Safe Arrival in Tonga<\/p>\n
We arrived safely in Neiafu, Tonga, the capitol of the
\nVava’u Group of islands, yesterday at 9 am local time, almost
\nexactly 48 hours after we left Apia, Samoa. We would have
\nposted this information earlier but after a nap, a visit to
\nimmigration, and a couple of beers at the Aquarium Bar and
\nRestaurant, we were pretty much fit only to sleep. Our current
\nlocation is South 18 degrees, 39.96 minutes, West 173 degrees
\n58.92 minutes.<\/p>\n
During our last day in Samoa, we did some final provisioning,
\nate a nice meal at “Paddles”, and spent our remaining Tala at
\nthe Aggie Grey souvenir shop. Check-out required a trip into the
\nimmigration office in town. We took advantage of duty-free
\nalcohol privileges at stock up at the Le Well liquor store,
\nwhich immediately took us and our goods to customs (next door to
\nthe marina). We received our clearance from customs, and then
\npaid our marina bill at the Port Authority office next door. We
\ndid all this with our friends on the Austrian boat Risho Maru,
\nwhich was going to sail along with Sabbatical III to Vavau in
\nTonga. We informed the Port Authority staff that both boats
\nwould leave the marina at high tide that afternoon and anchor
\nout before leaving the next morning, and they agreed. Low tide
\nwas at 0930 the next morning and we did not want to touch bottom
\nfor a third time. All went well until the Port Captain called
\nboth Sabbatical III and Risho Maru on the VHF after he spotted
\nus at anchor just before sunset. He harangued us at length for
\nleaving the marina and not putting to sea immediately. When we
\ninformed him that we obtained prior permission from his staff in
\nthe Port Authority office he barely relented, refraining the “I
\nam the boss” declaration of our first encounter with him. He
\nsaid that the strict rule is that once you leave the marina, you
\nmust put to sea, even though one can only leave the marina at
\nhigh tide. This rule is a safety hazard to boats and both Peter
\nand Mark argued with the Port Captain at length about it.<\/p>\n
The passage started slowly even though there was wind. Our
\ncourse took us up and around the barrier reef of Samoa. Our
\nchanging course coupled with the changing wind direction kept us
\nbusy making numerous changes in sails. The mizzen spinnaker
\nturned out to be very useful during these first hours. It
\nseemed to take forever to jibe through the Apolima Strait — at
\none point we just turned on the engine to keep the number of
\njibes down — until finally we caught some nice wind in the
\nmizzen spinnaker. A big squall soon followed and in its
\naftermath the wind strenghtened and moved forward of the beam.
\nWe just stuffed the wet spinnaker into the forward cabin to dry
\nas the boat heeled over in the wind and did 8 1\/2 knots in a
\nmoderate swell that occasionally came over the bow. We soon
\ncaught and passed Risho Maru who had left Apia an hour before
\nus. As we passed very close to Risho Maru, Peter took photos of
\nSabbatical III under full sail, and we did likewise. They even
\ncrossed our stern so that we could get pictures from both sides
\nof the boats. We have not seen the photos them yet but Peter
\nsays that some are great.<\/p>\n
A couple of hours later, while Laura was deep in a nap, I
\nthought I saw a pull on the fishing rod. The rod is usually
\nbent over some just from the flow of the water at 8+ knots, but
\nthis seemed a bit more of a bend. Sure enough it was a
\nbeautiful, small yellow-fin tuna. I had to wake Laura to reduce
\nsail and grab my “fish processing” equipment while I landed the
\nfish. The fish was so tuckered out by being dragged by the boat
\nat high speed that it was easy to land him. The tuna weighed
\nabout 6-8 pounds and provided about 3-4 pounds of delicious
\nwhite meat. It was too rolly down below for Laura to prepare
\nher wonderful stir fried tuna with Chinese noodles. Instead, she
\njust rubbed olive oil on the whole cleaned fish, wrapped it in
\ntin foil, and popped him in the oven. We ate the fish right out
\nof the aluminum foil while sitting in the cockpit, along with a
\ncan of Pringles potato chips and ice cold water. A wonderful
\nboat meal.<\/p>\n
We crossed the international dateline sometime during that
\nfirst night so September 23rd (Sunday) never really happenned.
\nWe went right from Saturday to Monday the 24th. That meant
\nthat we were the first people in the world to celebrate our son
\nBen’s 24th birthday. We meant to call him on the sat phone but
\nthe boat was bouncing along a bit too much for us to feel
\ncomfortable handling the phone. On the second day of the
\npassage (call it Monday), the wind did not decrease as
\nforecast, and we continued to make over 8 knots with the wind
\njust forward of the beam. We could not longer communicate with
\nRisho Maru by VHF radio, so we reverted to a scheduled call on
\nan SSB channel. By mid-afternoon it was clear that we would
\narrive at our waypoint in front of the channel to Neiafu in the
\ndark even if we slowed below 7 knots. We did not wish to enter
\nthis longish and winding channel in the dark so we started to
\nreduce sail to slow the boat. It was rolly as the waves hit us
\nbroadsides, with larger waves occasionally coming from every
\ndirection. As I did my afternoon watch I saw one larger wave
\nsneaking up to the boat from behind. It smacked the stern and
\nturned into a small geyser of spray that directed inself into
\nthe small gap we leave in the aft facing hatch. One second
\nlater I could hear Laura squeal as the spray got her as she
\nslept in her berth. This is the first time that sea water has
\nfound its way into this little opening since we left the
\nCaribbean. One got me too during my night watch. As I was
\nreclined in the cockpit in my I-pod reverie, I heard a slap
\nagainst the side of the boat and two seconds later a couple of
\ngallons of sea water gave me a drenching.<\/p>\n
The wind continued strong into Tuesday night and we put the
\nmain sail away altogether, and sailed with a small jib with a
\nreef and a reefed mizzen in order to slow the boat so that we
\ncould make a dawn arrival. Turns out that was a mistake. A set
\nof squalls came through around 2 am and in their aftermath the
\nwinds died back so much that we could barely make 4 knots even
\nwith all sails. We wallowed around at this speed until Risho
\nMaru caught up with as a spectacular dawn began, and we were
\nstill 10 miles from our waypoint. So we motored those last
\nmiles. This sail south to Tonga from points north can be very
\ndifficult with the predominately ESE tradewinds and southerly
\nswell. We were very lucky to have winds that were ENE becoming
\nNE and swells from the east. It was about as good a wind and
\nswell direction as one could expect this time of year.<\/p>\n
The check-in at Neiafu has a bad reputation. Boats are directed
\nto tie up to a commercial dock used by container ships. It has
\nlarge black rubber protrusions that may do a good job fending
\noff the tall sides of a 200 foot container ship, but have done
\ndamage to the stanchions, lifelines, and rigging of sail boats.
\nOur plan had been to check-in at Neiafu at the afternoon high
\ntide to minimize the risk of damage. But since we were tired,
\nit was early morning, and the wind was slight, we decided to do
\nthe check-in as soon as we entered. We tied up to the
\ncommercial dock at dead low tide and three beefy Tongans — one
\nin a grass skirt — clamored aboard. Each represented a
\ndifferent agency: customs, health, agriculture\/quarantine. The
\nimmigration official had called sick or there would have been
\nfour. Laura served cold fruit juice and chocolate cookies, they
\nasked a few questions, and we were done. Risho Maru tied up
\nright next to us and when they were done with their check-in, we
\nboth found moorings towards the south end of the harbor so as to
\nbe far from the “bar” area of the waterfront. A big squall blew
\nthrough just after we picked up moorings and we knew that if we
\nhad still been at the commerical wharf at that time, we would
\nlikely have sustained damage or at least a lot of aggravation.<\/p>\n
After a short nap, we took the dinghy into town to do the
\nimmigration check-in along with Risho Maru. As we dinghed
\nthrough the anchorage, we realized that that we knew dozens of
\nthe boats there. Some we knew from the Panama, some from the
\nGalapagos, others from French Polynesia. Many of them had
\narrived just that day from Nuie, the Cooks, American Samoa, and
\n“New Potatoes” since all were waiting on the same weather. It
\nwas fun to swap stories with old friends while waiting in
\nimmigration, and then at the Aquarium Restaurant afterwards.
\nRisho Maru found an Austrian bakery in town which they will
\nsample today.<\/p>\n
The anticipated big event is Ben’s arrival in Neiafu
\ntomorrow morning. We have not seen him for 10 months are can’t
\nwait to have him with us. Laura baked a banana bread for a
\nbelated birthday celebration.<\/p>\n
M.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Safe Arrival in Tonga We arrived safely in Neiafu, Tonga, the capitol of the Vava’u Group of islands, yesterday at 9 am local time, almost exactly 48 hours after we left Apia, Samoa. We would have posted this information earlier but after a nap, a visit to immigration, and a couple of beers at the … <\/p>\n