Tonga

August 21, 2008

We had consistent wind all night.  We heard Charisma made it to Beverage Reef.  The winds are 25 – 30 knots and big seas.  We have tried to slow down by using our staysail and double reefing but we seem to keep increasing in speed now to 7.5 knots.  We don’t want to get to Tonga in the dark and we need to be careful with the hull.  We are sailing along and suddenly the boat won’t steer, we are using the Monitor wind vane steering.  Mike goes to the stern and looks over to find the rudder is floating by a rope.  He pulls it in and sees it just broke off.  The place that broke is known to break and they give you a spare part.  But we also had the part that hooks to the spare part cracked and lost its shape.  Just another thing to fix.  We are 5 hours from Tonga, I thought we would make it without anything breaking. But no such luck.  We have Auto helm so we just turned that on.  We didn’t take our normal watches as we are almost there and we are arriving at 1AM, so we plan to heave to.  We heave to and I set the timer to check our status every 30 minutes, after an hour and a half we are drifting close to shore, so we drop the sails and motor back to the original bay where we heaved to and just let the boat drift, planning to keep watch every 30 minutes, but I don’t wake up.  When I do wake up Mike is awake and talking to Wayne on Moonduster.  It is light and we are going in together.

 

August 22, 2008

We crossed the International dateline and we lose a day!

 

August 23, 2008

We pick up a mooring ball at Beluga Dive and listen to the local radio net.  They have a cruisers net like in LaPaz.  Kind of nice to keep in touch and ask questions.  So we find out there is an overtime fee to check in on Saturday, and they are closed on Sunday.  So we opt to check in on Monday.  There is a 100,000 Tongan fine if you get off your boat, but no problem, we are so tired.  We went to bed until around 3PM. Mike got up and started cleaning up.  I got up at 4ish.  It is raining and dreary today although warm at 82 degrees.  I made shrimp stir-fry with thawed shrimp, it really wasn’t good and I wondered if we would get sick, but we didn’t.

 

August 24, 2008

It is Sunday and it is still dreary and raining.  I read most the day.  I fixed things to use up our produce before we have to check in and possibly have to pitch it at customs.  Mike just vegged out and listened to music.  I can’t believe we have no energy!  I think two day crossings are worse than 5 as you just don’t get acclimated and sleep.

 

August 25, 2008

Today we have to check in to Tonga.  We eat breakfast and clean up and head over to the wharf.  Three other boats are waiting for their turn and are circling in the bay.  John from Meridian is such a great guy, he comes over in his dinghy and tells us where we can tie up and says he will go ashore first and catch our lines.  We put out our fenders and lines and let the other waiting boat know we are not crowding but going in where another boat could fit at the dock.  They don’t feel they can go there but they agree to raft to us.  It works out great and John is a God send!  The wind is blowing and it’s too far to jump to the dock.  The place we tied is normally for ships and has these huge black fenders that could mark your boat up, but didn’t as we had our fenders strategically placed thanks to John.  Sea Life with Mark and Nicole is the boat that rafted to us. We did all the check in together.  We are going to meet them at Bounty Bar at 6PM.  We had three guys come aboard to help with our check in.  Customs who said we have to go ashore in a couple of days to fill out another form, Health who we had to pay $25.50 and Quarantine who we had to pay $30. to and he bribed us, he wanted something in order to let us keep our cabbage, onions and he said meat but meat was never listed in anything as an issue.  So we gave him a cold pop in order to leave us alone.  He also smoked on our boat even after I said he preferred he didn’t.  The funny thing is that his office says ‘no smoking’ and yet he smokes on our boat.  He stayed just sitting on our boat even though there were other boats waiting, to get checked in.  Mike had to walk to immigration and to the bank to pay them.  This process could have taken about 30 minutes and they made it take 2 hours!  Later we went to shore, where they have nice, easy dinghy docks with no surf! Excellent!  We had pizza at Bounty Bob’s that wasn’t great, but not horrible.  We met lots of cruisers ashore.

 

August 26, 2008

Nice sunny calm day.  We invited Meridian to have appetizers with us so we have lots of cleaning to do.  I needed to go to town for eggs but Morning Star was flying home and they gave us stuff to make pizza with and eggs so all I needed was sauce or I could make sauce.  I did make pizza crust and banana cake before we went to town.  We walked to 5 stores before we found pasta sauce and we bought the last 2 cans.  On the way back I saw a clock that said 5PM and I freaked out because Meridian was coming at 5, how embarrassing if I wasn’t there.  As it turned out it was only 3:30, thank goodness.  We had a nice time with Nancy, John, and their girls, Sophie and Mattie.  We gave them our extra copy of Snow Dog and they barrowed Stuart Little 2.  After the appetizers we went to Tonga Bob’s for taco night.  We met Elusive with Wendy and Steve and Bold Spirit there.

 

August 27, 2008

Today we mostly stayed on the boat, we did email and read.  Later we went to the Dancing Rooster for a Tongan Feast of Lamb, Fish, Chicken and Sausage, along with many salads.  We had to walk about 3 blocks plus take our dinghy and it was raining pretty hard, we were soaked to say the least by the time we got there.  The food was okay but for the money not that great.  Meridian, Elusive, Myah and Sea Life were there too.  We sat with Sea Life.  It was an interesting place, the way it was built, you walked down about 20 steps, outside under an archway covered with foliage, to go to the restaurant portion, you had to walk all the way back up, and then down just as many steps to another part of the restaurant in the rain.  We walked back to the Aquarium Café and met Wayne on Moonduster and we all had ice cream.  It was a fun evening.

 

August 28, 2008

This morning we remembered we forgot to pick up our laundry, so we went ashore at the public dock which was closer to the laundry and to customs.  We saw Brett from Fearless and gave him Teri and Ricks email as they said he could use their dinghy as Fearless’ was stolen.  On our way back we saw Mark on Myah, he is letting Fearless use his dinghy since he has two.  Frank came over and Mike copied the ‘cruising companion’ onto his hard drive.  It is really a nice disc to have and we have copied it for lots of people.  I made pasta for dinner and then decided to go ashore to have ice cream.  We sat with Francis and John who were having dinner at the Aquarium.  Nice visit but we had to go out in the rain again to go home.

 

August 29, 2008

It rained all night and it is raining again, where is the sun?  We got up at 6:30am to watch ‘Delicate Dawn’ a 35’ sloop being hauled out of the water.  I wanted to see how it worked with a cart in the water and being pulled out with a rail system.  It went really well and the locals were very conscientious.  The even had a guy in the water making sure everything all lined up and was tied appropriately.  It cost them around $12 per foot Tongan.  So Mike feels good about pulling our boat, which they should be able to do Wed. or Thurs.  John on Scarlet O’Hara is a marine surveyor and is going to look at the hull with Mike and decide what to do.  They do have a fiberglass guy here, and should have most the supplies.  After all that we went to Aquarium for breakfast of Yummy Eggs, eggs, spinach, sausage, onions and melted cheese with toast and coffee, very good.  We chatted with the owner awhile and that was interesting, she was previously a cruiser.  We watched a yacht race in the bay, there were about 9 cruising boats.  There was a crash between Moonduster and the Aluminator for first place, they are not friends, it was unfortunate.  We tried calling Videen’s with Skype but we can’t keep a connection. So we went ashore and tried again with even worse luck.  We spent a lot of time working on a route to go home and came up with nothing where you didn’t have to spend several months waiting our cyclone seasons.  So depending on the hull, we think it is NZ.

 

August 30, 2008

Almost the end of August, I can’t believe it.  Today is cold again, not rainy though, so I have spent most the day updating our website text and Mike is doing the photos and charts.  With a decent internet connection hopefully it will be up to date in a day or two.  Sea Life dropped by to trade books, Mike made breakfast.  Charisma should be here tomorrow.  They are in a wind storm right now, the predictions were for 30 -35 knot winds over several days.  There are lots of boats that want to explore Tonga’s islands but are waiting out the weather.

 

September 1, 2008

Charisma arrived and we met them at the yacht club for lunch.  Then we went to town and the local produce and craft market.  Once you understand most of the people make crafts to keep their children in school, you really do want to help them.  The US dollar is worth lot in Tonga but even so the Tongans price things high so it is really expensive to buy.  And they do not negotiate, in fact we were told they raised there prices once cruisers started to arrive.  You do want to help them though so we bought lots of produce.  It was a great way to meet the locals.

 

September 2, 2008

Today we took our garbage to shore, you can only dispose of garbage or rubbish as they call it, on certain days and you must pay a fee.  A local woman collects the rubbish in here car.  You are to throw all biodegradable ‘fish food’ overboard.  So she mostly takes paper and plastic, they do recycle cans and glass bottles.  We made reservations at two local hotels to stay at during the boat haul out.  We had to pay a 10% deposit. Surprisingly enough the hotels are very expensive, $100 per night for a room where you might have to share a bathroom, and they are fully booked.  This is the time the whales are in the islands and swimming with the whales is very popular. Back at the boat we spent the day getting ready for the haul out tomorrow morning.  We packed clothes, rolled up the dinghy, got our lines ready etc.

 

September 3, 2008

Time to haul out at 7AM, high tide.  We gave our mooring ball to Scarlet O Hara as John is a marine surveyor and was going to consult with Mike on the repair.  He came from another bay just to help us.  It is pouring rain and had been raining, with sheet lightning all night long.  Once at Sailing Safari, the dock where we are to haul out, we find out the diver hurt his back and can’t help us pull the boat.  I was very frustrated to say the least since we no longer had a mooring ball to go to.  The harbor is extremely full whenever there is bad weather.  Our hotel deposit was nonrefundable and John had come all this way for nothing. And they hadn’t bothered to call us.  Since we were upset, the diver decided to dive with a buddy who he would instruct on the job to do.  This rail cart was to accommodate boats up to 16’ wide, we are 14.3’ wide and they are telling us we don’t fit.  They re measure our boat and adjust the cart, the width really wasn’t a problem.  They tie the boat on the cart but the keel won’t sit right, so they adjust the cart by taking the plank the boat sits on, off and now the keel is sitting on steel an won’t quit sliding around.  In 30 minutes time the lines that held the boat to the cart almost chaffed in half.  Then Sailing Safari realizes we have not signed the waiver making us liable for them and us if anything happens.  So the whole deal is called off.  Since nothing was going right, it seems it wasn’t meant to be.  We decide to have lunch and see if the rain stops.  It doesn’t so we decide to go find a place to drop an anchor.  It is difficult as the water is 90 -130 feet deep.  We dropped our anchor 6 times before it actually hooked.  It continued raining and the wind blew about 25 knots all night.  We were up all night as other boats that were anchored near us seemed to be dragging and we needed to be able to react quickly if we drug or they drug near us.  Not fun!

 

September 4, 2008

The rain has stopped and it is sunny!  This morning there is a radio announcement that says there are boats in the way of a fuel ship and must move immediately.  Since the fuel dock is at the opposite end of the bay we ignore the request only to be told by the Port Captain to move now!  So we pulled anchor and a 3’ X 1’ piece of coral is stuck in our anchor.  We motored through the moorings, since it was sunny a few boats had left and we were able to get a mooring ball at the other end of the bay.  We decide to be lazy today and stay on the boat since we had a sleepless night last night.

 

September 5, 2008

This morning Mike puts together the big dinghy and 15HP OB since it is such a long way across the bay.  We are taking our laundry to be done on shore.  The engine dies just before we get to the dock and we have to row about a block or two.  Charisma took their laundry in too and we meet up to go to the Crows Nest Bakery.  We couldn’t find it so we ask the locals if they could give us directions.  The directions we got first were through a field with pigs and took us to a bakery but not the one we wanted.  This happened three times before we finally found it.  The Crows Nest was where we had lunch and bought the best bread.  We read in guide books that if you ask Tongans where something is and if they don’t know they give you directions to somewhere else.  We found this to be true on several occasions or they would tell you the place you want to go to is too far to walk. Now back at the dinghy, Alan towed us to his boat that was much closer than our boat, where we used his tools and fixed the OB engine.  Now we headed across the bay to our boat, when we arrived we found that we broke 6 out of the 12 eggs we bought at the market.  Oh well, we can buy more.  There was another cruiser race this evening and we went to Charisma’s boat, cutting through boats lining up for the race, scary, to watch the race since it was closer.  Mike and Alan took some great photos of the racing boats.  Very fun evening!

 

September 6, 2008

Nice morning but more strong winds are predicted for later today.  I had bought sausage rolls when we were given wrong directions that took us to a different bakery, and this morning I heated them for breakfast.  They were very good and I think a great breakfast item to heat and serve on a passage.  The disadvantage is Mike doesn’t like the rolls as well as I do.  Today we went ashore to see if they would give us our deposit back on the hotels due to the unfortunate haul out situation.  They agreed to, which was excellent.  It may have been more to do with the fact that the power was out all over the island and we couldn’t communicate with them in order to cancel.  Whatever the reason, thank you Jesus!  We met Sally and Jeff from Grace at Aquarium today.  They want to get the photos of their boat we took during the race and they have information to give us on Fiji.

 

September 7, 2008

Today is Sunday and we went to a church with Charisma.  No idea what denomination it was and it was all in Tongan.  There were no hats worn at all, and the last church we went to in Niue, every woman had on a hat.  This church every one wore a straw type mat wrapped around their waist.  They were all different lengths.  We understand if there is a death in ones family they wear a mat for one year but we couldn’t understand why the whole church wore them.  During the service we were acknowledged in English, very nice.  There was lots of great music, boy these people can sing.  Once back at the boat Sally came over to exchange info and she shared her story about how she was hit by a motorcycle and almost killed after one of the ‘puddle jump’ meetings in Mexico.  We never knew the whole story so it was very interesting.  There are a huge number of cruisers in the medical field and 3 were at the scene which may have saved her life.

 

September 8, 2008

Today we had a long list to complete before moving out to a different anchorage where we hoped to swim and snorkel.  Mike dropped me off to go grocery shopping.  I went to the bakery with the sausage rolls first and bought 10, to save for our crossing.  Then to another store for flour and minced beef (hamburger) and frosting, we miss our sweets.  Then another store for syrup, butter and cheese, then to the market for produce and last store I bought toffee for Mike.  Good thing I had a treat for him, when he picked me up he wasn’t happy as the OB wasn’t running correctly again.  While I waited for him two Tongan girls came on the dock and I asked them if they spoke English, they said no.  But just as I was leaving I asked them in they would like a piece of American candy, they smiled and said yes.  They must understand the word ‘candy’. Mike had motored across the bay to buy butane, we can’t get propane in Tonga.  Now ready to go to motored about 30 minutes and anchored in a spot 30 feet deep and so clear you could see the bottom.  Charisma joined us and there was one other boat already in the anchorage.

 

September 9, 2008

It was a pretty morning so I went snorkeling with Charisma, Mike stayed on the boat.  After swimming we sailed our boat to Port Maurell.  It had a beautiful sandy beach and very clear water.  Mike and I swam over our anchor to see if it hooked and it was just laying on top of the sand.  Mike went back on the boat and started the engine and put it in reverse to try and make the anchor dig in, the anchor didn’t move and we had a big wind gust too.  So we decided we were okay for the night.

 

September 10, 2008

Another beautiful morning.  We had planned to move again but decided to stay and snorkel, Kristen and I snorkeled way around the point and didn’t even realize it.  There wasn’t a lot to see but some and great exercise.  Mike wanted to clean the boat bottom.  I got the deck broom to help him.  With the broom I could reach farther under the boat.  Mike scraped the bottom with a putty knife and was able to clean a huge area.  He also discovered the hull was cracked on both sides, yikes!  There were lots of cruisers in this anchorage and we all gathered on shore for a bonfire and marshmallow roast.  We met Nosey Be a French Boat with Katherine and Bruno, and we also met Wind Star with Margie and Rob from NZ.  Everyone sang to the ‘marshmallow mike’ if you have the mike you had to pick the song and start it.  Dorothy Marie brought bongo type drums and played those. It was a lot of fun!

 

September 11, 2008

Yes, another beautiful morning, Nosey Be came over to get the information we had for Fiji.  Nice visit with them.  Stayed another day and worked on cleaning the hull some more.  We really enjoyed spending time in the water doing this but it was totally exhausting.

 

September 12, 008

Today is Friday and race day again!  Airstream invited us and Charisma and Schilling to crew on their boat for the race!  I am excited but Kristen ops out.  She waited at the yacht club and watched with other cruisers.  We had a great sail back from Port Maurelle and even was able to get on a mooring. At 3:30 went went to get Alan and met Janet and Dennis on board Airstream.  Janet did the ‘time’, Dennis handled the main sheet, Mike did the port sheet, Alan did the starboard sheet, Bill was at the helm, Janet (2 Janet’s) made sure the jib went through on a tack.  And I took photos and watched.  We had a couple of very exciting moments where boats were all but touching our stern and hull.  It was amazing we didn’t hit with all the wind we had.  The tacks were the scariest!  Afterwards we picked up Kristen and went to dinner next door to the yacht club.  Half way through dinner the restaurants lights went out.  They brought us a candle but it was an open air restaurant and the wind kept blowing it out.  Once we finished dinner the lights came back on.  Still a very fun day!

 

September 13, 2008

Today we are meeting Curly on Stella Rosa for information on Fiji.  Curly spent most of 40 years there.  We found we have several books on Fiji and 20 charts valued at $800. US.  However we really prefer to just use our computer charts.  Curly suggested we go to Vuda (pronounced Vunda) Point Marina, in Lautoka.  He knows the folks there and recommended we use either The Fibreglass Shop or Baobab Marine Industries.  He said they are difficult to get to nail down a price.  In a few days he will give us way points through the Fijian waters as there are many reefs to watch for.  After our meeting we noticed that Wind Star is on a mooring near us, so we stop and ask them if they would like to join us at the yacht club, they say yes and we ask Charisma also.  This when we learned that Margie and Rob are Christians and plan to go to the AG church tomorrow.  We invited ourselves to go with them.  We had tried to find out where it was earlier but the gal told us it was too far to walk. 

 

September 14, 2008

Today is Sunday and we got ready for church and drove our dinghy about a half a mile, and enjoyed the sun on our way to church.  Wind Star and Charisma also came with us.  It wasn’t too far to walk, it was maybe a mile.  The services both Sunday School and Church time was translated to English for us by a gentlemen from NZ.  They had Mike go to the platform and introduce our group, and they interpreted for him too.  The songs were sung first in Tongan and then in English.  The worship was incredible, God was there.  The was a message of tongues and interpretation in Tongan, very different.  The people are so nice, many shook our hands before we left and said thanks for coming.  Afterwards we had lunch with Margie and Rob at the Aquarium.

 

September 15, 2008

It poured rain all night but Margie and Rob still came over as she had promised to cut my hair.  I decided to have it cut short again, it is just so much easier although not necessarily the best cut for me.  Margie did an excellent job.  We invited them to dinner later tonight and they accepted.  Nice evening again.

 

September 16, 2008

It rained all night again!  Our dinghy was quite full of water so when Alan and Kristen happened by he pumped out all the water!  We made a to do list again as we planned to go anchor out again until the time we would be leaving for Fiji.  We ordered bread from Tropicana and we sent our email “advanced notice of arrival’ to Fiji, and got way points from Curly.  He contacted the boat yard and asked them to haul us out as soon as we arrived.  God takes such good care of us!

 

September 17, 2008

Beautiful morning, with no rain!  Margie and Rob came over for coffee and to pray for us on our journey to Fiji, they also brought us ‘butter chicken’ that you heat and pour over noodles.  See God takes care of us!  We checked out of Tonga’s Immigration office and by then the other office was closed for lunch so we had lunch at Tropicana restaurant.  Pretty good but bread was too heavy or dense.  This was where we prepaid for 2 loaves of heavy bread! That we picked up today.  The restaurant tried to pass ‘Hunts tomato sauce’ off as ketchup, they did not realize that it was to make lasagna.  Funny seeing things from the US and the locals not really knowing what it is.  We made our way to the Port Captain who charges you a fee based on the weight of your boat and the length of stay.  It was here we realized our boat papers show we weigh 35 tons vs the actual 18 tons, so we had to pay double, only $20 Tongan.  Then we checked out at Customs who told us we had to leave now if he gave us our papers.  We planned to anchor out and leave tomorrow, we finally convinced him we would leave first thing in the morning and he gave us our papers.  Most places let you stay up to 48 hours after clearing out.  Mike picked up our charts and way points from Curly and paid Lisa our mooring fees and then we were finally off.  We headed to Mala Beach, which is a resort. It is very beautiful here and not too deep.  Charisma is already here and we invited them over for appetizers and sat in lawn chairs on our deck – nice! Kristen made dinner for us.

 

September 18, 2008

We did fine all night the water was like glass.  We all took our dinghy’s out to a tiny island to snorkel.  We saw a sea snake and a white jelly fish that looked like a shell.  Very pretty snorkeling grounds!  While we get ready to leave, Alan went kite boarding.  When he returns we will have our last night together for who knows how long, so I made dinner.  We had  lots of mashed potatoes and gravy with chicken.  After dinner we said our goodbyes.  We will miss them a lot.

 

September 19, 2008

At 8AM it is sunny and rainy with light winds.  We pulled our anchor and waved good bye to Charisma.  We said a prayer and are now heading for Fiji.  We only averaged 5 knots all day.