Even more friendly than the Friendly Isles!
Bamboozle
Jamie and Lucy Telfer
Fri 29 Jun 2012 01:02
The flat calm waters of the Vava’u group were indeed just what the Doctor ordered for Lucy’s ribs and we spent a couple of weeks amongst the islands and anchorages of this part of Northern Tonga. It is an area we have explored before and not somewhere we expected to visit again this year but it remains a favourite spot and it was lovely to get a chance to spend a bit more time there . Fortunately the slight delay caused by our diversion has not really made much of a difference to this year’s plans so once Lucy was back in tip-top condition we took off up here to Wallis, a small French overseas territory that is little visited by yachts or indeed any other tourists. By plane, it is as far as you can possibly get in the world away from Paris and by sea it lies just a bit off the beaten track, not really on the way to anywhere and as a result we were pleased to find when we arrived that we are the only yacht here at the moment. It is a pretty special place to have to ourselves and as you should be able to see on the Google earth map we are now anchored off an uninhabited motu that forms part of the protective reef with the lagoon inside. With its blue water, white sand and palm trees it is a picture postcard South Pacific desert island complete with huge thundering breakers crashing onto the outer reef protecting us from the ocean swells just a few hundred metres away. Sadly as I will be uploading this using the Sat phone I can’t post any pictures at this stage.
Maybe it is because of the lack of tourists but the people here are extraordinarily friendly even by the high standards of the South Pacific. To clear customs and immigration we hitched into town from our anchorage at Gahi Bay picking up a lift straight away and the driver insisted on going out of his way to take us right to the front door of customs. The smiling customs officer dealt with the brief formalities and then immediately got out his chart of the lagoon out so he could recommend the best anchorages and where to get shelter from the prevailing winds.... the first time a customs officer has ever offered such friendly advice. As we left customs we asked a lady the way to the bank as we needed get some of the local currency...... she insisted that as visitors we should not have to walk and got into her car to drive us there! Having collected some cash in the form of French Pacific Francs we made our way to the supermarket where I discovered in common with French territories the world over it is possible to get fresh baguette, good French cheese and a huge range of fruit and vegetables....not only that but they could also supply us with snails, frogs legs, and even hoky-poky ice-cream...... I HAVE ARRIVED IN HEAVEN!!!! At this point we bumped into the smiley customs officer who taking one look at our pile of supplies offered to drive us the 4 miles back to where we had anchored our boat. As I said...... extraordinarily friendly!
The island is named after the British Naval Captain Samuel Wallis who was the first European to stumble across the island in 1767. Unsurprisingly the Polynesian residents already had a name for the island (Uvea, which many still use today) but he decided to rename it after himself and then sailed away again over the horizon. This guy clearly had a knack for finding idyllic south sea
islands he was the first European to visit Tahiti ahead of Bougainville and a full decade before the better known visit by Cook. As ever with those who “discovered” this part of the world the most extraordinary thing is not that he came looking for these places but that having “found” them he actually persuaded himself and his crew to sail back to the stinking, dangerous, diseased hellhole that was 18th century Portsmouth to tell everyone else about it. It is surprising that many more of them did not do a “Bounty”and stay here.... I certainly would have done!