Astra Blog: Tongatapu, Tonga 16.10.08 - 25.10.08
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Astra Blog: Thursday
16th Jeremy woke Ash at
first light and at 0600 they decided the visibility was good enough to pick
their way out through the surf.
Once clear of all the blind rollers and other hazards, they got the sails
up and headed directly for Tongatapu’s main Back on board, we
motored the short distance to Pangaimotu where we anchored for the night
alongside a bunch of other cruising yachts. That night we went ashore to the island
and had dinner at Big Mama’s Yacht Club. Friday
17th In the morning, Sally
took the island ferry into the main town to try to book flights home from
With the vast majority
of the jobs done, we all rushed ashore at 0300 to compete in Big Mama’s games
afternoon. This was an inter-crew
competition consisting of coconut boules (played with large coconuts which one
had to hurl at a small coconut - needless to say, they never went anywhere near
where you aimed!), darts and finally a volleyball match. Although Astra’s team dominated the warm up
rounds of the coconut boules, in the actual contest we were soundly beaten. We consoled ourselves with the fact that
it definitely was a game of luck rather than skill. We also lost the darts by a whisker to
some fairly well practised players.
However, when it came to the volleyball match we redeemed ourselves
completely. Sally, Stef and Ash
with a couple of the staff to make up numbers took on a combined cruisers and
staff team. It was brutal; the
opposition was systematically taken to pieces by a far superior Astra team. After the games, we all
retired to the bar to recover from our exertions. A few refreshing beers were followed by
an outstanding buffet dinner, including wahoo cerviche donated from Astra’s supplies. Saturday 18th Once we had recovered
from the previous night’s revelry and finished the most pressing items left on
the jobs list, we up anchored and motored 7Nm west to the While we were eating
lunch in the cockpit, the generator which had been misbehaving suddenly cut
out. A quick check confirmed that
it had automatically shut itself down due to overheating. Jeremy set to work on the beast to try
to ascertain what had caused it to do this. So that Jeremy would
not be distracted, Sally was sent to read her book and Ash and Stef were sent to
check out the resort! Having
beached the tender, Ash and Stef wandered round what they believed to be a
deserted building and were greeted by a large deck, vibrant bar and restaurant -
the place was still alive and well.
Delighted by this surprise, they wasted no time in buying a beer and
having a game of pool. From then on
the place just got better. There
was a happy hour (two hours), followed by a huge buffet dinner and then a floor
show which turned out to be by far the most impressive yet, complete with fire
dancing display! Sunday 19th Always keen to go for a
dip, Ash and Stef decided to go for a dive on the reef outside the lagoon. The coral was very pretty and if the sun
had been shining and the visibility better it would have been fantastic. When the diving party returned, Sally
and Jeremy took the tender in to have a wander around the resort; unfortunately
it seemed that guests and staff alike were still recovering from the night
before! We picked our way
carefully through the coral heads and headed back to Big Mama’s so that in the
morning we would be able to get straight on with the task of finding somebody to
repair the generator. Jeremy had
managed to ascertain that the problem was that the pipes within the heat
exchanger had corroded and had holes in them. On the way back, we were approached by a
young hammerhead shark swimming on the surface. We are not sure what he/she found so
interesting about us as we were not fishing and had not jettisoned anything
overboard. However, after a close
inspection of Astra, the shark
thought better of trying to take us on and
disappeared. That night Stef, who
had insisted that she cannot cook, cooked some scrumptious fajitas for
dinner. Monday 20th In the morning Sally
and Jeremy rushed ashore to take the first water taxi to Nuku’alofa. There they found a man who agreed to try
to weld up the offending pipe from the generator’s heat exchanger. Meanwhile, Ash finished the necessary
(it has been on the job list for over a year!) but mind numbingly boring task of
creating Astra’s new business
cards. Stef, who had delighted
Jeremy when she made the mistake of admitting that she had some training in
meteorology, was given the arduous task of understanding the weather between
here and Tuesday 21st It is impressive that
despite having been in the area for nearly a week, some people had made it thus
far without venturing into town.
Finally, on Tuesday morning everybody ventured in to use the internet, do
the provisioning and of course have a huge Full English Breakfast at Café
Reef. On return to Astra, Sally started cooking lots of
meals for the leg to Ash and Stef went
ashore in the afternoon and challenged the locals (Big Mama’s offspring!) to
some volley ball. After which they
were joined by Jeremy and Sally for some Happy Hour drinks at Big Mama’s Yacht
Club bar. Stef again ventured into
the galley and made a delectable stir fry followed up by more baked bananas in a
vast quantity of rum; we ended up crowded around it like animals at a
trough! Wednesday 22nd First thing in the
morning, we received the unwelcome news that the heat exchanger was
irreparable. Jeremy and Sally
immediately went to the main town to retrieve the part and work on our other
options. In the mean time, Stef and
Ash continued with the job list or as much of it was possible. Cleaning activities were suspended due
to the fact that we had no water and were unable to make any as the watermaker
can only be run off the generator.
Sally and Jeremy
returned for lunch and a much needed rest, so Ash and Stef left them in peace
and headed into town to hunt for Kava, unfortunately they found the ice cream
shop and a bar before they reached the kava shop and when they got there they
found that it closes earlier than everywhere else! All was not lost
though, because after a pleasant dinner ashore at Big Mama’s, they were invited
to join in on a kava ceremony with the staff. Thursday 23rd Desperate for some
water so that we could shower and wash up, we were finally forced to take Astra into the main port to get water
from the fish market tap! This also
enabled Jeremy to meet up with his latest generator repair man, David. David reckoned that he could patch it up
at a cost, so he has been put on stand-by in case the replacement part ordered
doesn’t make it by Saturday. After a leisurely lunch
on board, everybody spent the afternoon relaxing. Stef made a cake with Sally and then
went snorkelling with Ash on the nearby wreck. All then partook in Happy Hour before
returning to Astra wahoo sashimi
followed by wahoo chowder and chocolate cake. Paul (who is kindly
joining the crew for the arduous leg to Friday 24th At 0300 we finally
learnt from Big Mama that the flight had been cancelled in Sally and Jeremy took
the tender into Nuku’alofa to talk to immigration and customs about the
possibility of them working on the Saturday so that we could check-out of
While they were gone,
Ash and Stef started cleaning Astra’s
hull to gain that extra knot of speed for the trip. Jeremy and Sally
returned just in time for the whole crew to head ashore for Big Mama’s Olympic
Games. The Astra team excelled themselves winning
the volleyball hands down, coming second in the seriously dodgy coconut balls
and winning (we think) in the water fight war game! Just before Happy Hour,
Ash’s parents Angie and John arrived at Big Mama’s where they had booked a fale
for a couple of nights. Dinner was
a raucous affair, with a huge buffet followed by Big Mama’s prize
giving. Saturday 25th All available hands
leapt into action for what promised to be a very busy and stressful day. At 0800 everybody, including Angie and
John who were press ganged into service, took Astra over to the main port. Firstly, Paul’s plane had to arrive at
0800 (with Paul on it) so that we could get him and take his passport to
immigration so that Jeremy could check-out at 0900. This had to be done before we could
refuel at 0930. All the officials
involved were working on overtime and therefore delays would prove pricey. So while Sally and Angie were despatched
on provisioning duties, Jeremy went to customs and immigration, Paul (still
grinning from his Bloody Mary breakfast!) was whisked from the airport to
immigration, John was sent to the DHL office to secure the package containing
the new heat exchanger and Ash and Stef stayed on Astra to coordinate on the VHF radio and
await the fuel delivery. Amazingly
all went surprisingly smoothly, Paul arrived, we checked-out, the fuel arrived,
the stores arrived, the heat exchanger was eventually handed over and David
helped Jeremy install it and no rats managed to scurry on board during the
operation! The capacity for a
complete disaster was enormous but thankfully it never happened! While the generator was
being flushed several times to clear it of salt water, Stef prepared some huge
fresh lobsters for lunch and we broke out several celebratory beers. Having motored back to
Big Mama’s, everybody set about cleaning the hull while Jeremy nurtured his
(much happier) generator and fitted the replacement parts to the watermaker
which Paul had kindly carried all the way from
Europe. That evening, a hugely
relieved Astra crew joined all the
other cruisers (there are now 29 yachts anchored off Big Mama’s!) ashore for a
‘bring your own meat/fish’ BBQ, Big Mama provided all the salads and needless to
say we provided a large amount of
wahoo! |