Yi & Johnny’s Visit

August 12-20, 2014

Back in California we used to charter catamarans for long weekends a couple times each summer.  We’d sail out of Long Beach or Marina del Rey and spend the weekend at Catalina Island usually in the vicinity of Emerald Cove.  Two of the regulars on these excursions and original members of the Catalina 1.0 crew are our friends Yi and Johnny, and they were able to come visit us in Vava’u.  We had about five days between our arrival and their arrival, which was the perfect amount of time to get ready for boat guests.  Since we had just left the provisioning capital of the South Pacific (Pago Pago, American Samoa) all of our food and alcohol stores were sufficient, but since they would be staying in Alex’s cabin, there was just a small amount of tidying up to be done.

Day 1 (8/12): We started out the afternoon with beers and a long lunch catching up at the Aquarium Cafe.  Then we made a quick stop at the market for some fresh fruit/veg and some beer.  I guess our alcohol stores WEREN’T quite sufficient after all.  We decided not to waste any more of their visit hanging around Neiafu and we got the heck off the mooring ball and headed to a nearby anchorage called Port Maurelle (aka anchorage #7).  We grabbed some drinks and headed to shore to enjoy our “safe arrival cocktails” on the beach.  Another kid boat that we had met at Suwarrow called Ui was also in the anchorage, so we swung by to pick up their girls to take them to shore too.  So, Brenden had some dig in the sand buddies.  However, these girls did not just dig, they decorated.  In what seemed like just a few minutes they had made a beautiful little shell garden, and when we looked over saw that Brenden had built, well, he had dug a hole.  Sigh.  Eventually the sun started to set, and we got chased off the beach by the mosquitos, and we headed back to Exodus and seared up the last of our yellow fin for a huge tuna feast.

Day 2 (8/13): Day 2 was epic.  If Yi and Johnny’s vacation ended right then I think they still would have been satisfied.  While relaxing in the morning at anchor at Port Maurelle, we noticed whales out in the channel.  Tim, Yi, Johnny, and I think Alex, jumped in the dinghy straight away to go have a look.  Now, I wasn’t there, so this is all hearsay, but when they got close to the whales, Yi just couldn’t help herself and she jumped in the water to have a swim with them.  It didn’t take long for one of the whale watching tour boats to come over and not so politely let them know that they were “breaking the law” and that they needed to get out of the water “right away!”  Apparently, you can only swim with whales with a “licensed” operator and getting a license isn’t cheap, so the constant harassment of whales by tour operators is a Tongan bureaucratic revenue stream.  The rule is that only 8 people (I think, maybe less?) can be in the water at a time with the whales, so I guess that’s a good thing, to keep the harassment to a minimum.

Whatever.  We had a day of cave snorkeling to accomplish.  First on the list was a long dinghy ride from Port Maurelle across the channel to the other side of Nuapapu Island to the underwater Mariners Cave.  First off, we had to find it.  So, when we thought we were close, we dragged Brenden and Johnny behind the dinghy to look for it.  After some time of circling back and forth and almost giving up, we found it.  To get into this cave you have to dive down to the opening, which is about 2m below the surface, and then swim about another 4m through a tunnel into the cave.  Apparently, there was nothing much to see inside, but everyone thought it was a pretty cool experience.  There was also a deeper entrance to the cave that Tim led Johnny down through.

Next up was Swallows Cave after a very bouncy dinghy ride back across the channel.  Now, this was my kind of cave.  There was a large above water opening that you could drive the dinghy into, and if you hit it at the right time (like we did) the lighting inside is incredible with the afternoon sun.  The snorkeling was great inside and out, and when you got tired of swimming you could climb ashore onto the rocks in the back of the cave and hike a little ways in.  There was also a very narrow underwater cave entrance that Tim found.  It’s called swallows cave because of all the swallows nesting on the ceiling, and yep, there were tons of them there.  If I didn’t know better, though, I would have thought they were bats from far away.

Satisfied after a great day, we were lounging on Exodus in the early evening, when we once again saw whales in the channel.  The timing was perfect because it was after all the tour operators close up shop, so Tim, Yi, and Johnny jumped in the dinghy again, and this time, Yi and Johnny got the swim of their lives.  I can only imagine how amazing it was based on the photos Johnny took.  It was a mother and her calf, and at one point Johnny must have gotten a little too close, because mama gave him a swipe with her flipper.  This story lives on in the epic quote, “Johnny got bitch slapped by a whale!”  We joke about it now, but we are very lucky no one got hurt.

Oh no, and that’s not all for day #2.  That night, Lady Carolina came over and we had a rum tasting party.  And this was no wimpy rum tasting, because between Steve and I we had at least 15 bottles out on the table.  To make it interesting we turned it into a competitive blind tasting where we had to guess which rum each selection was.  Carolina opted out of the tasting, so she was our server and judge.  Steve is about as competitive as I am, but we were civilized and kept the trash talking to a minimum.  I pulled out the win by a slim margin, however, apparently I can’t tell the difference between regular Captain Morgan and Captain Morgan Private Stock, which was just blasphemy.  Obviously, I had had a too few many tastings by the time that one came around.  (Oh, don’t worry, Steve will get the better of me in our whiskey tasting, coming soon to an anchorage near you.)

Day 3 (8/14): In the morning we weighed anchor and headed around outside of the island group into the Hunga Lagoon.  This took us out of the protected waters, so Yi and Johnny got a short taste of ocean sailing, but conditions were light, and we didn’t have to batten down any hatches.  The Hunga Lagoon is a small body of water with a couple passes, only one navigable by yacht.  There isn’t much current flowing in and out, but the opening is very narrow, and you have to make a quick turn just upon entering for safe clearance.  Lady Carolina arrived at the pass just ahead of us, and they dropped their dinghy and Steve and Kyle did some scouting before proceeding through with the big boat.  When we got there, Tim gave them our hand-held depth sounder and they were able to take readings to determine for sure there was enough depth, and for sure there was.  So, with Steve and Kyle in their dinghy they led us through the pass in Exodus, and then went back to Lady Carolina to enter themselves.  To be honest, this was a lot of effort for what turned out to be a pretty straightforward entrance with accurate charts, but I guess you can never be too careful.  Once at anchor the guys went out for some lobster diving, without any luck.  

The Hunga lagoon is a pretty nice spot.  We anchored of the southwest side off of the island of Fofoa, which is private, and you can’t go ashore.  Across the lagoon is Hunga island where there is a resort and a village, but we never made it down to that end.  We did cross straight east over to Hunga Island to a beach and took a short trail through the “jungle” to the very southern tip of Hunga overlooking a reef and a couple of small islands, one hosting the “Blue Lagoon Resort.”  We decided that the next day we would go check that out.

Day 4 (8/15): In the morning, Johnny and Alex took the paddle board for a long, upwind paddle over to The Blue Lagoon resort to scout the beach for surfing and to ask for permission to come to the beach.  They came back with a favorable report, and we all piled into the dinghy before the tide got too low so we could make our way out of the lagoon, over the reef to the beach.  We settled in on the beach and not 15 minutes later an older gentleman came over to us and started yelling at me and Tim.  His basic message was that this was private property and the proper thing to do is ask permission.  Tim tried to break in to explain, but he kept going on and on, telling us what we were doing was taboo.  No, he wasn’t Tongan, he was European, couldn’t quite place the accent.  Finally, when he took a breath, Tim explained that those two guys over there are our friends and our son and they came over earlier and asked for and received permission to come over.  The man’s demeanor totally changed.  His face went soft, and he was apologetic.  He said he saw someone talking to his son earlier, but he didn’t know that was us.  He offered us cold beverages and told us we could stay as long as we wanted.  

That spot turned out to be a pretty special spot.  The beach was small but with beautiful white sand, and Johnny even managed to catch a few waves on his surfboard.  Alex and Yi weren’t quite able to, because they didn’t go out as far as Johnny and were a bit heavy to catch the small waves closer in.  Brenden, on the other hand had a field day on those small waves.  Lady Carolina also joined us, and after we warned them that they better go over and ask permission they came back and the boys, including Tim, buried Joel in the sand.  Then they built huge sand muscles all around him.  Later that afternoon the guys all went lobstering again, but without luck.  All they came back with was a single crab.  It was a good size, but one crab will hardly feed 6 people.  Until Johnny decided to make a crab bisque of it.  So, we all enjoyed our bisque and later we had game night.  Regrettably no one sunk the Bismarck, and everyone kept on their pantalones.  

Day 5 (8/16): After spending a fair amount of time on VHF in the morning to figure out that we could go to a Tongan feast the next day on Sunday we sailed over to anchorage #11, which is formed between the southern end of the island of Pangaimotu and the small island of Tapana.  This is where the “famous” Ark Gallery is located.  What is the Ark Gallery?  A small, floating gallery where a woman sells her paintings.  Brenden and I dinghied over to check it out and Brenden loved some of the paintings, but we didn’t buy anything.  There is a Spanish restaurant on Tapana called La Paella that everyone raves about, and I called but they were booked that evening.  So, call ahead if you ever want to go there.

Day 6 (8/17): We had a fantastic day at the Tongan feast, which was held on Hinakauea Beach on Pangaimotu.  It is put on by a restaurant called Three Little Birds that is owned by a Tongan man and his Australian wife.  It was a lunch time all you can eat buffet, and when we arrived, they were cooking two small pigs on spits, and drinks were flowing from the bar.  The feast food was mediocre at best, but the overall day was a wonderful experience.  We met some new people and enjoyed live Tongan music and kava drinking while relaxing in the grass all afternoon.  It was also here that I found my replacement sipping rum since I had long run out of Bacardi Anejo.  Turns out it was a Tongan rum called Marlin, and it was dirt cheap at the market, but very decent to sip.  (Side note: While I stocked up on Marlin rum when we left Tonga, I should have bought a lot more, because there’s no good sipping rum in New Zealand and all the rum they have there is very expensive.) 

They day was capped off with whiskey tasting, game playing, and general merry making on Exodus with Lady Carolina and True Blue V.  We also met a new kid boat and invited them over as well, and I was worried they would get the wrong idea of us since it was one of our more crazy nights.  Turns out they fit right in.  Their boat is called Sudoeste, and they have a 9 year old daughter named Emily who played legos all evening with Brenden and Joel.  After winning the rum tasting game I am sad to admit that I came in dead last in Whiskey tasting.  Although, I did get an honorable mention by Yi, our pourer for the evening, for repeatability (I could recognize the same whiskey twice, even though I was totally wrong in my identification of it.)

Day 7 (8/18): We left the fleet at anchorage #11 and moved over to #32 on the north side of ‘Euakafa Island.  Everyone else went for a snorkel in and around the reef west side of the island while I enjoyed some much need “me time” on the boat.  Later, Tim and Johnny went ashore to scout for a location (and ask permission) to have a beach bonfire.  They came across two building projects, and the first people they talked to were very discouraging of us coming ashore.  But they said to go ask the people further down the beach at the other building project.  Here they met Brett and Robin, an Australian couple with several large dogs who are building a house there.  They were friendly, told us we could hang out on the beach as much as we wanted, and generally just talked and talked.  In the end we passed on the beach bonfire that evening, but it was nice to know there were friendly people ashore.

Day 8 (8/19): On this morning we were awoken by the sounds of humpback whales.  They were loud and clear from inside the hulls but barely audible from up above, so needless to say we all stayed in bed a little longer than usual.  Later we went ashore to hike to the “tomb of the Tongan princess.”  The chartlet in our guidebook shows a trail, and Robin sort of verbally gave us guidance on where to start.  We started out on something that seemed like kind of a trail, but quickly it dissipated and then we came to a bit of an uphill rock climb.  After a flurry of scouting and Tim yelling he’s going this way and Johnny yelling he’s going that way all of a sudden I found myself alone at the bottom.  I had no idea who was with whom and didn’t feel like blindly climbing around.  I announced to no one in particular that I was going to head back the way we came and see if I can pick up the trail again.  After picking up a large stick in order to clear spider webs in front of me I made my way back but found nothing, so I headed back to where I had separated with everyone else to just wait.  Soon, I was joined by Yi, and we waited for news from the boys that they had found a trail, which came soon enough.  When we made it to the tomb it was a little anticlimactic, and I was soon informed that Brenden had peed, well not ON it but NEAR it, so we were sure to have a princess haunting later.  We continued passed the tomb to some lookout spots with amazing views out north over the island group.  In the afternoon, we headed back to Port Maurelle, and Tim, Yi, and Johnny dove in Swallows cave again.  That evening we finally had our beach bonfire complete with hot dogs, baked potatoes, and s’mores.

Day 9 (8/20): Sadly, we had to head back to Neiafu to end the journey where we began.  Lunch at the Aquarium Cafe.  We had a lot of fun with Yi and Johnny and because of their visit we saw WAY more of Vava’u at that point than we probably would have on our own.  We were sad to see them go, but maybe someday we’ll visit them on their cruising boat.