Tonga — It’s Good to be Back
Sunday, May 15th – After several days of resting and repair in Minerva Reef, we are ready to head offshore today to complete the final 280nm to the harbor city of Nuku’alofa on the island of Tongatapu, the Kingdom of Tonga. The Captain spends the morning making sure the boat is set for another passage, and The First Mate prepares a few ready-made dishes for dinners at sea.
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Employing his fix of our anchor windlass, The Captain sends sparks flying, and we weigh anchor at 1245 to motor through the pass out of North Minerva into the ocean.
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Winds continue to come from the north and, of course, northeast is where Tonga lies. We raise sail and tack away from Minerva Reef and toward Tonga. The evening radio check reports a good many of the ICA Rally boats motor-sailing because they are unable to sail as closely to the wind as is necessary in order to reach Tonga in the foreseeable future. On Avante, we are peacefully sailing along at 4 – 5 knots with an 8 – 9 knot wind from the north. The Captain is unconcerned that we are 25° off the rhumbline for Tonga, and The First Mate has her fingers crossed that this will be a peaceful, trouble-free passage
It does prove to be a quiet, uneventful passage. Oh, if only they could all be like this! From Monday morning on, the winds are so light that we are in danger of having to spend an extra night at sea if we do not increase the pace. The entry through the reefs into Nuku’alofa Harbor is long with several nasty spots to watch. It should not be done with darkness approaching. Our deadline to reach the entry channel is 1500 Tuesday afternoon, but to make that waypoint, we must average 5.4 knots. Early Monday afternoon, The Captain gives up and turns on the engine, and we end up using the motor for most of the final ocean miles to Tonga.
Tuesday, May 17th – We make it to the entry pass with plenty of time to spare. At 1050, we are abeam Duff Reef. The Kingdom of Tonga is ahead. At noon, we enter Egeria Channel, turn north and round Atata Island.
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After passing Atata Island, we turn southeast toward the harbor of Nuku’alofa.
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By 1320, we are anchored off Big Mama’s on Pangaimotu Island with our quarantine flag flying and waiting for customs to clear us into the country. We are eager to go ashore and step back into the wonderful atmosphere of Big Mama’s. Hurry up, you Customs guys!
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As was done in New Zealand where the organizers of this Rally, Lyn and John Martin, had worked it out with the Customs officials to meet us all at the Yacht Club to formalize clearance, so it was organized here in Tonga. The various Tongan officials had motored out from Nuku’alofa to tiny Pangaimotu Island. Ensconced at Big Mama’s, their job for the next few days is to ride out to each yacht as the ICA fleet makes its scattered arrival, with papers and official stamps in hand, and clear each yacht into Tonga. What a great boondoggle for these officials: an island vacation with a little amount of work to keep it legitimate. For the yachties, it is a huge savings in time and frustration. Refer back to the 2010 blog, The Kingdom of Tonga, and you will read about the many hours of waiting around and running around it took us to check into Tonga last fall.
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This year, we are more than delighted to wait around on Avante for the Customs officials to come to us and come they do. Three huge Tongan officials and their equally beefy boat handler heave onto Avante. We fill out the forms and pay our fees. They fill out their forms and stamp their stamps. We are done and cleared in less than 15 minutes! What a delightful way to do clearance!
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The First Mate serves the obligatory plate of cookies and round of cokes (not the diet kind, please). They are in no hurry to leave. With their exhaustive work done, we sit and chat on Avante. They are delighted to hear that we enjoyed their country so much last season that we chose to return this year, and they eagerly discuss our plans with us. Cokes done, cookies gone, they disembark and head over to the next boat. This boat is smaller than Avante. There is not enough room for all of them in the cockpit. Two must perch on the gunnels, and the poor boat suddenly exhibits an alarming tilt. Oh, well, that’s all part of the job. Papers, stamps, cookies and coke. Not a bad day of work.
Free to head ashore, we quickly do so to say hello to Big Mama and her cheerful assistants. Remembering us from last year, they greet us happily. Avante’s account is set up, and sidling up to the bar, we order our first round of drinks. It is good to be back!
Later that evening, we again head ashore for dinner and to visit with the other yachties in the anchorage. Sitting at one of the outdoor tables, we discuss our various passage experiences. The First Mate learns that no matter which direction one heads, going to or coming from New Zealand, the passage is always and inevitably a hard, nasty one. “That’s just wonderful,” she thinks. “I now have all season to think about the return trip!”
Consoling herself, she digs into Big Mama’s super delicious, ever addictive fried coconut strips. She’s tried making them on the boat, but they just don’t taste the same. Must be the atmosphere of Big Mama’s that makes them so great — along with the saturated lard they probably use!
The next evening is a Welcome Tongan Feast for the Rally participants and any other boat in the anchorage that wants to join us. Even the Customs officials want to get in on the fun, and closing shop at their usual 1600, they tell all the boats that have not yet cleared that they have permission to come to the island tonight for the party. Pangaimotu Island is a very small island. There is not much trouble an undocumented illegal can cause here.
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Dressed for a festive evening, The Captain goes “Tongan” and dons a vala, a Tongan skirt or kilt.
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The buffet is striking with plentiful dishes of fish, chicken and pork.
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There are the traditional breadfruit and other root vegetables as well as a nod to our less developed tastes with potato and green salad offerings.
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We spend 6 days at Big Mama’s soaking up the atmosphere, enjoying the camaraderie of other yachties and completing the many chores that go with cruising. Another benefit set up by the Rally is that we can use Big Mama’s water taxi to take our 50-liter diesel containers over to the fuel dock at the harbor. We are not going to have repeat our precarious refueling procedure of last season where we motored Avante over to a very nasty concrete fuel wharf whose depth could barely accommodate us at peak high tide. As we had not used a huge amount of fuel on the passage from New Zealand, refilling our 4 reserve containers is enough.
We telephone Tiny, our friendly taxi driver from last year. We have several errands to run in town and hope he is free to be our guide and chauffeur. He is free, all too free. The timing chain on his taxi had broken, and he has to wait until he has enough money to have it fixed. We are reluctant to ask from where this money is going to come. Though not positive, it may be arriving in something like the monthly stipends from the king, and Tiny is just waiting out the months until he has accumulated enough. Tiny tells us not to worry. He has a friend who will drive us. We head ashore to meet Tiny and his taxi driving friend.
Compared to Tiny’s happy, talkative personality, his friend is rather dull and does not confidently inspire us. He does not speak above a mumble, and his car looks like it needs to be pushed to get started. Windows are missing, and the dash board is falling apart. After the second stop, we pay him and bid him adieu. We’ll walk to the market and get a taxi from there.
At the crowded market, it is such a joy to know exactly where to head. We remember it all from last year. The biggest fresh eggs are on an outside row. The Chinese family that grow and sell celery, spinach, parsley and the bigger heads of lettuce are down the first hall on the left. The First Mate almost feels like a local!
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The Rally is going to spend 4 weeks cruising north through the islands of Tonga ending up on Niuatoputapu or “New-y-potato” as the cruisers more easily call it. From there, the group will sail to Fiji, Vanuatu and New Caledonia before returning to New Zealand in November. We have only signed on for the Tongan leg because we want to be in Fiji before the rally is scheduled to be there. There is a marina in Fiji where we can leave the boat while we return to the States for the months of July and August. This is another nice feature of this particular rally. One can sign on to whichever legs work best with one’s schedule. Another boon for us more independent types is that one is under no obligation to do everything with the rally or to go everywhere the rally organizers go. One can pick and choose.
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In order to give everyone an idea of the options ahead, John holds a chart briefing the day before most of us plan to leave. Pencils, notebooks and charts in hand, we take our seats at the appointed time. All are competent sailors or they would not be here. Many, however, have never been this far afield. Questions and concerns fly around and are duly answered.
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The Captain and The First Mate are eager to learn more about anchorages in the Ha’apai Group, the next islands we will encounter. Last season, we had been forced to cut short our touring there due to our non-working anchor windlass. To lessen the weight of anchor and chain, we had switched to less chain and more rope. Though it did weigh less, having rope down in the waters instead of chain meant we had to be vigilant that the rope did not wrap around a coral head, abrade through in the middle of the night and set us adrift onto the nearest reef. The Ha’apai’s are mostly low coral islands with reefs and coral heads abounding. This year with our new anchor, brand new heavy chain and a working windlass (even if gerry-rigged) we are eager to explore this group of islands.
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Her mind wandering away from charts and with camera ever ready, The First Mate spies a group of children sitting on that rusting sunken vessel just off Big Mama’s beach. What a neat perch — though most mothers would not think so!
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We are set to leave for the Ha’apai Group tomorrow. Tongatapu may be the seat of present-day government for Tonga, but it is the least interesting of the island groups. From an historical perspective, it was the center of both religious and kingly power. From a cruiser’s perspective, it is merely a jump-off point. One checks in or out here. One is either arriving from a passage or preparing for a passage. Fuel and provisions must be stocked. A thorough boat check needs to be done, and any final repairs must be made. It is a busy time for the cruiser. In that respect, the area is perfect, for there is not that much to do once one has spent a day exploring the town of Nuku’alofa and its island. There are few other anchorages on these low-lying islands. Big Mama’s on Pangaimotu Island is it, and though we have again enjoyed our respite here, we are ready to continue north. In the morning we will motor ashore to settle our bill and to bid a fond good-bye to Big Mama and her staff. They will hope to see us again. Who knows? Maybe they will!
