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