Friday 5th October - Time off in Tonga - the first ten days
18:39.52S 173:58.99W Friday
5th October – Time off in We weighed
anchor in
A delightful sight, tacking up the main channel towards
Vava’u The main
island, Atu Vava’u, has a long, narrow curving harbour, bordered by the main
town, Neiafu. It is wonderfully
sheltered with steep, verdantly covered cliffs either side - you could easily
think you were in Salcombe harbour.
Much of the harbour is very deep so we took a mooring. We’ve been here for quite a bit longer
than we originally intended but it a delightful place to
be.
Looking west towards the harbour
entrance
Looking south-east towards the upper
reaches
Suitably, an Irish boat, Saol Eile, at the end of the
rainbow We arrived a
few days before the start of the annual regatta and festival and were persuaded
to stay on to take part in the fun and maybe even a race. Cowes Week it ain’t but the organisers
have put together such a varied programme that everyone can enjoy themselves and
learn a thing or two – there was an excellent talk on humpback whales – the ones
that are currently to be seen in this part of the world, though like us they’ll
be heading south in the not too distant
future. Representatives from some of the marinas in the North Island of New
Zealand have been giving out lots of useful information and encouraging all
those heading south to come to their particular home. They were also sponsoring the races and
so in the end our arms were twisted and we signed up for the harbour race on
Thursday, 27th September. Most of the day, there was
hardly a breath of wind but by 4pm there was enough for 11 boats in three
classes to line up for the two mile course up and down the harbour. Attempts to track down racing
instructions, position of the start line, course etc proved fruitless – entrants
had to wait until the skippers briefing ashore at 16:00 and then zoom back to
their boats for a 16:45 start –fortunately only a few hundred yards away. But that’s how it always happens for the
harbour race which they hold every week.
Besides Jon on the helm it was just Carol and Karen, a New Zealander,
acting as crew and manning the 14 deck winches. Despite the best efforts of the crew the
skipper failed to cover the boat in unmatchable glory. However, we came away with a great prize
– a week’s free berthing in Whangarei, NZ. The next day
twenty or so boats took part in a much longer race to Tapana island where an end
of regatta week Full Moon party was being held. We decided to go to the party but not
race. It took about two and half
hours to get there and as we left quite a bit later than the racing fleet, we
had to anchor in 40 m – the leaders had taken the much shallower spots closer to
shore. So, the whole 100m of our
10mm chain attached to the faithful FBA was let go with us debating whether that
was really enough. Well,
theoretically, it wasn’t. But, we
didn’t have much doubt that it’d do just fine. Forget the 70lb anchor – we’d just let
go about quarter of a tonne of chain.
OK: it’s not scientific but. . . . Although the anchorage was more
exposed than Neiafu harbour, the wind wasn’t that strong and the reef meant that
all was pretty calm. We had no
problems, unlike our Dutch friends, Mark (he of the cunning “Let’s dive off the
quay at
The Full Moon Party’s Wicker Man After a
sleepless night for the skipper’s wife, we dropped anchor in Port Mourelle bay
with the intention of doing some snorkelling and visiting a couple of
spectacular caves. However, the weather had other ideas, turning grey and very
rainy – not conducive to a mile and a half dinghy ride to the first cave – it’s
far too deep to anchor close by.
Instead we caught up on a few chores and generally relaxed a bit. Sam Davis from Strangford Lough dropped
by for a chat. He is sailing solo
in a Rival 41. He told us that he
has to get back to The grey
weather has been with us ever since – the only difference being that the rain
has been torrential at times. That
being the case we decided to head back to town and avail ourselves of the
various entertainments. But first
there was the little matter of dealing with the auxiliary generator behaving
most mysteriously – suddenly springing into life without any human
intervention! Find out how we fared
culturally and mechanically in part two of our blog – “The second ten days in
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