Author: cruisingrunner

August 8, 2014

Upon arrival in the Neiafu, we located the fishing wharf that we were directed to tie up to in order for the formalities to begin.  This was not the kind of dock you prefer to tie your yacht up to, if you know what I mean. It is a non-floating concrete dock with plenty of sharp spots and pokey things to mark your fiberglass or pop your fenders.  One of our friends actually sustained some damage to their standing rigging while tied up there, but they were there on a particularly bluster day and were blown pretty hard into the dock.  

When we pulled up there wasn’t any room for Exodus, so we stood off until we saw an official looking guy on shore clearly directing us over to the nearby commercial dock.  Now, this dock looked even worse!  It was higher from the waterline and had large tires tied alongside to serve as bumpers for the large ships but would have been no good for Exodus. Best case we get a few large black marks, but worst case our deck actually slides underneath one of the tires and then gets smashed by the surge.  No thanks.  We told the guy, as nicely as we could, that we would just wait for a spot at the other dock.  Then one of the local fishing boats called Whalesong offered to let us side tie to them while we check in.  This was the best we could hope for.  Tying to this boat was WAY better than being up against the dock.  

We had a light lunch while we were waiting our turn in the check-in queue, and soon enough we were boarded by two officials: one from customs and the other from quarantine.  To be polite I put out some cookies and served them tea, and it didn’t take too long for us to realize that there was really no purpose for them to board Exodus other than to eat our cookies and ask us for stuff.  They didn’t search anything, and they weren’t too concerned about what food we were bringing in or how much alcohol we had.  In fact, the alcohol I listed just prompted them to ask us for a bottle of wine.  They made some small talk asking us if we caught any fish along the way, and when we said yes, they asked for some.  They also asked for WD-40.  Now, we’ve been accustomed to trading for things, in fact it was our impression that most people are proud and they aren’t looking for a handout.  They want the trade to be fair, and in a lot of cases they’ve wanted to give US extra things.  There were only a couple times we were flat out asked for stuff, but this was the first time it was by the governmental officials.  Everywhere else we have been they have been extremely professional.  Even Mexico, that has such a bad rep for corruption, had stand-up officials.  

There were fees, not a huge amount, but since we didn’t have Tongan money yet, I had to take a short walk to the ATM in order to complete our check-in.  On the way I was stopped by a man selling bread, and he asked me how many loaves I wanted.  He gave me a price for three loaves, and I offered him 1/3 the price for 2 loaves.  He accepted, and said he would have the bread for me when I walked back, and I was feeling proud of myself for such a good haggle. Then I popped into a store and saw just how cheap bread really was.  When I saw the man on my way back he had 3 loaves of bread and asked me for his original price.  I was fully prepared to honor my deal even though it was WAY overpriced, but here he was trying to really gouge me.  I held firm and paid him what I said I would for two loaves, and politely declined when he asked if I needed any laundry done or any courtesy flags.

After we were done with customs and quarantine, we were told to go ahead and go take a mooring and then later that afternoon to walk to immigration to check in with them.  We learned later that immigration usually comes to the boat too, but since it was lunch hour, they didn’t make it for us.  Immigration check in was easy. The immigration official did not ask for anything, and he was very pleasant.  Afterwards, we walked around town to acclimate ourselves.  We found the duty-free alcohol shop, and their rules there are a bit strange.  Usually, you can purchase duty free alcohol upon checking out of a country, but in Tonga they allowed you to buy duty free up to 24 hours within checking in, based on your passport stamps.  I bought one bottle of Bundaberg rum, but that’s about it.  The selection wasn’t very good, and the prices were still quite high.  However, in Tonga we have found something we haven’t had in a long time: GOOD BEER.  

Tonga is a large island group east of Fiji and south of Samoa.  It is the sole hold-out of Polynesian monarchies and it boasts to be the only South Pacific nation that was never under outside imperial rule.  There are three main island groups, and from north to south they are Vava’u, Ha’apai, and Tongatapu.  We visited all three but spent more time in Vava’u than the others.  The capital of Tonga is Nuku’alofa, located in Tongatapu, which is where we cleared out of the country to voyage to New Zealand.

Tonga’s on the edge of the rim of South Pacific volcanoes, and there are still a few active volcanoes along the western side.  If you follow this sort of current events, you might have seen that in December, 2014 (shortly after we left) an underwater eruption west of the Ha’apai group created a brand new island.  Amazing.

Vava’u is known as a tourist destination, specifically for charter cruising and whale watching.  Tonga is one of the few, maybe only, countries that let people dive with whales as long as it’s with a licensed tour operator. Once we got out amongst the islands, we could surely see why they have a decent sized charter business here.  There are tens of protected anchorages, all within about 10 miles of each other, with plenty of options depending on the prevailing wind direction.  Additionally, most of the time when you are moving about between anchorages you stay within the protection of the outer islands and fringing reefs, so you’ve usually got pristine water for some spectacular day sailing.  There are also many anchorages listed as “day anchorage only” meaning they aren’t quite as protected, but these are usually the most beautiful spots with the best snorkeling, if you can stomach the surge coming over the reef at high tide.

The main town of Vava’u is Neiafu, which is tucked inside a deep, protected, harbor, which is considered a viable hurricane hole.  There are also many smaller towns and villages scattered amongst the islands.  The Moorings charter company has published a cruising guide for many years that lists all of the anchorages in Vava’u by number.  We didn’t visit all of them, but we did manage to see quite a few.  Our favorite was anchorage #30, but you will have to wait until next time to hear about that one.

August 5-8, 2014

We departed from Pago Pago, American Samoa around 8am on August 5th, and we were happy to be leaving, for sure.  If you don’t know why, check out my previous essay, which details all of our adventures in Pago Pago.  Anyway, I don’t have much written in our logbook about this passage to Tonga other than we caught a Dorado (aka Mahi Mahi). However, this passage lives on in my memory as one of our worst one without any specific recollection as to why.  The few log entries show that we had windspeeds between 17 and 24 kts at an apparent wind angle forward of the beam the whole way.  Yuck.  We were heavily reefed the whole time because there were many nighttime squalls. 

Although Tonga is on the East side of the dateline (180 deg longitude), it has elected to be in a time zone as if it were on the other side in order to be consistent with New Zealand and Fiji.  So, we lost a day on this passage, and it turns out that the day we lost was my sister’s birthday.  Sorry Danna.

The sun was rising when we arrived in the wind shadow of the largest island of Vava’u it was like heaven.  The seas flattened and the wind calmed.  We made VHF radio contact with two other boats we knew who expressed the same relief of coming into the calm.  As we made our way inside the island group we listened to the VHF cruisers net, which was helpful, because they were able to tell us exactly where we needed to go to clear in. Apparently Tongan officials aren’t monitoring the radio too often.  We arrived, all checked in and ready to explore, on the afternoon of 8 August.

August 5 – 28, 2014

We left Pago Pago on the morning of 5 August and had a three-day passage to Vava’u, which is an island group in The Kingdom of Tonga, and a popular charter cruising destination.  Overall, we spent a wonderful month and a half in Vava’u, and this essay will only cover the first half of that, because there is just so much to say.  We cleared in at the port of Neiafu and stayed for about four days, until our friends from back home, Yi and Johnny, came for a visit.  Once they arrived, we headed out the channel and around the corner to a popular anchorage called Port Maurelle (aka Fangakima, aka Anchorage #7) on Kapa Island.  This was a good home base for some snorkeling and whale watching excursions and it also has access to a decent running trail around the island.  After a couple days there we sailed to the outside of the island group to the lagoon formed by Hunga and Fofoa Islands.  The entrance to the lagoon was very narrow, and once through we tried to anchor on the southeast side of the lagoon off of a nice beach, but we were unsuccessful in finding a spot with suitable depth, so we ended up anchoring on the southwest side of the lagoon off of Fofoa Island.  On the north side of the lagoon is Hunga Village and a resort with moorings (where Anchorage #13 is located), but we didn’t venture up that way.  Our next stop was more towards the western end of the island group to Tapana Island (aka Anchorage #11) for our first Tongan Feast.  Then we went down to ‘Euakafa Island (aka Anchorage #32), where we hiked to the tomb of a Tongan Princess.  By this time, Yi and Johnny’s visit was coming to a close, and we spent one last night at Port Maurelle before heading back to Neiafu for them to catch their flight.  Before we got sucked into shopping and internet in Neiafu, we turned right around and headed back to Port Maurelle, and once again used it as a home base for some snorkeling excursions.  Eventually, we needed to go back to Neiafu for provisioning, completing a couple boat projects, and going on a pub crawl.  We took a timeout from “city life” and moved down to the south end of the channel at Anchorage #2, near the town of Toula.  Finally, we were ready to head back out to the islands and we departed Neiafu for anchorage #16 and the coral gardens on 28 August.  

The rest of our Vava’u adventures, including a visit from Papa and Nana, will be covered in the next essay or two.

Even with the Costco and the cheap laundry, we could not get out of Pago Pago fast enough.  Once our weather window opened, we were outa there!  We departed on the afternoon of August 5th bound for Neiafu, Tonga.

Provisioning-Pago Pago is traditionally known as a good place to stock up on provisions, since there are many U.S. products that you can’t find in many of the other island countries.  However, it had been getting some negative press lately, so we weren’t really sure what to expect.  But what we found was extremely good provisioning, with the exception of fresh produce.  The markets in town had limited supplies, but there was a huge costco type warehouse store that had pretty much everything we couldn’t find in French Polynesia: Canned chicken, monterey jack cheese, Tim’s vanilla coffee creamer, cheap american beer and wine, breakfast cereals, etc.  In contrast, thought, we were seriously disappointed in the hard liquor options.  Specifically, we couldn’t find Bacardi Anejo, which was my rum staple throughout Mexico, and we were down to our last couple bottles.  We were able to stock up on Captain Morgan spiced rum for Tim, and they had a version of Captain Morgan called “private stock” which is excellent for sipping.  Steve (Lady Carolina) said he liked it better than Zaya, but I most definitely did not.  CM has too strong a vanilla taste, and I prefer the subtle caramel flavor of Zaya.

Harbor Bottom-One of the main reasons cruisers tend to skip Pago Pago these days is the notoriously fouled harbor bottom, which is mostly a result of a 2009 tsunami that caused a lot of destruction in and around the harbor. We love to exchange stories of what sort of items people have pulled up off the bottom with their anchor. While we were there, we saw someone pull up a Christmas tree after their anchor didn’t set the first time.

Laundry-In French Polynesia, laundry was insanely expensive, so we had even started handwashing ourselves.  So, Pago Pago was a nice change in that they had a big American style laundromat where you can do your own laundry.  I did 10 loads for a total of $30 U.S. (I guess I haven’t mentioned that it was kind of nice to be able to use our own native currency again…)

The first step to clear into American Samoa was to radio Pago Pago harbor control for permission to enter the harbor and to ask for instructions.  We arrived after business hours (after 4pm) so we were advised to go ahead and anchor and then tomorrow come to shore to complete the clearing in process.  Apparently, if you arrive during business hours you have to tie your boat up to the wharf and it can be a precarious situation, so we were more than happy to arrive after hours.

On Exodus, the handling of all the administration of foreign formalities is a “pink job.”  In fact, we list me as co-captain on all of our paperwork so that I can have the authority to be the official signature when clearing in or out of a country.  These formalities can sometimes be a frustrating and inefficient process (understatement), so my patience level tends to match this task better than Tim’s.

Anyway, the next morning I went to shore alone and started at the harbormaster’s office, where I filled out a form, and then the clerk escorted me to the other side of the building to visit a few more offices, of which I wasn’t certain what each one was.  Customs was definitely there, and I think quaratine/health, and the port authority (where you eventually have to pay your port fees when you leave).   Then I had to walk about a mile to immigration to have our passports stamped.  It wasn’t an unpleasant walk, except for the light rain that kept starting and stopping.  I had trouble finding the immigration office, but I just asked someone, and enjoyed being in a country where English is prevelant for the first time in over a year.  At immigration, the man who filled out our paperwork and stamped and photocopied our passports seemed to be moving in slow motion.  I wanted to offer to do it for him, but I resisted.  Eventually, I made it out of there, and we were all nice and legally cleared into the country.

When I got back to Exodus and was putting away all of our paperwork, including our passports, I had a complete and utter panic attack.  I only had three passports!  Luckily, immigration had been the last place I had been to, and since I knew I had all four passports there, I knew where the missing passport, Brenden’s passport, must be.  Instead of walking all the way back there, Tim drove me around the point in the dinghy.  It was a wet, beach drop-off, but I wanted to get back to the immigration office as quickly as possible, so I didn’t want to take time finding “the best” place to park the dinghy.  When I got back to the office, of course, it was a different guy there, and when I told him I must have left a passport there, he was flustered and didn’t really know what to do.  He couldn’t even find our paperwork.  While sitting there a little discouraged, my eyes fell on the photocopy machine.  Of course!  I suggested to the guy that he check there, and he was relieved to have some direction, and even more relieved that the passport was actually there.  He, and the other guy who had joined him in the search by then, reacted as if I was some sort of mystic.