Pangaimotu, Tongatapu, Southern Tonga, Nov 7 - 18, 2008

We did another overnight sail from Ha'apai down to Tongatapu. It is necessary to leave and arrive in all these places with the sun high in the sky, so unless a sail can easily be completed in 6 hours, you have to do it overnight and often wind up having to slow yourself down so as not to arrive at your destination before the sun is up high enough the next day. This time we left Ha'apai at about 3PM and arrived at the northern entrance of the big bay into Nuku'alofa at about sun up.

Nuku'alofa is the capitol of Tonga and by far it's biggest city. We had heard through the radio net that the marina in Nuku'alofa was not nice to stay in, but that there was a fun place called Big Momma's Yacht Club on Pangaimotu, a little island in the big bay near Nuku'alofa, and that there was a ferry you could take back and forth a couple times a day, so Pangaimotu is where we were headed. We knew, again from the radio net, that there were a lot of boats at Pangaimotu already, despite the fact that everyone had only bad things to say about Nuku'alofa. It happens to be a natural jumping off spot from Tonga to New Zealand, being both the most southern spot in Tonga, and it's biggest city (with therefore the best provisioning opportunities). It used to be a must-do stop because you had to get your New Zealand Visa before arriving there and this was the only place in Tonga to do so, but now the rules have changed so this is no longer necessary. We thought it was interesting that many people who encouraged us to skip Nuku'alofa because it wasn't necessary and wasn't nice wound up showing up here despite their insistence that we should skip it.

We intended to go there from the get go, and we're glad we did. Anchoring off Big Momma's Yacht Club on Pangaimotu was another big social scene, since many boats were grouped here waiting for a good weather window before taking the big jump across to New Zealand. We had a great time at happy hour there each time we went, and, of course, the boys befriended Big Momma herself, and I think she was geniunely sad to see us go when we eventually left. The pictures here are of the yacht club, and of Big Momma herself.

Although there is nothing particularly charming about Nuku'alofa itself we definitely enjoyed it's many cafe's, some offering food items we hadn't seen in quite awhile (including the best samosas I've ever had!), and we really appreciated all the provisions there were to be had in Nuku'alofa's small but numerous grocery stores and at the huge farmer's market. We spent a lot of time at Friend's Cafe using their internet connection and enjoying their delicious coffes. But we really enjoyed the food at the Reef Cafe, which was on the wharf where the Pangaimotu ferry dropped us off and picked us up. Since this ferry ran on what can only be called a very informal schedule, it was a great bonus for us that there was good food to be had at the waiting spot.

Once we had gotten the boat and ourselves ready for the crossing we began waiting for good weather. The crossing from Tonga to New Zealand is a big one and there is a good chance of encountering bad weather since storms can go from start-up to fierce pretty quickly in these waters. We were glad (once again!) to have Susan, our weather-router to help us with the timing of this crossing.

Ha'apai, Tonga, Oct 27 - Nov 6, 2008

We did an overnight sail from northern Tonga to the Ha'apai group, which is the middle group and the least visited. These islands are all very low-lying with lots of reefs, so they were quite tricky for sailors before GPS technology made things easier. They are still tricky, because you can't completely trust the GPS since it works off of old charts (which are the only ones available for this area at the moment), but it definitely helps. We had to pick our way quite slowly at times, with Jeff doing lookout duty on the bow again, but this time we navigated through all the coral heads without mishap.

Our first stop in Ha'apai was in Pangai village. Jeff and Fred went ashore to check us in and to check out the stores. We were a little low on supplies because the supply boat to Northern Tonga was weeks late due to some technical malfunction, so there wasn't much fresh food in the stores there when we left. Things did not improve much at the stores in Pangai, although we did get some frozen chicken, but both Jeff and Fred said this town was the most depressing place we'd ever stopped at, and they wanted to get out of their ASAP. We had to stay the night to get good light for getting out of there, but we left as soon as the sun was high enough the next day.

Our next stop was at Uoleva island. This island was beautiful. We were anchored off a long sandy beach and could dingy over to some fabulous snorkeling. The coral here was the most spectacular we'd seen on the whole trip. It was very tall and there were lots of different varieties, some of which we hadn't seen anywhere else.

We spent three nights here. The first two were by design, the second was because it got very cloudy the next day and we didn't want to go anywhere in this coral infested water without very good visibility. During our stay we went to a beach bash for Tom's birthday. Tom is crewing on Anzac, and Les from Anzac really MacGyver'ed up some tables on the beach for the event. There were about 10 boats in the anchorage and everyone came and brought a side dish, and Leslie from Anzac cooked up a bunch of chicken and we all had a nice feast.

We made another stop in Ha'apai at an island whose name I just can't remember (I'm writing this from Idaho without benefit of the boat's log book which would tell me this information). This stop was also for provisioning and also not very successful, although Jeff and Fred did get an interesting tour of all the island shopping spots by one of the residents. When they told him they were looking for the store he showed them the way, and when it proved to have no vegetables and they asked him if any were available, he took them to a bunch of different fields where they were able to pick their own pineapples, mangos, hot peppers and limes. He seemed a bit surprised when they asked him how much they owed him, and they were a bit surprised that he was surprised, but although this gentleman was quite nice, the guys thought they had seen most of the island already and there was no real need to stay any longer, so we decided to head down to Southern Tonga the next day.

Vava'u, Tonga, Oct 24 - 27, 2008

After the haulout in Neiafu we definitely needed a bit of a break. We headed out the next morning for a little rest and relaxation in the Vava'u. This is the northern Tonga group and it is quite beautiful. The group consists of numerous islands, one large, several medium, and many small to tiny. There are lots of winding waterways to visit and many great anchorages. In fact, there are so many great anchorages, and their names are so foreign to visitors, that the local chartering company has given them all numbers and issues a chart showing those numbers. So all the cruisers talk about anchorage 7, 18, etc. It's a fairly unique system. Anyway, we headed out for a couple nights in these anchorages and had a very relaxing time. The headline event of this trip was that Jeff and Fred went on their first scuba trip on their own. It was a big success! I snorkeled above them just in case, but this proved to be a purely precautionary measure as they completed their dive successfully with no help from me.
On Sunday the 26th we headed back to Neiafu and spent the following day reprovisioning for our trip down to southern Tonga.

Current locations

Sorry for the big delay in the blog. We got back to civilization just before the holidays and things got crazy. We are all in the US at the moment. Jeff and I are in Sun Valley, Idaho. Fred is bouncing between Cape Cod, West Roxbury, and Sun Valley. I'm going to try to finish the description of the rest of the trip, but wanted to let everyone know where we are now.