Today’s blog is in the form of a letter to a friend who has sailed to Niuatoputapu before so I’ve added a few details in brackets.
(Hi Meg, I’m writing this for the blog too but I have you in mind as my principle audience, so there are a few details in there that you know already)

Hi Meg,
So good to get your news from home, even if it is absolutely freezing there. We’ve been out of phone and internet contact for nearly two weeks while on passage and in Niuatoputapu. We are now in Samoa and it is really hot – 30 degrees. However the locals don’t think so, we had three Apia residents over last night and they said they were using duvets at night – we don’t even use a sheet!

But let me go back a bit. We had a good sail from Vavau (160 nautical miles) to Niuatoputapu, sailing overnight and arriving early the next day. We had lots of wind so rocketed along at 6 & 7 knots, despite the 2-3 metre swell and moderate sea. At last I seem to be suffering less from sea-sickness; it makes the passages so much more fun. I like the shorter passages too.

You are right, the entrance to Niuatoputapu wasn’t so bad (the entrance is surrounded by coral reefs just below the surface). We were greeted by the first dolphins we have seen on our trip, then we had to get the sail down, and suddenly we going through the markers. The markers were relatively good (for Tonga) a few bent over from the tsunami, and the leading marks were still there and worked. It was glorious to come in from the rough sea to the calm lagoon. And yes C-map worked up there. (Our electronic chart which doesn’t read correctly for the rest of Tonga as their charts don’t correspond with GPS).



The shapely profile of Niuatoputapu as we appraoached from the east.


There was one other boat there who we quickly befriended in true cruiser style. We spent the rest of the day recovering; even one overnight sail (with night watches) is exhausting. The next day we went in to the village, despite not being cleared in. As you go north in Tonga the whole customs thing gets easier and easier. We checked in and out on the same day but didn’t leave immediately.
In the village we met Niko and Sia, two fabulous locals who were to be our hosts for the next 11 days. Because of them we had the best experience of our whole Tonga stay.

Our first exercise was to climb the mountain in the centre of the island to see the view – whose idea was that! It was 30 degrees, straight up and plagued with mosquitoes – but the view was excellent.
(Niuatoputapu is Tonga’s northernmost and remotest island. It has a population of about 800, no power except for a few private generators, and gets a supply ship once a month. About 100 yachts visit in the six month cruising season – which is very few when you compare it to the several thousand yachts that visit Great Barrier Island in January alone. Much of the island was hit by a tsunami in September last year))
We could see where the tsunami had hit. Parts of this island were devastated and 11 people killed. These people didn’t have much in the first place but now many are still living in tents waiting for the government to direct aid to housing (as opposed to the nice new roads they built – hardly anyone has a car – go figure!).

David’s first contact on the island was to watch the Tri Nations game in the middle of the night. A week later I joined in for an All Blacks/ Wallabies game. It was the best place I’ve ever watched the rugby. The venue was a thatched hut, the village hall having been gutted in the tsunami. There must have been 50 people in there all sitting on the floor. At the end of the hut was a TV hooked up to a generator. The TV and generator belonged to a local family as the village one- yes - was washed away by the tsunami.

At the front of the hut was large group of small boys, like a sea of puppies, and at the back a group of older men sitting round a large wooded kava bowl. They were a great audience. They cheered every tackle and half the audience was pro NZ and half for the Aussies.

The next day, Sunday, we went to the local Catholic Church to experience the singing; it was spectacular, natural four part harmony, no songbooks and no choir director. We got welcomed by name and the priest even gave us a synopsis of his sermon in English and contextualised it to sailing.

Then the first of our wonderful meals at Niko and Sia's. We ate at their place every second night for over a week and they never wanted payment (except for the pig – more on that later) so some wonderful trading happened. Because they get so few supplies on the island it was easy to give food them and stuff that they couldn’t get. Also most boats are well set up with tools so between us we managed to fix a few things for them while we were there.

This was a typical Sunday feast. I went early to watch the preparation of food before it went into the umu (sort of hangi style). I sat in this sort of outdoor kitchen. Niko and Sia’s house and shop were destroyed in the tsunami but they managed to find the shop roof and Niko found enough debris to build their three roomed shack. So outside this was a tap on a post with a communal toothbrush attached to it. It free drained into the sand. There was a platform to sit in and a table to keep the dishes on. There were two fire pits, one set up to boil things on and the other to act as an earth oven. The ground was littered with coconut shells and puppies.

I watched Sia make what turned out be delicious parcels of baked food. First she laid out banana leaves, and then put taro leaves on top of these. We picked and cut up pele, a green spinach like leaf, put this in a mound and added fresh fish, and in other parcels tinned mackerel, and corned beef. This was finished off with coconut cream, wrapped in a parcel and put into the umu. Niko sat on his coconut grater and quickly made the litres of coconut cream. Pawpaw was peeled, cut up and boiled in coconut cream.

Everyone was involved including their 3 sons. The kids scaled fish, peeled breadfruit with a mackerel can, prepared manioke (cassava) and chewed on sugar cane. Finally it all went in the oven and cooked for a couple of ours. We ate sitting on the floor of one of their rooms which they had cleared. The food was excellent, moist and flavoursome. And so simple. Apart from the tinned mackerel and corned beef, everything else they had grown or caught. My lowest food miles yet!

The next day we walked into the main village to check in and clear out customs. We visited a beautiful spring and had a bath. It was so glorious to be in fresh water. At that stage we’d been short of water and were salty all the time. Now we have the water maker going and had a couple of down pours that filled the tanks to overflowing, we are much cleaner and fresher.
A couple more boats arrived and we formed a tight knit community for about 10 days. Two American boats, a Canadian one and us.


Our next culinary event was a pot luck dinner at Niko’s. I baked brownie which went down really well as they don’t have an oven (or stove). David brought his guitar in and we had a great night singing. David has set out to play in public more and is doing it really well. Niko and Sia enjoyed this as they had lost their guitar in the tsunami.


A couple of days later we had a kava session. I’d heard it was awful stuff, and while it definitely looks like dirty dish water and tastes a bit odd, it has a very pleasant effect. We sat round a bucket and passed the kava around in half a coconut shell. It made me feel very mellow and relaxed. This was lovely combined with being with friends, warmth, being a in a tropical environment and the sunset. Niko and some of his friends and family sang some beautiful Tongan songs in four part harmony.



Next we all chipped in and bought a pig to roast on a spit. Another wonderful night eating and singing.


Mary, a classical violinist, fiddle, harmonica and mandolin player turned up and we had a final concert and potluck. David’s playing and singing was a huge hit. He has quite a repertoire now. He even wrote a song about Niko and Sia and the kids which they loved.










Song for Sia and Niko – to the tune of “The Crawdad Song”

You get a line I’ll get a pole Niko
You get a line I’ll get a pole man
You get a line I’ll get a pole, we’ll go fishing off Falehau
Niuatoputapu people fine.

Wake up now you slept too late kids
Wake up now you slept too late boys
Wake up now you slept too late
School bus has passed your gate
Niuatoputapu boys fine

What’ll become of these fine boys Niko
What’ll become of these three boys Sia
What’ll become of these fine boys
They’ll be grown men with degrees
Niuatoputapu men fine

What you gonna do with all these cruisers Sia
What you gonna do with all these cruisers now
What you gonna do with all these cruisers, feed ‘em up, be Tongan bruisers
Niuatoputapu people fine

Niko took David and some of the other yachties out fishing to show them how it was done. Alas David didn’t catch anything. Fortunately the others did so we had marinated and fried fish that night.







We were sad to leave but the wind was finally in the right direction, and had abated, so we took the opportunity and left. In fact after blowing for a week the wind dropped to nothing and we had to motor most of the first day. But I’ll keep that for the Samoa blog.






The end of another perfect day on Niuatoputapu


This experience of cruising really is extraordinary and wonderful. It has become our reality, it is normal for us to live on our boat floating from one beautiful place to the next. Sure it has its challenges like bad weather at sea, night watches and tiredness, hot nights, sand-flies and boat repairs but on the grand scale of things it really is living life to the full.
Now we are here doing this, it looks so achievable to go on doing it. We meet people every day who have been afloat for four or five years. So maybe we’ll do more in the future. Who knows. Check this space again after our return passage to NZ.

Tsunami stories.
The further north we go the more we see and hear of last year’s tsunami south of Samoa. We have met 3 yachts who survived the epicentre – 2 in Pago Pago, American Samoa, and one here at Niuatoputapu, a tiny Tongan island half way between Vava’u and Samoa. We met Kirk, skipper of Gallivanter, in Neiafu through a diesel container he was selling. Kirk is a larger than life American – talkative, full of stories and loquacious joviality. Wayne, from Victoria, BC and solo skipper of Learnativity ( to my relief he wasn’t pressing Christmas bibles on all comers) we met with Ruby, his adorable miniature black poodle, on our arrival in Niuatoputapu. More measured and serious than Kirk, he was pleased to tell us his extraordinary tsunami experience. Gallivanter and Learnativity were moored to the large concrete wharf at Pago Pago and, for both owners, their first inkling that things were not quite right came when the 10 metres of water under their vessels disappeared in seconds, their keels hitting the seabed and rolling on their sides among the flapping tuna and detritus in the mud. Wayne, clinging to the stays on the high side and hearing Ruby’s claws as she skidded down the deck, let go and managed to grab her by the scruff of the neck as she was passing through the life lines. In an astonishing feat of quick thinking and athleticism, he threw Ruby 15 feet straight up where an 8 year old boy, gazing in awe at the boats on their sides way down there in the mud, actually caught her. Then the water came back in – not in a violent, turbulent rush but rising calmly and very rapidly. The boy with Ruby and his family watched as the water rose and, as it became apparent that it was not going to stop at its usual place a couple of metres below the wharf, they all climbed onto a large planter with small shrubs and a tall lighting pole. The water kept rising. Learnativity and Gallivanter had both been lifted off the seabed. Gallivanter was carried clear over the enormous wharf but Learnativity’s keel became jammed under it and the steel yacht looked for all the world like she would soon be crushed by the immense pressure building around her. Instead, however, she was squeezed like an orange pip and was shot out from under the wharf where she sat upright. Wayne somehow got to the cockpit, started the engine and threaded his way to deeper water through a nightmare of trees, bits of buildings, huge drifting tuna trawlers, sinking wrecks and dead bodies. On Gallivanter Kirk watched as he and his boat were carried over the wharf and, to his horror, directly toward the family now clinging near the top of the pole and swept horizontal by the surge with Ruby wrapped around the boy’s neck and reportedly quite calm. Kirk was helpless as Gallivanter charged the pole and family and Ruby when the surge reached its peak and began receding carrying Gallivanter, engine already started, back over the wharf and Kirk too dodged part submerged cars and wreckage of all kinds. Both yachts survived, damaged but floating, and the family up the pole with Ruby did too. The skipper of the vessel next to Gallivanter was swept to his death as he tried to untie his mooring lines. Both Kirk and Wayne had cut theirs. About 50 others died that day in Pago Pago. For more Google: Learnativity.Typepad.com
In Nuiatoputapu Agnes and Bertil aboard Panacea felt the earthquake even through the water but thought nothing of it until they heard the tsunami warning on the radio. Bertil looked to the reef entrance to see the fringing palm trees peeling off the shore. He had time only to start his engine and turn the boat into the advancing surge. Panacea bounced wildly but the water passed harmlessly under. Ashore all was very different. A year later the devastation is evident everywhere. They lost 9 of their 800 people, several hundred lost their homes and all belongings, crops everywhere were destroyed, many boats were swept away or sunk and all communication with the outside world was severed for weeks. Many buildings are still empty shells with doors and windows gaping. Felled palm trees litter the foreshore. Everywhere people live in campsites with tents, now sagging, faded and often torn, for shelter. The government effort has focussed on repairing the roads and until yesterday the supply of tents has been their only response to the housing need. Yesterday half a dozen building platforms were erected and materials for the one roomed homes to be built on top are said to be arriving next week. There are only one or two functioning boats in this village. Several wrecks are pulled up on the shore, one being repaired. Outrigger dugout canoes are in common use and a new one is being built near where we land. So scope for fishing is limited to within the lagoon. The only VHF transmitter is owned by Niko who managed to recover it from his wrecked fishing boat. None of the port authorities or other government agencies can communicate with the shipping in the area.
Panacea’s satellite phone became the only link with family and officials in the rest of Tonga and the world. Her well equipped first aid kit provided the best medical help on the island. Bertil and Agnes found themselves at the hub of the island’s emergency response effort. These two gentle, big-hearted sailors worked tirelessly for many days on behalf of this stricken community and are remembered with great affection. We heard their account while waiting on the weather in Whangarei. They too were heading for Tonga and Niuatoputapu in particular to meet old friends, see the state of the recovery and to deliver all the much needed supplies their small yacht could carry from NZ. Among these were several copies of a beautifully presented photo album of before and after images from their camera – a valuable treasure and important record.
Listening to these stories of events of more than a year ago we couldn’t help but be impressed by the immense impact on all the sailors. We were eager to hear their stories but they needed to tell them. Wayne frequently interrupted his account with phrases like “even now it seems so surreal. Nothing made sense. I could no longer tell which was up (I’m sure he meant this figuratively and literally). Things that just should not happen were happening like a wild dream and as bizarre.”

Exploring Tongatapu with Lily and Jackson

Exploring Tongatapu with Lily and Jackson

We explored Tongatapu, 1st by bus which was an education. I spent some time sorting out which bus to catch and where and at what time. I met Sylvester who owned 6 little buses and did the Ha’asini rout. I called him Mr Stallone. He first took me passed the airport to collect the kids- $2 instead of $30 for a taxi, and with some excellent rap blaring from his stereo. So we caught the same bus to go to some caves.

Sylvester assured us that the caves and good snorkelling were at the end of this road. There were caves and snorkelling but not the ones we had in mind but to our utter surprise the only people on the beach greeted Jackson – friends from university. How does that happen? As they enthused about the whales they had seen that day, there they were just the other side of the reef. Fantastic!!

We could not resist this bill board. Everything I hear or read about this man leaves a sour taste but the local response is more muted. Seems a touchy subject to raise.


Then we hired a car – one of simplest transactions ever, no contract, no driver’s license check, no innumerable extras. Just $50 for the keys and we were off. And the car didn’t break down.
Visited these spectacular blowholes

And this coral arch,

And these fabulous caves at the bottom of which was this fresh water pool. Ah, the pleasure of a salt free swim.

Much effort went into finishing these coconut drinking cups.







All up Jackson and Lily had a pretty good time.

Blog July 14 - Salt


Salt has been dominating our lives so thought I’d write a piece on this as we have been hanging out at Tongatapu waiting for the right conditions to go back north again, and there’s not much to report.


Our lives are inundated with salt. It has now permeated almost every area of our existence. In Wellington I managed to restrict most of the salt to the outside of the boat but here it has seeped into every crevice. It started on the trip up, day one in fact, when we were in rough weather off the Wairarapa coast. We would fall into our bunks after a watch clothed in full wet weather gear. Getting changed was hard work when the boat is heeled over and falling off waves, and in my case any additional movement below probably meant throwing up.


Salt infiltrates through many means. We only get a fresh water shower once or twice a week as getting fresh water here is quite a challenge, so it comes in on our skin. Plus most days we swim. We wear the same light clothes for days and they become salt laden. Because of the water shortage we can’t do laundry very often and getting the salt out requires several rinses, something we can’t afford.


Then the water got so low we started doing the dishes in salt water. It gets them clean but has introduced salt into many of the cupboards.
Now you may wonder why salt is such a problem. Somewhere a long time ago I gathered a figure about salt being able to absorb 70 times its mass in water. (Someone please Google that for me and let me know if that is correct). These last few days the humidity has been up to 88%. With the air laden with so much water every salty surface is lapping up the fluid and the place has become very damp. Even the bed is damp now as the sheets soon became salt from our salty bodies.
Because our dishes are done in salt water everything you drink has a slight salty flavour. Fortunately we need the ingestion of salt to offset the salt loss from sweating.





Blog July 16, Neiafu, Vavau group


At last we are in the north again. We had a glorious trip up here, aside from having to motor half the trip because of lack of wind. It is 160 miles, an overnight sail from Tongatapu, to here. On the last two trips I was sick on the first day but this time I wasn’t. Having my sea legs makes the trip so much more pleasant.


We are on our way to new adventures. I feel excited and anxious about it. We are headed to two types of places, remote places and foreign ports. Our first stop will be Nuiatoputapu. 160 miles or an overnight sail from here. It only gets a ship four times a year; it won’t have internet and probably not cell phone. We need to take all our own provisions, and it has a very narrow coral reefed entrance. Why go there you may ask? Aside from it being a good stopping point half way to Samoa its very remoteness is part of the attraction.


From there we may go to Samoa. When we first arrived here adapting to being in this very different culture entirely used up the part of my brain that deals with these things and the thought of moving on to a new country quickly (as many yachts do) was daunting. Gradually I have gained a rudimentary understanding of how things work here and am ready for more new experiences. Or so I thought. Yesterday I talked to a man from another yacht about Samoa. He described an awful marina – swell, dirty, noisy, expensive -, the only place you can stay in Apia, main port of Samoa, endless red tape, super – trade winds, and then of course different currency and another language. But after a long description of all the problems he said it was a great place and really worthwhile visiting – see why I’m nervous and excited!


One of the reasons for going to Samoa is so to increase our chances of getting favourable winds for sailing to Niue. Niue is remote and foreign. It has one flight a week. It has no natural harbour so they have put moorings in for yachts. More on Niue later. One country at a time.
David has described our activities with the kids. After they left I was busting to go north but we decided to wait till David’s knee was a bit better. Then we got held up by a long weekend (couldn’t provision) and westerlies. Had a very domestic time, cleaning fixing and rearranging provisions – an almost perpetual task. It was colder down there too. We suffered in about 22 degrees (I don’t expect any sympathy from you down in NZ) and we had to use light blankets at night and wear another layer.


Atata (place of lost dinghy)


We revisited Atata, a short sail from Nukualofa, and anchored off the reef. The kids and I took a long dingy ride into the reef and I took them to a local village. It was very different to anything they had encountered before. For me the villages here are remarkably similar to the villages on Aituatki in the Cook Islands where I worked for 3 months on a film, 30 years ago. Remarkable in that apart from the ubiquitous cell phone tower, they looked much the same as 30 years ago.
We have visited half a dozen now. They don’t usually have power, maybe a small generator here and there and a few solar panels. One village had a communal Sky dish. No cars in the island villages. The houses are very simple, made out of concrete blocks and tin, with louvres. A lot of cooking is done outside on a fire. Dogs, pigs and chickens roam freely.


One of the sad things about these villages in beautiful; settings is the litter. It’s everywhere, people just throw their rubbish on the ground. Beaches and tracks are often festooned with corned beef tins, used batteries and broken glass. In the past all their rubbish would have been organic and not a problem.


As a corollary to my item on salt we have just got our water-maker going. This is making such a difference to our lives. This machine sucks seawater through a membrane and produces 5 litres an hour. We run it every time we run the engine, which we do at least an hour a day to chill our fridge and freezer, and charge our batteries. Also here in Neiafu we have access to local town water which is very unpalatable. I have five buckets of washing soaking in the cockpit waiting for the hose tomorrow where I can rinse to my heart’s content and just for a moment we will be almost salt-free.

Blog June 30
Kelefesia, Hapai Islands
We are sitting here off the most beautiful island we have visited so far. We are in transit from Vavau to Nukualofa to pick up Lily and Jackson.
We arrived dog tired after an overnight passage, a day of navigating coral reefs, and the slaughtering of fish. These coral reefs are scary things, you often can’t see them, lurking just below the surface, meanwhile being seduced by the coconut palm clad, white sand fringed islands just beyond them.
In any other country we could use our GPS to navigate around them but in Tonga the charts don’t match with the satellite derived GPS coordinates, so we have to work off paper charts only.
We nosed into a tiny anchorage liberally peppered with bombies, big coral formations flowing up toward the surface that can rip the bottom out of your boat or wrap your anchor almost irretrievably around them.
The island is largely uninhabited, just a shack that is occasionally visited. We wandered on the beach collecting coconuts, then snorkelled on the stunning coral reef.

I thought I’d summarise the different kind of days we have on this trip. They loosely fall into three categories, day at sea, day at anchor and day in town. At the moment these tend to fall in quick succession as we have been tied into visitor’s schedules. Later this month we’ll start spending a week at a time anchored in places.
# 1 Day at sea
Around here that means getting from one island group to another and usually involves an overnight trip. Starts with navigating out of whatever coral reefed rimmed place we are in. Sails up, take a bearing and off we go.
We do four hour watches but this does not necessarily translate into four hours sleep when you are off watch. The boat is moving around, the wind may be howling, waves crash on the side of boat, the person on watch is navigating and making food in the galley, downloading weather information or talking on the radio.
On deck the watch person is keeping a look out, checking the course, altering the sails, monitoring the weather, checking anchorages and tides for the next place, fishing, cleaning fish blood out of the cockpit, and has the occasional conversation or game of cards when we cross over.
#2 Day in town
This inevitably follows a day (or more) at sea. And of course the weather is usually still and blisteringly hot on town days. However town day also means fresh crunchy vegetables and watermelon that drips down your chin. It means cafes and internet, contact with home. We have to go to customs and check in and out of every island group, immigration to update visas, bank, phone top ups and of course the ever essential fuel and water. To our dismay there are very few places you can go alongside and get these, mostly we have to jerry can it under the blazing sun. Supermarkets are like our corner stores, and the prices vary wildly, so you need to go to several each time to find a good price. The fresh produce is abundant but different things are available each time we go in.
Then the inevitable repairs, sail, outboard, dinghy replacements! Then we stagger back to the boat for a cold beer and bed.
#3Day at anchor
This is the best one. We wake very early as we usually go to bed early here. Make coffee. This involves the daily grind. I misguidedly thought it would be better to bring beans up here than ground coffee but in actual fact with vac-packing ground would have been good. I borrowed a hand grinder to bring but it is hard work. Or we should have brought the electric one with us.
Next is a smoothie of some kind, usually watermelon and banana (we often have one at night with the addition of Bacardi), or slices of pawpaw or pineapple. Occasionally we have toast from David’s home-made bread with my homemade marmalade.
At Vavau we listen to the local daily net on VHF at 8.30am. This is very cool. All the boats around report in, it gives a good weather forecast, then a buy sell or swap, requests for information, and local events that are on like Waka arriving, or a street cleaning session.
Morning swim, one of the many great things about being in a yacht is that you can just fall over the side any time you get hot. The snorkelling has been fabulous. A few days ago we practised diving in and out of a cave with an underwater opening in preparation for a famous dive called Mariner’s Cave.
Then the daily boat activities. For me planning menus, use of provisions, shopping lists, you always have to think ahead as often we don’t get to a market for over a week, and things go off quickly as our refrigeration isn’t perfect. The food is great. Last night we had fish soup made with yellow fin tuna we caught, with kumara and rocket. Also constant cleaning and fixing.
Wherever we can we explore the islands and visit the villages. We collect coconuts for drinking and for making coconut cream. David is getting very good at husking them now.
We often have a cocktail at sunset or join other cruisers for a drink. Dinner then play cards or watch Outrageous Fortune and fall into bed.
Contrary to expectations we hardly ever spend any time just lying around.
July 3rd
We have been here just over a month now, but it feels much longer. After spending a day at Kelefesia we had a lovely day sail back down to Tongatapu. Around this time we both managed to put our backs out and David got a serious infection in his knee so we felt a little old and decrepit. It was glorious to arrive at Pangimotu again, to be somewhere familiar for a change.
We spent two hot days in town, provisioning etc before the kids arrived Tuesday night. Since they have been here unfortunately there has been a strong relatively cold Southerly (20 degrees) and we haven’t been able to go far. But there have been a couple of highlights.

More about Tongatapu when we get back up to Vavau at the end of the week
Cheers
Janet & David

Vava'u to Nukualofa to pick up J and L

Hunga Lagoon and entrance, outer Vava’u – very narrow, very shallow, very scary.

All the people of Hunga Village in funeral attire walking to their cemetary.
The road was built with aid from India and, while, in my view it’s an over-the-top contruction complete with footpaths and low walls on both sides, it is a boon to the village who now don’t have to contend with a perpetually slippery mud track.
We had been invited to watch the rugby on their communal satelite tv and then to attend one of their 5 churches (village population is 300) on the following day. But a death in the village took precedence. We could hear singing all through the night and in the morning most of the village gathered for the burial.

Three of these extraordinary vessels sailed into Neiafu to a rousing welcome with much song and dance. They had sailed from NZ via Tahiti and Samoa using Polynesian navigation methods. Quite a special site. These are smaller replicas of the traditional vayaging waka which were larger, could carry more people, sail faster and better to windward than any of the European ships of the era.

Kelefesia in the Ha’apai Group. Quite the most perfect South Seas island we’ve visited. Very remote, breathtakingly beautiful, spectacular coral and tropical fish with under water visibilty to die for.

Just enough room in the lagoon for 2 or 3 boats.

Coconut and water melon

daiquiri – yum!!

Three traditional outrigger canoes and other evidence of periodic occupation on the north of this tiny island. There was a wary dog that looked fed so the people can’t have been too far away.

No trouble for Lily. The locals were impressed.

A modestly loaded boat with plenty of free board. You should see the others - Pangaimotu, near Nukualofa.

In Nukualofa we attended this feast of the Free Wesleyan Church conference. There were just 3 or 4 other palangi there among the 1000 or so at this enormous gathering. We were strongly encouraged to attend by all the locals we knew who said it would be an honour to have palangi at their table. We had no idea what to expect nor how to conduct ourselves but took the risk. We were culturally out of our depth and Lily and Jackson were completely at sea. After much speech making the tables filled so quickly we could find no space for the four of us. I eventually identified the ushers, one of whom simply had a space for us vacated which left us seriously uncomfortable. Having taken the decision to attend I figured the only thing to do was to get it wrong ‘til we got it right and put up with the discomfort.

So we took the seats offered. The tables, perhaps 30 of them, were groaning with the weight of food of every Tongan variety. There were no plates or cutlery and awful cheap soft drinks. After grace it was all on. Our table had perhaps 6 whole roast piglets which, to the kids horror, were dismembered by hand with gusto and passed around. Janet and I were game to sample most dishes but Lily and Jackson had more trouble. Someone had the presence of mind to offer them an apple each – food they could recognise and that’s all Lily managed to swallow. Jackson was a little more adventurous but both needed a meal when we got back to Navire. I think their verdict was “that was weird but worth it.”
At the close of the meal ten or more of these exquisite tapa (gnatoo in Tongan) cloths were presented.

Blog June 1
#1 June 9
We are finally cruising, not just getting from A to B, but meandering from anchorage to anchorage when the whim takes us. In the evening we often have drinks with other cruisers and swap notes and stories. It’s taken about seven weeks to get to this point, so thank goodness we have several months here.

After taking delivery of our new dinghy named Atata, after the island where her predecessor was lost, we headed north. It also means “Ah tata (dinghy)” as in goodbye! We did our first two handed overnighter from Tongatapu to Vavau. I was sick the first day but then it was glorious sailing.

On arrival at Vavau we came into a bay full of NZ boats! It’s been very social.
Sitting here at Nuapapu, in the Vava’u group. The sun is just setting and we are drinking pina coladas made with coconut cream we made ourselves. This was no mean feat. We found coconuts in the bush and thought great, heaps of coconut cream..........that is till we tried to husk them. Us palangis are not very adept at these things. After much hacking we managed a few. We have since bought a decent size machete. I bought a local coconut grater that is a piece of wood with a piece of metal with teeth nailed to it. You cut the coconut in half grate out the flesh then squeeze it in a cloth. Divine.

School building at Matamaka Village in outer Vava’u. We spent the night anchored off this gorgeous village and in the morning went ashore to see who we could meet and what we could learn. But, apart from a few reserved responses to our greetings of “malo e lei lei” we failed to cross the divide. I felt a bit uncomfortable, like we were walking through people’s living rooms. Then we spied the school and correctly deduced that the conch blast meant lunchtime, that the teachers would be free and perhaps more willing to chat. The rest of the day was a treat. There were 2 teachers and one volunteer and all very keen to talk and explain things. We met some of the kids and in the afternoon joined in a beach cleanup. We were told about the coral garden they had created by transplanting bits of live coral to areas just down from the school where it had died and later snorkelled through it. It’s a very small enterprise but you can see the result. Impressive.

A couple of the boys zoomed up nearby coconut trees to offer us green nuts to drink. Another lopped off the tops with a machete as big as he was. When I asked the teacher how many fingers were lost doing this he showed me his missing digit. Clearly a regular event. So it seems we have a bit of an entree here and will return in a few weeks when school is back in.


The waterways of Vava’u are very deep close to and there are relatively few dangers.

Soren Larsen. This lovely old girl turns up just about everywhere we go. It could be 200 years ago.

#2 June 13
On arrival in Neiafu, the big smoke of Vava’u, there looked to be debris all over the water but on closer inspection it was flower petals, everywhere. It felt like we had flowers strewn across our path as a welcome.

Spent last night at a bar watching the All Blacks play Ireland with a bunch of kiwis; we could have been in a bar anywhere except the temperature was 26 degrees, there were no walls, fruit bats swooped through the coconut perfumed air, the bay was full of yachts from every corner of the globe and the satellite delivered TV reception was a little intermittent.

We went into town for two days to collect our dear friend Richard and reprovision. We’d been short of water so we filled every available container and have done our first decent loads of laundry. Yesterday I was folding strange things like jerseys, socks and woolly hats. When would we ever wear those?

Friday night we crewed on a boat in a local cruisers yacht race. Very light airs but heaps of fun.
I’m revelling in using local food. We are loaded up with coconuts, pawpaw, pineapple, bananas, cucumber, kumara, breadfruit etc., and the very occasional fish. We caught a small tuna this morning and will have sashimi for lunch. I have made marmalade with local lemons that I picked, and a pawpaw chutney.

Richard arrived with the makings of Margaritas so that’s our sundowners for the next week.
This morning we got email briefly, it’s so lovely to hear from home. Keep emailing and texting.
Off for a swim, again.


June 15
Here’s a typical day – at least we hope it remains typical. A slow start with coffee, a swim, some pawpaw and lime, up anchor and meander out of this bay heading to another anchorage we fancy – number 16 featuring the coral gardens. Trolling along the way yields a small tuna which becomes sushi – yum.

That's me in the rigging conning our way through coral shoals to a delightful spot among a few other yachts some of whom we know.


Wander along beach to check out the coral gardens which are exposed at low tide so no swimming.

On our return we find the path which leads to the ruins of a resort abandoned perhaps after cyclone Rena last year but lush now with limes, pawpaw, banana palms and hibiscus. We gather a bag of fruit and return to the boat for a quick swim and margaritas as the sun goes down on yet another glorious day.

#3
June 22
In Neiafu to drop Richard off but coincidentally to greet the 3 traditional waka that have sailed up her from NZ via Tahiti and Samoa. They were glorious vessels and got here solely on navigating by the stars.

We spent the last two days in a lagoon, a crater perhaps, on the island of Hunga.

The entrance

was very

narrow.

We visited a local village where the people, in particular the children were very welcoming. We bought some local vanilla pods and the children picked us a bag of real limes. Excellent for the margaritas. They invited us to watch the rugby, NZ vs. Wales on their generator powered communal Sky TV. Alas when we arrived we found that someone had died and a funeral was under way.

They sang through the night and from our yacht we

saw the funeral procession going to the graveyard in

the morning.

That night we visited a nearby fishing lodge for a drink and got a lot of interesting local information, including fishing tips, which greatly improved our catch yesterday. We trawled on our way back and got two tuna. We had sashimi, then seared tuna with tapenade, kumara baked in coconut cream and local beans.