[Kyle]Our sail from Maninita was very similar to our original arrival in Vava’u. The closer in we got to the island group’s protected center, the smoother the seas became until there was no noticeable motion at all. Our last leg was dead downwind. Rather than trying to deal with keeping the sails on the razor’s edge between filling and gybing, we furled everything and finished under bare poles. That’s the way to keep any strain off of the rig.
Although most of our cruising info said the anchorage at Avalau was pretty deep and filled with bommies it looked like there was a shallow shelf of clear sand close to the beach that our shallow draft would allow us to reach.
Avalau Island - we're pinching ourselves at just how lucky we are!
Aaahhh, that beach! Avalau has the most perfectly picturesque beach. Most of the island is green with big, leafy breadfruit, wild almond and sprawling banyan trees. On one perfect corner is a grove of fifteen or so coconut palms, each sprouting a top of dark green fronds with rust colored tips. Many of them are leaning steeply out over a soft beach of golden sand in a manner that brings to mind a chaise reclined to the perfect angle for a decadent afternoon nap in the tropical shade. It is the scene we all have hard wired into us as a dream of Paradise.
We ended up being the only boat to anchor off of the uninhabited island. Our floating home was resting in water the color of the sky turned upside down. This place is so pretty it makes our hearts ache every time we see it.
We took the dinghy to the beach in the morning and marveled at how every slight change in position or perspective creates a whole new scene. The same familiar trees and sand and rock morph from one paradise to another as we move around.
We walked to the end of the beach. There, we decided we hadn’t had enough, so we scrambled up the hill towards the light coming through the undergrowth. We were hoping to find some kind of clearing with a great view enhanced by a little elevation. We never really found it because the coverage of the canopy was too complete.
Since not too much light made it to ground level, the undergrowth was not too thick. We slowly picked our way between tree trunks on a route that ran the perimeter of the island. We had made it about 2/3rds of the way around when we came to a challenging spot where we had to push through some denser growth to get to a clearing on the other side. Just as I brushed a branch aside, I got a terrible stabbing pain in the back of my right arm that made me stop thinking about anything else.
We had been occasionally brushing through spider webs along the way and I assumed I had had the misfortune of upsetting the builder of an occupied one. Maryanne told me it had actually been a wasp that stung me. Ow!
Almost as soon as she was done with her sentence, she got stung as well. That one got her in the back of her left arm. Those little buggers know where it hurts!
We continued on for a bit and then inspected one another. No stingers had been left behind and we each had a big red spot around the site. Maryanne’s was starting to swell as well. Well, there was nothing we could do about it in the meantime, so we just kept walking.
Thirty minutes later, 95% of the pain was gone and thirty minutes after that, we were hard pressed to even find the sting sites. It was like the whole thing had never happened. That was good, but we still get that those wasps do NOT like you messing with their tree.
Back at the beach, we gathered enough fresh coconuts to keep us going for a while and then headed back to Begonia for a day of light housework and tropical loafing.
When we started feeling a little restless, I set up the sailing kit on the dinghy (a Portland Pudgy). We spent a couple of hours tacking through and around the coral reefs in the shallows between Avalau and adjacent Mounu Islands. Mounu has a resort, somewhat like Fetoko, only finished.
We had mixed reports about whether we would be welcome or even allowed on the island. One source said, “It’s a private resort. Please respect their privacy.” Another said, “Sailors welcome for drinks.” They had a very nice looking open air dining area and we had spent ages crawling our way against wind and current to get there, so we thought we’d land and give it a try. {Maryanne: I was hopeful, and a little biased given it was very early in the season, I was hoping they had no guests to disturb, and I really wanted to spend a bit of money on a a beautiful cocktail in paradise}
We sailed the dingy over to Mouna Island - to see if we could enjoy a cocktail
While I stowed the mast and sails, Maryanne walked up the beach and asked if it was okay to land. The response she got from the young lady in the restaurant was, “I’m not sure. The owner isn’t here.”
She then said that it was okay to do a little looking around while we have a rest before sailing back to wherever we had come from. We took a few photos of the beach and the restaurant and even ventured over to see one of their parrots in a nearby aviary. I couldn’t help but notice that the further we got from the restaurant area, the more nervous the woman looked.
So, it may be that we would indeed have been welcomed, but it was clearly not her call. She just kept saying, “The owner will be back later.” which we took to mean, “Please feel free to try again then.”, and not “Feel free to wait until then.”. {Maryanne: We were so excited to be here - and it had been a long, wet, slog upwind in the dinghy, but we didn't want to get anyone in trouble either. Alas, my attempt at a tropical cocktail failed again!}
Having done all we could, we left her so she wouldn’t have to explain us to the boss when he arrived.
The sail back was all downwind, so it seemed like it was over as soon as it started. I stowed the dinghy and the sail kit and we donned mask and fins for a snorkel around the anchorage. There was plenty of the usual stuff along with a few especially good patches of coral. Mostly, the swim was worth it for its value in cooling us off. Our favorite thing, though, was that the area is full of little bulldozers. There is a species of fish here that is a type of goby that forms a cooperative relationship with a shrimp. The shrimp has poor eyesight, so it shares a burrow with the much more keen-eyed fish, keeping a feeler on the fish’s back. The goby will twitch when danger approaches and the nervous shrimp will back into the burrow. When the coast is clear, the shrimp resumes an almost constant digging, pushing sand out of the burrow with its claws like a little bulldozer. We can hover over them for ages watching them.
Snorkelling around Avalau Island
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