Tonga july-august,2004

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We left New Zealand on June 23, a good month after our intended departure. After checking out with customs in Whangarei we headed down the river mouth. With a double reefed main and jib, we broad reached on the SW 25-39 knot wind, making lots of easting the first night.  on June 29 we went through a storm at sea. It was very exciting while being extremely ugly and uncomfortable. Winds strengthened to 38-40 knots with gusts being clocked at 44.5. We had lots of rain and the seas were up to 12 feet. I don't think Grace has ever seen so much water on her deck. We finally hove to for quite a few hours with very little sail out to steady us, luckily it was a short-lived  front that moved over quickly. By June 30 we were on course again and sailing a beam reach with 25 knots of wind.

It happened to be the weekend of celibrations for the King's 86th birthday when we arrived, an un expected treat. There was a terrific parade down the main street of Nuku'alofa, the kingdom's capitol city, where we got a glimps of the King himself sitting on a throne in the back of a pickup truck(only in Tonga). Unfortunately we weren't close enough to get any pictures of him. We only stayed a week in Tongatapu as we were eager to start exploring the Ha'apai island group to the North.

We arrived Tongatapu on July 3, very happy to drop anchor and get some rest. it just so happened that on the same day a US warship also arrived in the harbor, and the 4th of July the American sailors shared drinks with us at a small island resort just a dinghy ride from Nuku'alofa. i'm not positive, but I think they did their best to drink up eery beer and bottle of rum in the country. It was great fun.

Anchorage at Pangaimotu near Nuku'alofa

some of the sights on the street the morning of the parade

There are oer 60 island in the Ha'apai group and we only isited about 8 of them. They are all low coral islands with colorful loagoons and great snorkling. Basically this means loads of reef eerywhere, a yachty's nightmare. Though it was quite beautiful, dodging the reefs, especially when entering through passes into the lagoons, took a lot of concentration and at times was exhausting.

Ha'apai

beautiful Nudibranch found while snorkling in the Ha'apai

Richard on the bow of Grace watching for shallow reef

One of our first stops ashore in the Ha'apai was the island of Ha'afeva. We arried on a Saturday and as we were walking down the illage road children came running out to greet us and smiling adults stood behind their fenced yards waving. We had two initations to join some of the people for church and Tongan feast on Sunday. The first house we went to was the home of a young woman named Anna. She was delightful and we enjoyed comparing English, Hawaiian and Tongan languages with her. She served us two fish dishes, one was baked and wrapped in taro leaves then smothered in a rich coconut cream sauce. The other was a fried fish. Both were delicious. We also had baked breadfruit and manioc root, which is a tapioca root, a little dry and tasteless for Kelly's tastes but Richard really enjoyed it. Our next feast was at the home of another young woman named Linda. We came into the small house and were greeted by about ten people, men, women and children. Thinking to ourselves " what a nice,  large, family feast this was going to be ", we were ushered to sit down and was served a similar meal as the one we had previously at Anna's but with added lobster, it was delicious.  Two women stood over us and fanned the flies away and the rest of the family stood around us and watched as we ate.  it was a bit uncomfortable and we kept trying to encourage people to sit down and join us but they insisted that they had already eaten and continued to watch us eat.   We picked up our friend Clay from Atlanta at the airport in Pangai on the island of Lifuka, the capital of the Ha'apai group. It was great to have him aboard for many reasons, including an extra pair of eyes for reef watching.

Some of the highlights of the Ha'apai were the fruit bats on ha'ano and the enchanting, lost-in-time feeling of the many illages we visited while sailing in the group.

We spent 2 1/2 weeks of prdominately unsettled weather in the ha'apai group then headed up to Vava'u and calmer, more protected anchorages with very little shallow reef areas. The Vava'u group is the perfect cruising grounds for yachts, easy to get from one island to the next and each one as gorgeous as the one before. Vava'u's main harbor is beautiful, and the largest, most protected harbor in all of Tonga, perhaps in the whole of the Pacific. It is said that in 1777, when in the Ha'apai group, Captain Cook met Finau, the cheif of Vava'u. He asked him if his ships could find deep and protectedharbor in Vava'u. Sensing the possible impact the Europeans could have on his islands, the cheif told Cook there was absolutely no safe place for his ships to anchor there. This is historically one of the greatest lies eer told. Caotain Cook never saw the Vava'u and instead, four years later, the Spanish explorer, Francisco Maurelle had the honor of being the first European to discover Vava'u.  Itwas he who dubbed the great harbor here "The Port of Refuge".

Vava'u

Anchored in the 'Port of Refuge"

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