Well that’s it. End of the Navire Pacific Journey and blog. In many ways I’d have preferred to keep cruising. It’s an extraordinary lifestyle. But on this occasion I’m pleased also to come home. It’s what we’d planned and so it’s complete and all without sinking the boat. A very successful adventure if we do say so ourselves.

And now what?
Well, we move back into the house in the next month or two. I get to have Lily living with me again and Jackson staying during university holidays. Wonderful!! We’ll be there for about three years, until Lily leaves school at least and then........... if you can dream it you can do it so we’re dreaming. On the list are the following:

1] Sail to the North American west coast via Tahiti and Honolulu. Not top of the options as it appears a hard uphill slog over many miles but I’d love to cruise the British Columbian coast and the US to Mexico and Panama. Maybe go through the canal into the Caribbean. Maybe back to NZ through the Pacific.
2] Do another Pacific season similar to this one. Maybe spend cyclone season north of the equator in the Marshall Islands and another season in the western Pacific islands
3] I could happily spend a year cruising between Coromandel and North Cape.
4] Buy a canal boat and explore Europe very slowly. This appeals to Janet for the food, always the food. The Pacific is great but the food is pretty uninteresting by comparison with Europe. And there are no coral reefs or violent storms at sea.
We’ll let you know when we find out what it’ll be.

Ah... one last very important thing

Thankyous
We were helped all along the way by many people who generously gave their time and support. To all of you – a big thank you.
· Brian and Meg who have been there – for mentoring
. Kim and Tony who sold us Navire. You have given such a fine ship from which we learn every day.
· Our fabulous crew:
Simon - Wellington/Napier passage and arguably the toughest. Thanks for encouraging me to use seasick pills. Life at sea really is so much better with them.
Piet – Napier/Tonga passage. Thanks for the irrepressible humour, sartorial dressing and electronic wizardry.
Andrew - Tonga/Opua passage. The stove works a treat, and you make a mean pancake
Nick – Opua/Wellington. Thanks for coming aboard at such short notice and being so cheerful
· Anne for looking after our Wellington affairs, and for endless use of her sewing machine and dining table
· Brian who volunteered in Napier to fix our laptop. It’s gone well ever since.
· Phill for helping us with our computer and trying to get to Weatherfax going
· Bob of Saggitarius who spent many hours sorting out our regulator.
· Richard for the margaritas and fine company, and for hosting a 60th dinner for David when we were knee deep in boat preparation
· Myrto for medical help at the end of a phone
· Gaylene for looking after Janet’s job for six months
· Sia and Niko, our hosts at Niuatoputapu, for a very special welcome
· Alene and Bruce, of Migration, for huge fun, stupendous birthday party and much else
· Neil of KW International for stunning us with making a dinghy in just 2 days.
· Jim, Rag of the Air, for weather and great humour
· Mandy for use of her car in Whangarei
· Liz for teaching us how to blog and believing in us.
· All of those who gave us books. We had some excellent reading
· Alfred and Rhoda, for showing us Samoa, inside and out.
· Alan Jackson who stole some time to repair our outboard. It hasn’t missed a beat.
· Mike – at Alexander motors for teaching us to strip an alternator and much else
· All the many cruisers we met on the way but especially Compass Rose, Casteel, Obsession, Hoki Mai, Scott Free, Migaloo II, Kia Kaha, Distracted
All you readers of this blog who wrote encouragements to us. You know who you are.

The biggest thank you is to the Navire skipper. David was superb on this trip. He remained calm and in control when we encountered storms at sea, navigated us across thousands of miles of ocean, through coral infested areas, and anchored us so consistently well that we never once dragged. He created wonderful social situations with his music, creating jam sessions and entertaining people wherever we went. He is a dogged fisherman, dragging our lures across vast oceans till finally something caught, then gleefully doing the slaughtering bit. One of his best skills for this kind of trip is his problem solving ability. There are endless things that can go wrong on a yacht at sea, and some did, but he has a go at working them out, and fixed many a thing en route. And I do love him so.

One of the best treasures from this adventure is that I’m more in love with Janet than when we left. That’s not to say we didn't have our moments. At one point she had plans to sign on with another yacht, any other yacht and that wasn’t the only moment. But over all love has grown. Cool eh! She’s a cook extraordinaire who can create a tasty meal in heaving seas while dashing occasionally to the rail herself. There are sailors now all over the Pacific whose culinary dreams came true at her table. She can check the oil level on the engine, download and decipher a weather map, she’s a dab hand on the radio and has stood in for Rag of the Air co-ordinator on several occasions. She can climb the mast and stand her watch while paralysed with sea sickness and fear. She relayed critical weather information to many yachts on passage. She provisioned Navire impeccably and even late in the trip could be relied on to pull something magic from a hidden corner. And together we had fun. Shit, did we have fun!!



Cheers for now. Janet, David and Navire.

Shit Does Happen!!

If you thought, as I did, that losing our dinghy was a big deal consider these other stories of loss all of which occurred around the same time and in the same waters in which we were travelling.

We found this sad yacht with broken rudder, mast, keel and severe hull damage on the north shore of Savaii, Samoa. She struck the reef as she tried to enter the lagoon at night just two weeks before.
Another sloop was wrecked on the reef at Kelefesia in the Ha’apai Group of Tonga entering the lagoon in which we had anchored a few weeks earlier. Some sailors anchored near-by to remove the rig and other gear so as to reduce hazard to other yachts. They commented on how spooky and forlorn she looked on the coral under the aqua sea.
This is the remains of a large and very expensive catamaran that capsized between Niue and Tonga. The story as I have it is that she was caught off-guard by a squall that, in its approach looked no different to many others that had passed over harmlessly. This photo is of the Niue supply ship that had earlier picked up the crew and this time took the vessel on board. A write-off!
Yet another vessel had a close call, landing their keel on a coral shelf during a sudden wind shift at night, only days after we had been anchored in much the same place. With help from other yachts she managed to get herself off the coral with little damage other than to the self esteem and still racing hearts of the crew.

Andrew up the mast conning us through coral reefs

The best way we found to safely negotiate coral.

Then there’s the yacht missing near Fiji in Oct where only debris has been found. I’ve not heard if the debris is from the missing yacht nor if the yacht or crew has since been located.
It is sobering to know of and even see yachts that have come to grief, in all cases with no loss of life apart from the one possible missing yacht –right where we have been sailing. Without doubt it focuses the mind.
On a smaller scale but dramatic nevertheless, a catamaran called Isabella, was struck by lightning in Panama. Hers was the shortest mast around but still the one zapped. Deep fried all the electrics which they are still replacing.
Another catamaran lost her propeller in Vava’u.

Eagle Wings, with two or three children aboard, made the passage to Tonga from New Zealand at much the same time as Navire. She had endless trouble on that trip beginning with a failed gear box, followed by their diesel and all the fresh water getting contaminated by sea water, and then by the headsail furler jamming. On the lucky side, a passing freighter stopped for them to dinghy over in the flat calm and trade a bottle of rum for 100 litres of precious drinking water. We did not see or hear of a ship on either passage. They were stuck for at least six weeks in sweltering Nukualofa downwind from a boat drying sea slugs on deck – the smell at times was rank. Then, as they prepared to cast off and at last begin their South Pacific cruise they discovered that their engine had seized. We left them amongst a dismantled motor, waiting on their ‘rarely seen’ mechanic and contemplating what to do about the suddenly empty cruising kitty. We met Eagle Wings while despondently arranging to replace our dinghy. Their story lifted out spirits no end.
We have rarely told our lost dinghy story without the listener confessing to a similar mishap. These stories too did wonders for our mood. Losing a dinghy, it appears, is a very common occurrence. Many, of course, are recovered, some after the passage of several months. Perhaps there is hope for ours yet. We learned too that there are worse circumstances in which to lose a dinghy such as losing someone else’s of which we heard several. The custom is to insist that visitors to your yacht tie their own dinghy. It will be no surprise that we follow this approach.
David


The Passage Home
David
Setting out on passage puts me in mind of that saying “the longest journey begins with the first step.” It seems such a monumental thing to set out on an 1100 mile ocean crossing, just us and this little boat but actually, it isn’t. You just lift the anchor and go, like we’ve done a thousand times before. You just go. It seems so ordinary. Just another day’s sail, except that on this occasion we keep going. Evening comes, we have dinner, someone goes on watch and the others go to bed and all the while Navire sails on, ticking off the miles. Before you know it you have 3 or 400 hundred miles under the keel.
We prepare of course, but apart from the volume of food and spare parts there’s not much more to do than for crossing Cook Strait. That is, from this end. For the outward journey we had a ‘To Do’ list of 300 items at least. Unlike a day sail we do pay attention to the weather at least a couple of week before casting off. There is endless examination of weather maps and conversations amongst ourselves and with others doing the same passage. And then there is that anxious decision about when to leave. But with the decision taken, we lift anchor and go. There should be a fanfare, horns hooting, streamers thrown, crowds to wave us off. On this occasion, where we left from Big Mamma’s on Pangaimotu, even though it was mid afternoon not a lot was stirring on the other yachts. We just slipped our moorings and headed for the pass in the reef. Not a single horn blast or wave, or streamer. Very ordinary and yet such a big first step.

Janet
Middle of the night, middle of the ocean, October sometime.
(I seem to always write in the dead of night)
Well we are underway, three days south of Tonga and six days north of NZ. This midnight watch I’m on can be glorious, gliding across the ocean under a majestic starry sky, or hard work like now, racing along at 7 knots, reefed down, the wind gusting to 30 knots and the waves slamming the hull. It’s all shades of grey, no stars or moon to guide us tonight, I’ve been through a lot worse now but these conditions still makes me feel vulnerable, out here in 38’ of plastic in this volatile sea.

Leaving land is always a slightly anxious time, mostly worrying about weather - have we picked the right conditions for a good passage? So far so good, not enough wind yet in fact. And I’m not seasick, a little queasy but that’s okay. Said goodbye to Tonga and to the glorious life of cruising (for now maybe). And glorious it was. While I’m out here on night watch I have a slide show going through my head of trip highlights. Whales were a significant feature, watching them breach, slapping the water with their tails, swimming close to them and watching them lying deep under the surface then slowly swimming up to blow. Listening to the whale-song through the hull in Niue in the middle of the night was truly awesome.

Although we went to many beautiful places what really enriched the experience was the people we met, cruisers and locals alike. We made a lot of special friends who we intend to stay in touch with. Locals include Alfred and Rhoda in Samoa who adopted us and showed us their country, and Niko and Sia on Niuatoputapu in northern Tonga who were most excellent hosts.
We saw amazing scenery, stunning white sandy beaches, beautiful coral, brightly coloured sea-life, caverns and chasms, palm trees and coral blue sea. We had great intercultural moments watching NZ international rugby in all the countries we visited. Playing music was an absolute highlight. Playing and singing was a regular part of socialising on land and on other boats.
Writing the blog has been a joy, it has helped cement the experience, but best of all was the responses we’ve had from you readers. Because of lack of internet access I haven’t been able to read it right through yet so I have that pleasure to come back in NZ.
Other pictures in my slide show in my mind are watching the Wizard of Oz on a big screen, under the star on the deck of Migration, a large trimaran, night lobster diving, catching big fish, and visiting a local school. I had great fun with food. Having lots of time to cook was great and always a willing audience to try my food. It was interesting working with local ingredients.
And most gloriously it was warm all the time. I love life at 25 degrees average, wearing little or no clothes and having a warm sea to dive into whenever I pleased. Ahhhhhhh......
Back to the present. There are other boats within a few hundred miles of us but I doubt we’ll see them (actually a catamaran overtook us on the second to last day). We hear them on the radio, they have good wind, no wind, headwinds or too much wind, broken motors or are hove-to, so we are doing rather well.
The queasiness is abating, it hasn’t been so bad this time out, and I’m finally getting my sea legs. Poor Andrew has mal de mer and struggles around the boat with his blue bucket in tow. I do know how he feels. However when he’s on deck he’s good, he keeps the boat racing along. I love to see him and David tweaking the sails, I just don’t seem to have the knack.

Actually I'd rather die, thanks all the same.

I’d love to enjoy the ocean passages but I don’t much. I want to enjoy the wide open spaces and the foreverness of it but in reality, I feel queasy some of the time, I’m often tired from being up for three hours in the dead of night, and from the G-forces of the boat being heeled over. There’s always the spectre of bad weather just over the horizon somewhere. So I just want to get there. However I do like the lack of reference points, not knowing what day it is, and only knowing where we are from the latitude and longitude readings on the GPS.
The best thing about this night watch is getting to bed afterwards, I just literally fall in. Yuck it’s raining now, it’s killed the wind and the sails are slatting....now the wind is back with a vengance.. roll on 3am.

David’s journal entry
Friday. Day 3
Janet feeling queasy but doesn’t miss a beat. Attends to weather and food magnificently. Still a horror on the actual sailing. Andrew, I suspect would abandon ship at Minerva if he could. So far it’s a misery for him – head in a bucket or asleep. Nevertheless he does his watch and fights the seasickness with little success, alas.
I was feeling fine with only the occasional twinges of woosiness. Then, at the end of my 9-12pm watch last night, after looking at weather faxes on the pc I could feel that awful presage of seasickness and decided reading was not a good idea. I went back on deck and before I knew it I was hanging over the rail doing my best to deposit my entire gastrointestinal track in the sea. Ohhhh it is so wretched a feeling. Dozed all the rest of my watch. Off watch I slept well and came on deck feeling fine. Took another Pahia Bomb anyway. Got to keep that awful feeling at bay. With Andrew down and Janet just controlling it we can’t afford a third person in that “who gives a fuck, do as little as possible, oh God get me off of here” state. Fortunately my stomach stayed steady as a rock all the way home. Yipee!!.

Passages, long or short, have been something to be endured, to get to another place. Disappointing. I’ve wanted to ‘live at sea’, do things, read, make music, attend to the ship, gaze in wonder at the vast ocean, write, eat and enjoy the company but that has happened only in patches. Mostly it’s an endurance, watching the miles tick by – and these past 2 days they have gone by so very slowly - focused on getting there. (Directly after this watch the winds filled in and we began making fabulous time and, as Janet writes, we made NZ in record time and in relative comfort. I finally had a long passage that I enjoyed. I was able to read and write, and attend to the ship and to gaze at the vast ocean. Best of all I understood the weather we were in. I knew there was no front about to beat us up. If the winds picked up I was confident they would not keep increasing to the point of serious discomfort. The wind would stay in the east and vary by 10 or 15 knots. And they did, all the way to Opua. Fabulous.)

Midnight next night (Janet)
Only one more day till we get to 30 degrees South, leaving the tropical zone and heading towards the Southern Ocean. We are four days out of Tonga and I’m back into my wet weather gear at night, but the trip is nowhere as cold as the one we had going north.

Andrew looking much better

Hard day yesterday, not a storm, but the wind was 25-30 knots (35 is gale force) but it made the waves big enough to slam into us making getting around the boat difficult. Andrew actually asked for food today. A good sign. I’m not feeling queasy any more either.

We are making good time, doing 170 miles one day, a record for us. Soon we have to decide whether to go in to Opua in the Bay of Islands, or to head west and sail down the west coast of the North Island. I feel too tired to do that. If we get a couple of days of smoother seas I’ll feel better. Opua appeals – hot showers and a bed that doesn’t get slammed by every sixth wave. It’s been too rough to shower and I’m beginning to dislike the smell of myself. I dream my first NZ meal – lamb cutlets, asparagus,... finished off by lemon meringue pie and cream. No more awful Tongan chicken.

Oct 27
Tonight should be our last night at sea on this leg. We are going to Opua – yes! The weather isn’t good enough to go straight on to Wellington. This trip to Opua is 1060 miles and the leg to Wellington is 600 with much more volatile weather conditions. I have two bottles of bubbly ready to celebrate land fall.

Bay of Islands
We have arrived in Opua safely after having a very good trip down from Tonga. We did it in seven days which is an excellent time for us. We arrived on a sunny, warm day, welcomed by a pod of dolphins and a tuna on the line. We stopped in the shelter of a bay to enjoy a lunch of fresh tuna sushi before heading into Opua

and all the officialdom of customs, MAF and of manouvering in tight marinas.

This journey is not over yet though. We still have what is the most challenging leg to go, down the West Coast to Wellington. While we are here we reprovision, water up and refuel, plus catch up with cruising friends who are arriving each day having completed their own passages to New Zealand. To our great joy Meg and Brian, neighbours from our marina in Wellington, were touring up round here and came to visit. David’s mum came up from Whangarei to visit too and it was lovely to catch up with her. She is a yachting cruiser from way back with two passages to the islands under belt so had some understanding of what we were feeling.

Nov 1, Off Cape Rienga
Back on the road again after having a great time in Opua. We partied with other cruisers with much bragging about boat speeds and sharing passage conditions.

North Cape

Its 15 degrees and bloody freezing. The weather is giving a taste of NZ classic conditions. Its blowing 30 knots and the seas are 3-4 metres. I’m in the cockpit in the dark with big waves rolling down behind us, occasionally one breaks and I can hear the crashing sound. Fortunately very little of it comes aboard. Doing this side of the country means we will have completed a circumnavigation of the North Island. Quite an achievement.

We have been joined by a lovely young man, Nick from Kansas USA. We borrowed him from Compass Rose.

Andrew got a call from Wellington to say his dad was in hospital so he flew back home immediately.

If you look closely, yes, it's Mt Taranaki

It's a hard life this passage making

Nov 4, Cook Strait, only hours from home
We are racing through Cook Strait in the dead of night. We want to get to Wellington before a 50 knot Southerly arrives. We have wind and tide with us and clocked 10.5 knots at one stage, it’s a wonder we didn’t get speed wobbles. There was quite a bit of shipping about. Fortunately we timed the tide right and the rip at Karori rock was negligible. It can be a horrendous bit of water if you get the timing wrong.
We arrived at dawn and dear Piet was waiting to take our lines. I swallowed a couple of whiskies, had a hot shower and passed out. I woke to friends visiting then Wellington had the decency to put on a fireworks display to welcome us back. A fitting end to the trip.

Blog Oct 11
Less than a week to go before we head south to the 40’s, depending on the weather of course. We are following a friend’s progress sailing to NZ, on the radio and it is not pretty out there right now. Strong southerly head-winds. But it is gorgeous right here back in Uoleva, a tiny island with white sandy beaches – classic tropical island photo stuff. After days of wind and rain, and being stuck anchored off a town with a noisy town generator and ships coming past at night, the sun is out. Yesterday evening we were treated to a full-on thunderstorm and torrential rain, on our way home in the dinghy. From the shore we couldn’t even see the boat. One night it was so wet we had a roster for emptying the rainwater out of the dinghy so the outboard wouldn’t get swamped overnight .

Andrew has arrived safely and is proving a useful addition to the crew. Not only is he a sailor and a mechanic, we’d be the envy of the fleet up here if anyone found out, but he can sing. He’s a bass, and does harmonies, so we are warbling away here in three part harmony.

Andrew climbing for coconuts

We are spending our time preparing the boat and studying the weather – endlessly. I am tied to the galley bench cooking meals to freeze for the trip. Six different ways with chicken. That is the only meat we can get here. And only legs and thighs. When you buy your tender, easy to prepare, chicken breasts in the supermarket in NZ have you ever spared a thought for where all the other bits go? Well they all come here!

Aren't they amazing!

When my thoughts turn to NZ, apart from dreading the Wellington “spring” weather, I think of the luxuries in store for us. Long hot showers, supermarkets with a range of more than 40 products, crunchy apples, long showers again, fast internet, and best of all, seeing friends and family. Alas Harry is working in Wanaka over summer and I won’t get to see him, fortunately Tom is in town. But I do look forward to catching up with all of you. For all the glories of beautiful beaches and new experiences I think the main thing that really feeds me is friendships. When we get to places with email we revel in getting your emails. We copy them into a Word file and relish each word at our leisure. Fortunately we have an immediate community right here on the ocean. We have had a great time developing relationships with a number of other cruisers. Even when we are 100’s of miles apart we celebrate when we hear them on the radio. Friendships develop very quickly out here as we already have a huge amount in common when we meet, they are all fellow adventurers and have chosen sailing as their way of exploring the world.

I’ve been acting net controller on a cruisers’ net. It is huge fun. It has seriously improved my radio skills and I get to talk to all the yachts around here. We know about half of them so I get to catch up with all our friends. Jim, the guy who runs the net is having radio problems and hardly anyone can hear him so I’ve been checking in with yachts on passage and have Ted, a guy on a yacht in Opua doing the weather.

Oct 15
We are back in Nukualofa, our jump off point to NZ. All feeling tired. We’ve been visiting islands in the Ha’apais and were going to stay at a beautiful one, Kelefesia, even the name is lovely, before sailing down here. On arrival we navigated through the coral and found the anchorage very rolly, ocean swell was coming in, so we turned around and headed down here which meant an overnight sail. We were motoring as there was no wind so we thought we were in for an easy, calm, albeit noisy night on the ocean. But just before my watch we were hit by a 30 knot squall, so no star gazing for me, and for poor David who had to reef the sail. I was sick too, not too onerously though. Poor Andrew had his head firmly in a bucket for his watch. We’ll get our sea-legs soon. You may think that spending all this time on a boat would help me but the ocean movement is quite different to being in sheltered waters.

After leaving Uoleva we sailed a few hours to the island of Ha’afeva where the whole village happened to be having a feast to open the priest’s new house. Half a mill it cost, we were told, a lot of money for a very small village, maybe 250 people, to raise.

This woman seemed to want to have her way with me. I had to ask her to be gentle.

She was very funny.

Most of the people live pretty much on a subsistence level, albeit a well fed one, but the church constantly draws money from all. Aside from my cultural reservations about this we had a great time, dancing and feasting. The tables were laden with suckling pigs and lobster. Everyone was wearing their Sunday best making for a very colourful occasion.

The choir

On our way we came across these humpback whales messing about and having fun. Well, tnat's what it looks like to us. A very impressive display.

Mostly lying on their backs

waving their long flukes in the air but we saw one or two breathtaking breaches where they hurl themselves three quarters out of the water and land on their sides with a massive splash.

Now we are in this southern place we wait for the weather. There is no wind for the next few days so we will reprovision, refuel, prepare the boat and rest up. A number of boats have left in the last few days but they are either motoring or going nowhere, they tell us on the net. We will wait for the trade winds to come in again. It’s a fine line as we don’t want to run into bad weather a week later at the NZ end, and it sounds like you have been having it – 10 degrees in Bay of Islands – hope I’ve got enough clothes for those latitudes.
Xx
Janet

Oct 17
We thought we’d be waiting for a good weather spell to leave but the weather in fact is so good that we can’t sail anywhere, there is no wind all week! It is dead calm most of the time then we get hit by big squalls in the middle of the night. Thunder and lightning, and torrential downpours. We are anchored but we all get up and run the engine, and watch the GPS to see if we shift. Last night at 4am a squall hit and the boat in front of us dragged their anchor but fortunately they got away before they got to us. On the plus side we filled our water tanks and can do much needed laundry today.
Watch this space.

October 3 Janet
We are hanging out in a bay off the island of Uoleva in the Hapaai Island group in Tonga. I can feel our trip drawing to a close. We are starting to get the boat ready for the final passage of the trip.
This island is classically gorgeous. It is one long white sandy beach. There are no villages, just two backpacker resorts and a more upmarket one called Serenity, all tucked into the trees by the beach And only one other yacht here. When we arrived we knew of the backpacker places so set off down the beach to explore them. These places are rather basic with no power or food services, one was a bit rough but the other was lovely. However while we were there we learned of this place called Serenity that had a bar and a FRIDGE! (they have a generator for power). And they were having a birthday party for the owner. So we piled back into our dinghy and headed down there.
Serenity is everything that my perfect island retreat would be. The bar/restaurant is an open round building on the beachfront, fale style. Even the kitchen is open. You help yourself to beer and wine from the fridge and write it on a piece of paper. There is only one thing on the menu so you know its fresh and you don’t even have to make any decisions! The lighting is candles, hurricane and solar lamps. You can sit there and gaze out through the palm trees at the moonlight on the sea. To go to the loo you follow a path through the coconut palms lit by lanterns creating a magical effect. The accommodation is fales and thatched huts amongst the coconut palms.
We arrived and joined the backpacker people at a table. Then a group of five men from the other boat, an Australian ketch, arrived with guitars and drums. This looked promising. After dinner a very large cava bowl was brought out and many of us sat around it on the floor on mats. Speeches were made then we were told the protocol – drink, sing, drink, sing.... perfect! Oh and one clap for half a bowl of cava and two claps for a whole bowl. Gradually all the guitars came out and a drum. First the staff sang some Tongan songs with lovely harmonies then one of the Aussie men started with reggae. David and I sang a range of songs. It was a great night.
I like the feeling cava gives me. It is not a strong drug high but a lovely mellowness. Very gentle.
The Aussies had been having trouble with their single sideband radio (SSB), the radio we use for contact with the world when we are away from land, so the next morning I went over and helped them sort it out - well I sorted out channels and frequencies but the hardware left something to be desired. Great progress for a bird who hardly knew how to use this piece of equipment before she left NZ. The Aussies were impressed (they certainly were!! D).
Yesterday we had the best snorkelling on the whole trip. We followed a reef out from the beach. The coral was stunning.
Andrew, our crew for the return voyage, an old friend of mine from primary school days, arrives next week to cruise with us for a week before we head south. Yesterday I was listening to a boat on the net (an SSB station where we get weather and check in with) that was only a few hundred miles south of here, on their way back to NZ, and they said it was cold already! Frightening.
Tomorrow we head back to Pangai (the local town) to get more fresh food and water, our watermaker has packed up, and will meet up with Migration (American friends), and Hoki Mai an NZ boat we met in Samoa.
Well the sun is going to set soon so I’m off to the Aussie boat with David to have a drink with the rather lovely Aussie men. I tell you at 53 to have the attention of five ocean sailing men (ranging mid-forties to 60) does my self-esteem a world of good. (curiously David has been slightly more attentive!).
Later
Never got this posted last week so I’ll add a bit more. We are back in beautiful Uoleva. Several more boats turned up, most of whom we know now and we had a beach party. It was a beautiful calm night, pot luck dinner, full-on milky way and we played music around the bonfire. Perfection.
Then the next night was Bruce’s birthday on Migration. David made him a delicious chocolate layer cake and, using a calking nozzle, piped a whale in icing on it. Then he wrote a song for Bruce, typed it up and put it in a bottle (Bruce and Alene have a tradition of putting messages in bottles and setting them adrift). We took the guitar over and sang it before dinner. He loved it. Migration is a large trimaran with a huge foredeck. Bruce and Alene invited everyone in the bay over after dinner, set up a screen on deck and fired up their data projector. We watched The Wizard of Oz under the stars. Outrageous!!
Every morning we check into a radio net to say where we are and get weather updates. Twice this week Jim, who runs it, hasn’t been able to do it and asked me to do it. So I call up a whole lot of yachts who are on passage and get their positions and directions and check if they are okay. I love it. Alas my skills are nowhere near up to doing the weather. (But they ARE amazing – lots of cruisers have commented very favourably - D)
We will be in phone contact till we leave Tonga and will get to check the email one more time on about the 14th. We are really enjoying the emails you send.
Xx Janet

Haapai, Tonga

Ha’apai blog Sept 18
Today is my birthday and I couldn’t be in a more perfect place. We are back in Tonga, in the Ha’apai group, a relatively unvisited area of Tonga. We have only seen three other yachts here, two of whom we already knew, and we now know the other one after the ubiquitous “hello, how are you, where are you from, and come and have a drink” protocol of cruising.

After the last week in Niue being cloudy and cool, with very rolly seas in the anchorage, and the rough seas of the passage, we were greeted by a breaching whale not far off the back of the boat and the biggest fish we’ve ever caught – a one metre mahi mahi, iridescent blue which turned green in the cockpit. We dropped anchor in light winds, flat seas, warm temperatures, the most gorgeous aqua coloured clear warm sea, and palm fringed white sandy beaches. There was only one other yacht in our first anchorage where we rested the night before checking in to Tonga. It was Compass Rose whom we had met and partied with at Niuatoputapu. We were promptly invited over for dinner and accepted, donating a chunk of the fish David had caught!

We have cell-phone range again here and have treasured the texts we’ve had from you. It is extraordinary that in this remote place we have cell-phone contact!

Last night we had my second birthday celebration for this 53rd occasion. In Niue our friends Bruce and Alene on Migration threw us a little advance party in case we didn’t see them again. They had their boat decorated with streamers, party hats and whistles and balloons. We had a reading of Dr Seuss’s Birthday Book and they gave me a copy of one of Bruce’s children’s books, him being the author.

For last night’s party we reconnected with Kia Kaha, a NZ boat we’d met in Vavau last time we were in Tonga, so Mike and Kirsten and their baby Ocean came over along with Compass Rose for a fabulous potluck dinner, complete with our freshly caught fish. David sang me a song that had seduced me seven years ago – A Case of You by Joni Mitchell. Well I certainly do have a chronic case of him and long may it last. David topped it off by making me a classic NZ Edmonds banana birthday cake (with Niuean bananas), decorated by using a piping bag he’d made out of a plastic bag and a nozzle from a caulking gun. It even had birthday candles!

We’ve been into “town”, one dusty street with a few old buildings and a remarkable 5 or 6 “supermarkets”, all stocking much the same thing, and that is a very limited range, and most of them run by Chinese people. But the market yielded plenty of fresh fruit and veg and as we had stocked up really well in Samoa we are still dining like kings.

It is so nice to stop. We are going to hang out here for a few days as Migration are turning up on Monday. And just slow down. The whole trip has been such an intense melee of new experiences. It is nice to have time to just absorb it. Especially now as we are turning our thoughts to preparing ourselves and the boat for the return journey next month. Given that the passage to NZ is one of the potentially most brutal in the world we have to give it due consideration.
Janet

Saturday Sept 11
The devastation in Christchurch and the persistent stream of aftershocks has been on our minds. The tension and worry must be terrible. While our journey so far has been happily reminiscent of the tropical idyll we all imagine, the scars of natural destruction are everywhere. Here in Niue the effects of cyclone Heta which flattened the island in Jan 2004 are everywhere present:
- in remnants of physical damage – there are abandoned houses all around the coast,
- in the sudden population drop where it had been declining alarmingly anyway – after the cyclone many families relocated to NZ,
- but mostly in the casual comments and stories of those we meet. I met Ernie, who must be in his 80’s, while buying one of his coconut shell necklaces for Janet’s birthday. He described how he and his wife grabbed just a photo album and laptop before leaving their cliff-top home, 100 ft or so above sea level, for the greater safety of a friend’s home. But the enormous waves swept through this house, pinning Ernie under a sofa. He managed to hold his breath until the sea receded but he was trapped until his wife helped. He was hurt but alive. Not so his own home. By morning foundations were all that remained. There are at least 20 other similar stories. Time is marked, before and after the cyclone, as in Samoa and Niuatoputapu by the tsunami. So will it be for the 2010 Christchurch earthquake.

As for us, we went to bed last night to the music of singing whales, directly below us. Unforgettable!! As was the evening at the Golf Club where we took part in a quiz contest (I was in the winning team and even contributed one or two correct answers). We all stood and sang heartily the NZ national anthem in both languages and then watched in awe as the All Blacks came from WAY behind to win. Wahoo!! Mark Blumsky was there too.

We’ve explored half a dozen of the many cave systems and chasms on the island. They are all so different and each quite fabulous architecture. Many have pools, one with fresh water – yum, and a great, deep swim through – spelunking lingo for swimming underwater and under rock from one cave to the next.

The way down to the oasis.

Togo Chasm Oasis

Our favourite which I did twice was Vaikona because it was so difficult requiring a rope and harness, wetsuit,mask,snorkel and torch.

The start of Vaikona

Sandy, Les, David, Bruce, Alene

We knocked the bastard off

We did it twice because on the first go we couldn’t find the way out and had to retrace our steps through 4 swims-through. Soon after the start you have to cross a chasm for which we used the rope and harness. Very slippery and a fall would be disastrous. Hard to know how you’d ever get an injured person out. Then through 4 pools in the dark. We made it out by climbing a near vertical rock face and found later that we still hadn’t found the orthodox exit. Next time perhaps.

Janet very skilfully made a coaster at a village weaving morning. The women weavers invite any interested people to sit in with them as they weave mats and hats, baskets and fans so Alene and Janet went along.

At a village fair Bruce and I were nudged by our loving partners into filling out the ranks of the men’s fashion parade – there was only one contestant. We strutted out stuff in the most trendy of yachtie fashion gear and even danced for the crowd. For days after we were each recognised warmly in the street.

Tuapu village show day - Women's and Men's fashion show

A couple of days later Bruce, who plays Morris Dance tunes on a concertina, and I swapped songs at the Monday night Yacht Club BBQ.

We’ve also fitted in 2 scuba dives, one at Gothic City with 500 yr old coral, precious as it was not destroyed by the cyclone, and Snake Gully, so named because it’s riddled with gorgeous sea snakes that can kill in minutes but can’t open their mouths enough to bite. One let me hold it as it swam lazily by. The water is mile-deep clear. Wonderful!!

We’re getting ready to leave for Tonga in the next day or so. We will take with us memories of a very special three weeks on the this remarkable island.

David

Ps Janet is becoming quite the dab hand on the SSB radio. She assists on a radio net of a dozen or so yachts on passage, giving a weather report for her local (Niue for now) and relaying messages for yachts who can’t be heard by the net co-ordinator and weather guru. SSB communications have a language all their own - roger that, negative, stand by, Navire = november, alpha, victor, india, romeo, echo, copy that? and weather language is very specific – wind direction and speed, barometric pressure, percentage of cloud cover, sea conditions. The good ones do all this with the clarity needed to be understood over the crackle, fade in and out, Korean fishermen and other background noise as well as add humour. Janet is now doing all this with distinction.

I think it's Monday 30th. Not sure. Who cares.

Another gorgeous day here today although the wind has come round to NW, directly into the anchorage. There's no lagoon as this is a sea mount rising directly up from thousands of feet. So it's pretty lumpy. We had a bad night's sleep. However, we were swimming with whales before breakfast. So cool!! I was right above two about 5m below the surface just slowly rolling over, lying on their backs and gradually rising to the surface. Not a bad start to the day.

Had an hour with the Premier of Niue yesterday - his sister is a student of Janet's. He was a bit superior and seemed not to know stuff he should, like why Niueans leave Niue - 1000 here and 20,000 in NZ - esp as his stated primary goal is economic development to encourage fewer to leave and more to return. He argued that NZ aid is not aid but a short term overdraft facility and that, because most of the NZ money is used to buy goods from NZ the relationship benefits NZ as much as it does Niue which to me is curious economics. This is a fertile island but most fruit and vegetables are imported from NZ and very little locally grown stuff is available at the market. Local restaurants and food outlets can't get reliable supply locally and are obliged to buy expensive imported produce. Go figure!! I was hoping for an informed analysis and a strategy that had a chance of being achieved. Instead I met a man content with having achieved the office and focused on shoring up an economic arrangement guaranteed to keep things pretty much as they are. Disappointing.

But this does not stop the sun shining and the whales and trade winds blowing. We have rented a car with another boat for a week to have a good explore of this island. There is said to be a lot to do especially exploring extraordinary rock formations, caves, some with underwater access, scuba diving and this morning starts with a weaving class somewhere out of town.

Cheers David

Good morning. We were woken by whoops of joy from neighboring boats as they sighted 3 humpback whales meandering through the anchorage just metres from us. Fabulous. Janet jumped in the water and I jumped for my camera.

Life’s unreal. Unexpected delights are offered up unbidden each day.


That little black dot to the left of the diving whale is our friend Alene getting up close to the whale.

And that's Bruce, of Migration, next to the whale. Janet was in the water too but a little out of position when this whale surfaced. Very special.

We've borrowed our neighbor's antenae and have fabulous internet connection so we've been able to receive a number of emails in response to our last mass mailing. So good to hear news from friends and family. It seems that the blog is working pretty well, at least for those we've heared from. Any feedback is most welcome.

Here's our next account of Niue and there's another on the way.

Last night’s nocturnal snorkel with Bruce and Alene from the yacht Migration.

What a trip it was. On this island the reef extends as a shelf to about 100 metres from the shoreline cliffs. The reef is exposed at low tide and covered to a metre or less at high tide. At its seaward edge it drops off almost vertically to about 7 to 10 metres. Everywhere are canyons and crevasses, and fissures, holes and caves in the reef. The canyons are often quite deep to a sandy bottom. Some wind a good distance through the reef. Others are huge holes surrounded on all sides by cliffs of coral. The surface and walls of these coral formations are rich in sea life of all kinds. We saw a few wary crays and captured none but the sea life after dark and with a torch was magic. It’s the dark and torch light that does it. Many more creatures are out feeding, some sleeping or dozy, and with a torch the colours are terrific: bright oranges and reds, electric blues and greens, glowing yellow and red eyes of creatures we could not see, orange coloured lion fish named for their mane of white filaments, one huge red crab that was missing a claw and casually feeding with the other. There were black and white banded sea snakes meandering around and Janet saw a small yellow and white eel. Thankfully no sharks although earlier in the day Alene was annoyed by a white tip shark.

Swimming in the dark is spooky, as you’d expect. You can’t see anything except where the torch beam is directed and anything could be lurking outside that comforting ray of light. It’s easy to lose your sense of direction in amongst the canyons and crevasses and from the reef it’s not altogether clear which of those wee anchor lights bobbing in the distance belongs to your little haven. But the dark and torch beams dancing through the water, picking out extraordinary and beautiful sea creatures also created a magic that we loved.

Janet and I began to get cold, even with wet suits and so swam back to Navire leaving Bruce and Alene to keep searching for crays. While having desert of truffles and lemon cello, listening to music and playing cards I heard an unusual noise from outside. “Quick. Turn off the music.” I said, dashing outside. “It’s whales. Pass up that torch. They’re everywhere. We’re surrounded!!” I could just about see them and smell them. I definitely heard them. As I fumbled to get the torch on, that low, long note of whale song erupted in laughter and my beam of light picked out Bruce and Alene bobbing in the water and in hysterics as they realised how completely they had fooled us. To add insult they reported this morning seeing the real thing from their boat a few hours later into the night.

We’re off shortly to Alofi, Niue’s main town, to listen to a local whale research report complete with musical entertainment and games. Could be interesting.


David
Niue
28.8.10

Samoa to Niue
26.8.10
David

We’re in Niue!! I can’t believe it. And it’s wonderful. In our planning we had said we’d sail to Tonga and see what happened next. There are 171 islands in Tonga – more than enough to keep us out of trouble for 6 months. But perhaps we’d go up to Samoa too and if so we’d definitely stop at Niuatoputapu on the way. And, if ever we get the right winds, which are rare, maybe we’d sail east to Niue, which, in sailor’s lingo is ‘uphill’ because it’s normally against the trade winds that blow east to west. And here we are.

It was a good run down here. We left wonderful Samoa late in the day to a rousing farewell from the boats in the marina and motor-sailed along the top of Upolu, directly into the wind but fortunately it and the seas were light. It was slow going none the less. Late that night we rounded the island and lay our line for Niue. The full moon lit up the sea and the nights were glorious and warm. I frequently did my watches wearing only my shorts. Early on we caught a decent sized tuna and hooked three more, two of which escaped with the lure and the other wriggled off right by the boat. Damn!!

For the first time I found myself marvelling and somewhat awestruck by the fact we were bobbing along in a tiny plastic bubble, all on our own and hundreds of miles from anywhere.

Niue came up over the horizon a little before dawn on our third day, just as our GPS said it would. It’s the tiniest spot of rock in the middle of a big piece of the Pacific and a million miles from any other spot of rock and just fantastic. Fantastic to be here because it’s uphill and we were not sure we’d be able to get here. Fantastic because, well it’s just lovely. Not so hot and humid as Samoa, hugely friendly, the clearest water ever, fabulous snorkelling, endless caves and dramatic rock formations yet to explore. Some friends, Bruce and Alene, we’d met in Tonga, when Lily and Jackson were with us, arrived a few hours before us quite by chance. Most of the 15 or so yachts here have come from locations to the east and we expected to know no one so it was a delight to see Migration here. We’re going snorkelling with them tonight to see if we can get some crayfish and maybe spear a fish or two, in the dark, with sharks – whoa!!
Niue is a low, flat island similar to Tongatapu but much smaller and relatively sophisticated with internet, cafés and restaurants, shops with the essentials, a yacht club who have laid about 30 well maintained moorings for yachts that used not to stop here and much more. It was the easiest landfall we’ve made with no reef or harbour to negotiate and no anchor to lay. We could have done it in the dark as many have.

However, the landing presents an unusual challenge. You motor your dinghy in along a huge concrete wall lined with tyres a mile high for big ships to bumper on. You let your passengers off onto a steel ladder. While they scramble up to the top you grab a heavy rope dangling in the air which you use to manoeuvre the dinghy under a massive steel hook onto which you loop your dinghy’s hoisting bridle. By now you’re thankful and relieved that your dinghy has such a contraption because without it you’re stuffed. If you’re lucky your passenger has found the control buttons for the crane and raises the hook enough to hold the dinghy in place. You then use the dangling rope to pull yourself onto a ledge from which you scramble to the top where you hold the hoisting rope (and therefore the dinghy) away from the harsh, dinghy-crushing concrete wall while your crew operates the crane to gracefully lift the dinghy up and onto a waiting trolley. You detach the massive hook and wheel your precious dinghy to a parking space where you lift it off the trolley which you return for the next user of the hoist. This hoist is big enough to lift small ships. So far there has been little swell to contend with but we are informed that this is not always so. We are told that when the swell is in, landing is an altogether different story.

The brother of one of Janet’s students is the Premier here. We have a date to meet him on Monday. And also to meet Christian, a policeman friend of Rhoda, our wonderful Samoan host. So we have some local contacts. We shall see what happens.

We plan to hire a car with Migration. There is quite a lot to do and explore ashore. And I plan to do a scuba dive some time. There are whales around although far fewer than in previous years.

This morning we attended an assembly of the local primary school who celebrate the week’s learnings each Friday. I was kindly told off for clapping at the end of a song of prayer. “We don’t clap after prayers.” To me it was a rousing gospel song for which it would be rude not to show appreciation - a clash of cultures.

Food and drink accompany just about all social exchanges as they do everywhere in the world. And everywhere Janet’s offerings are accepted with glee and frequently a request for the recipe. And so it was when we took an entree for dinner with Migration. She made fresh tuna sushi and seared tuna with a peanut sauce, all knocked up in minutes. Bruce and Alene’s eyes popped. Sushi!! Wow!! She is a marvel in the galley and with local ingredients. For her the first stop in a new place is the market to search out exotic fruits and vegetables as well as the staples we need.

Samoa blog Aug 17
Janet and David

Samoa has been an absolute blast. We came here for a couple of days to re-provision, not really expecting much of the place, and have been here for over two weeks. This country is fabulous. The people are really friendly, the weather is great, the shopping is awesome after Tonga, and it is such a luxury being on a marina. We have had such a rich experience here and ironically with blogs when you have time to write them there is not much to say and when there is lots happening there is not much time to write about it.
We upped anchor from Niuatoputapu and headed north. We had to motor some of the first day till a nice breeze came up. It was a pleasant trip, sighting Samoa on our second day. We sailed through the passage between the islands, Savaii and Upolu, then had a rather tiring night trying to get east to Apia and hove-to off the harbour entrance till dawn. We have seen hardly any ships at sea but at dawn off Apia Harbour a large one was heading straight for us. I took the tiller off autopilot and moved out of its way pretty smartly but they had seen us and headed away as well.
Our arrival was fantastic. We’d heard that the marina wasn’t very good; suffering from surge and officious port authorities, and Apia wasn’t much of a place to visit. Wrong on all counts. We were escorted into a lovely marina by a small port boat and who should we see but one of our neighbours from Chaffers Marina in Wellington. The only other boat from Wellington, Distracted, that was up in the Pacific. And another NZ boat Obsession, whom we’d met in Tonga and got to know on the radio. We had a welcoming committee! Distracted hosted drinks that night for us to all catch up and set the tone for the rest of our stay.

The next day we headed to town to check out the provisioning. It is a half hour walk around the waterfront, and passing the ubiquitous churches. We thought Tonga was littered with churches but Samoa really outdoes them. Every village has at least 5 churches and these are no glorified village halls. They are absolute monuments to God, huge stone edifices some of which would look right at home in medievil England. It finally dawned on me that here in the Pacific, Samoa in this case, it is not a question of whether you are religious or not but which religion you follow. Seemingly every last soul has religion.

In town we found large supermarkets, by no means the monstronsities like Pak N Save but much bigger than the corner store variety in Tonga. And the range!! For us it was delectable. Interestingly for a boat here it was rather limited; they clearly hadn’t been to Tonga! We have higher speed internet, not as fast as Wellington, but so much faster than Tonga. Don’t get me wrong about Tonga, The cruising has it hands down over Samoa and that is what we are here for.

In Wellington a Samoan woman David works with from time to time gave him a few contacts here, which he followed up so we had some of them around for a drink, Alberta, Alfred and Rhoda. Alfred and Rhoda adopted us and they became our guides to Samoa. Their hospitality was superb. They gave us a meal of traditional Samoan food, and drove us around both islands.

On our first Sunday here we got up at 4.30 and went into town to the local fish market. It opens early so everyone can get their fish for their post-church Sunday lunch. It was a glorious site. You couldn’t have art-directed it better. There are long marble benches where everyone had laid out their wares. The fish were all in lines, lines of blue parrot fish, red mullet, and large crabs with their legs still waving in the air. There were rows of huge fish heads and enormous whole tuna and Wahoo. Squid were laid out with their tentacles spread out and it was all cheap. It was expensive in Tonga and earlier when we were in the Cook Islands. We bought a piece of Wahoo which we had as fish stew last night.
Then we headed for church to hear the singing. We decided to check out Alfred’s church. This was not the beautiful island singing we had experienced at Niuatoputapu but a full on revivalist praise the lord oration of two and a half hours!
Then off to Rhoda’s for the Samoan lunch. We had mackerel cooked in coconut cream; delicious luau which is coconut cream wrapped in taro leaf and baked, a sausage noodle stir fry, breadfruit, green bananas baked in coconut cream, corned beef (not tinned) and more.
After lunch we went to Alfred’s parents place to do our internet banking. We only like to check it on secure sites, not on the wireless. We met his parents and sister and were made to feel very welcome.
Then came the first part of the island tour. We headed east. Out of Apia, Samoa is a series of villages. Most homes are open fales, a large open structure with concrete or wooden floor and a tin or thatched roof held up by a series of poles and usually brightly painted – no doors or windows so all living is done in full view although some have curtains. There are also plenty of ‘Palangi’ houses and many combinations of open fale with a corner or more enclosed with doors and windows. But the open structures are so sensible for the heat here.
We checked out a resort that had been completely rebuilt having been destroyed by the tsunami. I’m not a big fan of resorts but this one was beautiful. If I win lotto this would be my first port of call. We bought a bottle of wine and sat in a beautifully appointed bar out over the sea.
On the journey home in the early evening we noticed pairs of young men in white shirts who, we were informed were curfew police. Between 5 and 6 all residents must be in their fales spending time in prayer and with family who will be fined if one of their members is found out of doors during curfew time. There is another curfew at 10pm. It seems this society is quite strongly regulated in ways unfamiliar to us. We were required to have a letter signed by the CEO of the Ports Authority to be allowed local visitors to our boat. Names of all visitors and dates of their visits had to be specified. We needed a permit, to cruise these islands. This was free but took two meetings to secure.
The next day we toured the other half of the island seeing more brightly coloured fales and beautiful coastline. We went to the Pilau pools, freshwater pools on the coast that go into caves. We dived through a pass that took us from one cave to another.
We headed inland and saw the lush bush of the interior. When we reached the eastern end we started to see the remnants of the ravages of the tsunami last September. Whole villages have been reshaped. Where once dense housing had stood, new houses were sparsely scattered. Many people have relocated inland. Not an attractive proposition given the heat and bugs, and the fact that many people had family buried on their properties.
On the eastern end we saw a long wharf being rebuilt. This is the place where ferries ran between Western and American Samoa. A new wharf at a cost of nine million dollars had just been built, and the tsunami just ate it up and spat it out.
All along the Southern side of the island we saw evidence of rebuilding, spaces where houses had been and some remaining debris. Over 100 people lost their lives.
Here we started to experience the irritating but understandable practice of everybody charging for everything. You cannot go to a beach, check out a waterfall or even take a photo in some places without someone wanting money. All land is privately owned which includes the foreshore. We just wanted to stop and eat our picnic on the beach but had to pay in the end - minor flaw.
During the following week we continued to provision and get boat stuff and party on the boats. I am not after any sympathy but all quite exhausting in the heat. (and it turned out I had a cold which explained some of the exhaustion – a result of overdoing the partying I think)
We visited the Samoan home of Robert Louis Stevenson, a beautiful historic mansion up on the hill. He was in Samoa just 4 years and yet occupies a position of considerable honour. I suspect it’s just another case of making the most of an association with a famous person.
Last weekend Rhoda and Alfred took us around the other island of Samoa, Savaii which, by the way, is said to be the island from which voyages to Tahiti, Rarotonga, Tonga, Hawaii and many others originated and gave Hawaii it’s name. We headed off on the local ferry, worryingly reminiscent of the Lady Ashika (Tongan ferry that went down). I was tempted to try and count the life jackets and David noted that there was no way all the passengers were going to fit in the couple of life boats present.
Savaii is mountainous and has a road around the perimeter lined with brightly coloured fales. We visited waterfalls, swam in fresh water and generally saw the sites. We were hoping to stay in a fale on the beach but ended up in a kind of resort, just as well as it poured with rain. Beautiful beach and some of the food was quite good.
One of the highlights was visiting a pool full of huge turtles that we swam with. Later that day we saw a place called the Lava Fields, a huge area covered in lava form an eruption in 1905. And right in amongst this area of black rock many have rebuilt their homes. This rock holds a tremendous amount of heat, guessing 5-10 degrees more than the ordinary land. Maybe they built there because it was their family land and all they had although most of the villages relocated to an area on Upolu.
We had planned to hire a car or motor bike to do this site seeing but having Alfred and Rhoda was far more fun and informative. They explained many local customs, pointed out features we might easily have missed, told us some of the folklore involving giants and dwarfs and Sina and the Eel and a great deal more. Alfred is an engineer employed by the Land Transport Authority so he was able to describe the tsunami damage to this infrastructure and work required. Rhoda works in the Disaster Management Office and was closely involved with Samoa’s tsunami response. She is currently trying to get 2 containers of tsunami aid released from Customs that have been tied up in incomprehensible bureaucratic red tape since late last year for one container and May this year for the other. The paperwork for one said it was clothing but was in fact all heavy industrial electrical cable. There is a dispute over who should be liable for the wharf fees which have grown to $27,000 and Customs is trying to charge duty on the contents. Rhoda has explained this to us several times but I still don’t follow the saga.

We took Rhoda and Alfred out on the harbour along with Alfred’s 2 sisters and his parents. It was a treat for them to be out on an ocean going yacht and to see their city from the water. They were astounded that anyone would willingly go to sea in something so small. We were reminded that living aboard is quite a specialised life style and not everybody’s cup of tea. Back in or berth we made some music.

It’s been a very social time here with meals and drinks on other yachts most evenings and loads of music courtesy David who teamed up for a time with a harp and ukele player. One boat here with two gorgeous preschoolers aboard brought a guitar and sax, each parent intending to learn in their spare time. But with 2 children they have yet to find that spare time. However, Scott heard David play in Niuatoputapu which inspired him to dig out his guitar and David taught him a 12 bar blues in exchange for advice on a water cooling dilemma. David says that if he had to pick a single highlight of this adventure it would be the music – playing with others and being listened to with such appreciation. It’s done heaps for his confidence as a musician. Among our first questions now, when we meet another yacht is “are there musical instruments aboard?”
Our neighbours are Swiss, German, Canadian, Australian, American, from Vanuatu and NZ of course.
So now we are getting ready to go to Niue if the wind is right. Janet is putting the final touches to a Niuean courtesy flag. Quite fiddly to make as it has a Union Jack in the corner like the NZ flag.
Xx
Janet and David