’t you two in here this morning doing the same thing? What, did you run out of food, already?” Oh, very droll.

Once the car was loaded from store visits #1,#2 and #3, we took a break to visit Rob and Muzzi at Norsand Boatyard, where they had their boat Lalamanzi hauled out. Oh, Norsand, we hope to not see you again for a little while.

Some 'catch up and farewell' time with boating Friends

They were in the last grubby stages before going back into the water before heading to Fiji. We hope to see them there, but at any rate, it was good to take a break from our respective grindstones to share a pizza before getting back at it again. We left feeling the warm glow of a meal with good friends. It was hard to say goodbye, but we still needed to complete grocery store visit #4 before they closed.

The drive back to Opua seemed a lot longer than the one there and every single bump in the road was announced by the scraping noise of the rental car’s rear struts bottoming out. When we got home, we really just wanted to crawl into bed, but of course we had to return the car without our haul. This meant we had to load up the dock carts and haul it to Begonia first. I did most of the back and forth, while Maryanne got as much of it as she could inside the cabin. Then it was just a matter of climbing over it to get to our much sought-after mattress. We’ll deal with that tomorrow…

The night seemed to last about thirty minutes before daylight started coming through the hatch. Whatever pliability our muscles and ligaments had had the day before had vanished. During a fitful night of sleep worrying about where we were going to put everything, all of our soft tissue congealed like drying glue.

Maryanne did her magic trick of getting all of the stuff from yesterday’s shopping expedition stowed out of the way. While cleaning the boat on the first day, I noticed that our starboard stern rub rail needed to be re-bedded. It couldn’t be put off since it would let water in at sea, so I had to do it right then, so the sealant would have time to cure. That kept me out of her way for the process.

Just as we were both finishing up, Dave and Lyndon arrived. They had driven up from Auckland to check out a boat Dave had been offered a position on and carved out enough time to have a farewell lunch with us.

It was funny. Maryanne had all of the salon cushions up (we have some of our food stored underneath) and I was surrounded by tools and covered in a spider web of stringy sealant, thatgave them both the impression we were knee-deep in last minute jobs before the passage. They apologized for interrupting and offered to come back later. We said it wasn’t necessary, but they decided to go for a short walk. Two minutes later, we had put everything away, I had switched shirts and we were off in search of them. We only had two more things on our list: Clear out with Customs and have lunch with Dave and Lyndon. I was looking forward to that last one as our fun reward for finishing all of the other ones.

Dave’s amazing. The first thing he did was congratulate us on our NZ circumnavigation, even though he had beaten our time by something like 153 days, did it in a racing boat with few creature comforts, and had to sail in the weather he got instead of picking his moment like we did. Now he was being recruited to captain a boat to Fiji. If he does, Lyndon may join him there. Who knows? If it all works out, we may get to see them there.