(no subject)
Marita3
Mark & Helen Syrett
Tue 26 Jun 2012 05:53
After two days at Neiafu, the main port for the island group known as the Vava'u islands, Tonga, we have sailed to an anchorage about 7 miles away. We are delighted to have welcomed Nicholas Trefusis on board who travelled from Cornwall to London to Hong Kong to Auckland to Tonga (south island group) to Neiafu to join Marita!! He is sailing with us over the next two weeks to Fiji revisiting seas and land where he was a hydrographer with the Royal Navy in 1974. He is responsible for many of the charts in the area in which we will be sailing. We are planning to visit one of the islands in Fiji of which Nicholas has photographs of some of the families taken when he was there so it will be fun trying to find some of the people 38 years later.
The passage from Rarotonga to Tonga took about 7 days but conditions were very mixed. We started in flat calm with the Pacific being like a mirror and the stars at night reflecting in the completely smooth sea. This changed when the wind picked up and then for the final 36 hours we had strong winds. It blew at 25 to 28 knots and we had a sea to match. On the last night when we were deep reefed and it was fully dark with no moon the chart plotter froze and did not work. We immediately tried to take a note of our position from the navtex but as that showed our boat speed at 999.9 knots we thought that it was probably unreliable! Into the grab bag for the hand held GPS to find the battery flat despite it having been checked about two weeks before (subsequently found to be a loose connection). Then to the small hikers GPS which worked so we were able to confirm our position. All this was going on as we hurtled into the darkness in 28 knots of wind! Then after about twenty minutes the chart plotter recovered and we were back to normal. We arrived at Neiafu at daybreak as we did not fancy a night entry---the right decision as we were able to eyeball navigate rather than rely on the chart plotter. The chart plotter wanted to take us across land and actually showed us moored on land when we finally came to a stop. We subsequently learnt that a Bavaria yacht had left Neiafu last week and hit an island/reef with the loss of two lives---they abandoned the boat and took to the dinghy as the yacht broke up. The other members of the crew who stayed with the boat all survived. The pilot books do warn that electronic navigation should not be relied upon in these isolated volcanic areas.
Neiafu is lovely and the Tongan people very friendly, even if they are not the fastest movers especially the four officials (immigration, customs, health and agriculture) who checked us in.
A few days here and then off to Fiji.
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