Nomuka Iki to Nuka'alofa

11th October 2007

We got up at 05:00 yesterday to a flat calm and set off at first light at 05:30 after the mandatory two cups of strong coffee. After the near gale-like conditions of the previous days, we had to motor all the way in order to get to Nuku'alofa in daylight.

We arrived at 16:30 and had to perform our first "Mediterranean" style mooring; drop the hook, reverse towards the wharf and get lines ashore from the stern. The wharf is just a pile of boulders and too shallow to reverse right up to and so we had the dinghy pre-launched with a long length of rope flaked in the bottom. Fliss dumped the anchor and I reversed as she ran back, got in the dinghy and rowed to shore, paying the rope out as she went. All went very smoothly to our great surprise and we were lucky to have the wind dead astern, which certainly helped.

We will check in to Nuku'alofa today (Friday) and we think that we will have to check out again on Monday or Tuesday since the weather patterns look like they might be shaping up for a run to NZ around then.

Fliss…..

Nuku’alofa has been given a really bad right up; apparently it’s the crime capital of Tonga. On 1st impressions it’s not that pretty as it is just an industrial port but Pete and I will reserve judgement until after we have explored the town.

12th October 2007

Fliss….

Nuku’alofa might not be a pretty place but we both agreed that it’s not that bad, the town has a nice fruit & veg market and the locals are extremely friendly.

We walked for miles trying to find the immigration office, the map we had was useless as all the landmarks I.e.Banks, restaurants etc where not where they should be. It was explained to us that 6 months ago the town had seen riots and lots of the buildings had been razed to the ground so that’s why we couldn’t navigate our way around. The Tongans like to be helpful and always try to please you so each time we asked a local for directions to the immigration office they would try to give an answer even if they didn’t know where it was. In this way, we got a different answer every time.

We met one local who claimed to be a descendent of Captain Bligh. Apparently Captain Bligh turned up, made loads of promises to a Tongan lady, and once she became pregnant he was seen rowing rather swiftly back to the boat. The Tongan lady stood on the shore shouting “Sir Lie!” at the boat who where getting ready to raise the anchor ready for an unexpected departure. When the baby was born she was named Sirlie.

The thing Pete and I both love about Tonga is the culture and the folklore. You can pick up a necklace made of either cow bone or whale bone in the shape of a fishing hook, the story goes that the gods cast out a hook and caught the Tongan Islands and brought them all close together, wonderful.

The taxi drivers love rugby and even though we beat them they really are rooting for England. I do a good impression of Johnny Wilkinson as he prepares to kick a penalty, they fall about in laughter and chant “Go Johnny Wilkinson”.
Great place, great people even the customs officer was extremely helpful and he smiled.

13th October 2007

We are looking at leaving here bound for NZ tomorrow morning. The weather forecast looks ok for the moment so we have re-tidied the boat, done the deck and rigging check, and just need to finally get into the filthy dockside water to clean-up the propeller and a few lingering goose barnacles before we are ready.

There is a meeting of the heads of state of the Pacific here tomorrow and the Immigration office is cordoned off along with the main administrative centre of town. We are hoping that they have got their act together and re-located to the dockside in preparation for giving us our exit papers!

14th October 2007

We received the weekly weather gram from Bob McDavitt this morning and we are going to stay put based on his advice. Looking ahead, there appears to be quite a large high-pressure system coming out of Australia and some mean little lows underneath it. All in all, we don't want strong winds or a whole bunch of Southerlies (which is what is now forecast) and so we are going to hang around for about 3-4 days and then maybe go to Minerva reef for a couple of days before heading off. Out of the six boats that were going to go this morning, 2 have left and 2 of us are definitely staying - not sure about the others. Of the two that have gone, why get weather forecasts if you don't bother to act upon them?

Fliss….

It was a bit of a disappointment as you mentally prepare yourself for a long passage but I agree with Pete it wasn’t time to go.

The passage to New Zealand is dreaded by all sailors so it’s best to play safe. Pete and I get fed up with hearing all the horror stories about how we’re all going to get a pasting , it’s daft really as all it does is frighten the life out of people and make them extremely anxious. We’ve heard it all before and the horror stories started in Panama. Some Yachties have boycotted the idea of sailing to New Zealand and have opted to sail to Australia and then fly to NZ. I wonder how much their decision was taken after listening to the scaremongers, Pete and I will go and try to get across event free, if we get bad weather so be it but we’ll deal with it at the time, the run to Northern Tonga was bad but we did ok. There’s no point worrying about something that may never happen.

15-18th – Interlude – Weather watching and provisioning.


19th October 2007

We checked out this morning and ran off to a little atoll called Pangiamotu only 1.5Nm from Nuku'alofa. It is quite nice here - much more pleasant than the town.

Anyway, we think that we will head off tomorrow for Minerva Reef. We will probably have to bash some headwinds to start off with but the weather window looks good. We met a catamaran today "Gaia Su" who are leaving on Sunday and "Essence" (who were originally going last week) are also off. We shall beat the crowd who are waiting for Sunday or Monday and hope to get some good Easterlies after the first 24 hours. The weather right out until Wednesday looks stable and we shall make the most of it and therefore probably only stay one night at Minerva.

Both Essence and Gaia Su have said that they will stay in contact (Via Iridium and SSB) and so we shall be able to know what other conditions are being experienced ahead of us (they are faster boats).