Vava'u, Tonga - A whale of a time
Pacific Bliss
Colin Price
Thu 20 Sep 2012 05:38
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Kingdom of Tonga - Part I
Vava’u Group, Neiafu
Town
We had a particularly nasty trip down to Tonga –
kids sick for two days solid in ugly seas that piled up along the Tongan trench
with a stiff wind almost on the nose. We paid the price ignoring the
golden ‘never never’ rule, that being: ‘Never travel on the ocean to a
time schedule’, oh, and a new one for us, ‘never leave when you can see the
colour purple on the grib files’ (sailors will understand that one), oh and, ‘if
the twice wave height is predicted to be longer than the period, don’t even
think about going.’ We broke all three.
Safe to say we where all delighted to arrived in
the Kingdom of Tonga. Thankfully it was only a few days at sea despite
feeling more like a week. This huge country has a tiny population and
nothing to support them other than some tourism, but Neiafu town feels like
being in the Caribbean again with Western bars, wi-fi and organised ‘fun’
– all in all not really our cup of tea.
 Neiafu, Vavau  Re-meet Daph and Vries of s/v Aquamante – a happy
lunch as ever
 Note Daphe has a colander on her head
again.
We visited a coconut factory (run sadly by a
foreigner couple) which was making
coconut oil for cosmetics 
and health,and then with the by-product making, cooking oil, cheese, crisps,
chicken feed, charcoal, and pig food for their regular ‘pig racing’ evenings
which looked like a real snort! The whole enterprise was really, dare I say it,
enterprising, but it seems such a shame that its not been done by a
Tongan. I guess the government will regulate and tax it when it gets
successful and that will be an end to it – but that may be a bit cynical.
For the time being – more power to the coconutWe’re here primarily to go Whale watching.
Having booked whilst we were still in Samoa we had high expectation; an Alaskan
couple who had been sceptical about this controversial activity found the
company we used, Dolphin Pacific Diving, professional and sympathetic to these
wonderful creatures from the deep. Sadly our experience was
contrary. Due to engine failure we where unable to go on the allotted day,
making our nasty trip down a bit pointless! 4 days later we finally got
picked up nearly 2 hrs. late, still more engine probs. Whilst I’m
sure the engine probs’ where genuine it meant we where unable to travel far from
land and thus we where hanging out with 6 other boats all wanting there ‘turn’
with a mother and calf. So, it was all a bit off from the
start.
Tonga is the only place worldwide that has
officially allowed swimming with whales, as a result it’s a fast growing
industry. In the past 3 years the price of these excursions has
tripled and not only that the number of operators has tripled too. The
current government ethos is that it’s a growing industry that is uniquely
Tongan. This may be very true but we felt from first hand experience this
is not the right way to go. It is believed that the industry is
tightly regulated with strict rules only allowing 4 folk and guide in the water
at any time, and each group can only stay in the water for a max of 5
mins. This all might be followed to the letter. However, the reality
is there is more disturbance due to the huddling of the tour boats around the
first whale spotted, always the closest to the departure port. This is
like any other tourist industry an opportunity for man to make money.
Hence the less fuel a boat can use the better. Our group where advised of
the rules before we got into the water, but due to one particular maverick/rule
breaker ( appears there’s one in every group) all rules where ignored and this
particular tourist got far too close to these gentle giants. He was in
fact endangering his life the consequences where that he got an almighty fright
and nearly lost his camera, we rather wish he had. He emerged from the
water having had an almighty shock when the calf brushed up against him when
coming up for air. It’s not the tourist we are actually concerned for it’s
what this activity is doing to the whales. After the event
there’s nothing anyone can do. It is a startling fact that fewer and fewer
whales are returning to there breading grounds up in the Vava'u group to have
their calves – would you go and have your baby where you are going to be
pestered by the paparazzi all day?
     Having said all that, you can see from the shots
above that we did have an amazing experience and got close to a gorgeous pair of
whales.
Colin and I both found the main town Neiafu
in Vav’u rather over loaded with ex-pats, it’s the first time we’ve come to some
where like this, and not really our cup of tea. Getting to
know any of the local folk is terribly difficult and one feel a reluctance from
the local population to engage. All the local businesses are run by ‘palangi’
(westerners) so very little of the real money is filtered down to the natural
population other than at staff salaries. It would be fair to say it’s not our
kind of town and then we encountered the ‘regatta’! Like all thing here
run by palangi with lots of fun and games for the yachting community including
‘fancy dress pub crawls!’ and ‘dinghy raft ups!’ plus other activities mostly
based around a bar. Call me cynical, but I’d always thought regattas where
supposed to be about sailing. So we felt a great need to get
away.
With the regatta in full swing its difficult to get
away from the swell of visiting yachts. Plus we’re with a group of other
cruising boats we actually rather like. Our compromise is to travel with
our buddies and embrace normal cruising life. Despite our ‘normal’ get
away attitude we find living around other boats rather fun. The up side to
it all is the children are having a ball with other boat kids and we’re having a
wonderful time having a little bit of separation from full on 24/7 family
time. There is no escaping it, living as a family in such close
confines is peculiar for any culture and is definite difficult for us all at
times.
You may remember we bumped into s/v Christopher in
Samoa without its 8year old owner on board. Well they were in Tonga, and
him and Cosmo got on famously. Actually the family were all rather lovely and we
went out for pizza with them and the whole crew. Picture below shows
Z and C being picked up by tender to go on a ‘play date’ on the yacht. We
only heard that ‘Angry Birds’ flew all over the main cabin – so glad we weren’t
there.
   Swallow cave which the kids dived down about 1 1/2m to get into the
inner cave.  And so, away from Neiafu we visited a number of
anchorages, which in Vava’u are all numbered from 1 – 40 on the chart so that
the charter boats wont get lost. It's odd on the VHF to hear
people
arranging to meet in anchorage #23 – possible
reason is that many of the local names are pretty unpronounceable and people
would just end up in different places and never find each other.
Anchorage 33 – Kenutu where the sun
shone and we found shells again on deserted beaches.
   
Above and below   
Blow holes in the rocks which took some climbing up toMeeting up with our buddies from Canada that we met
in Samoa is a major plus for us all. The children haven’t stopped talking
about Charlie(13) Riley(11) and Saylor (6) and for us adults it’s a never ending
riot. Doug has set up a rope swing off the boom of their very pretty ‘Hans
Christian’ traditional design boat. The kids are happy to spend a whole
day throwing themselves off into the water and come nightfall us adults find
ourselves enjoying the thrill of it all too, Only to be halted in full
swing by a very cross Zinnia having been woken to ridiculous parental
escapades. Colin and I where frog marched back to our boat and dispatched
to bed immediately by a very un-amused prudish 10yr old. Shades of AB-FAB
we think.
  Z
swinging from . . . . s/v Longshot II   Longshot (rechristened 's/v Loads ‘o noise) still hooked into plenty
of fish including this huge giant trevally.A visit to dive into a fresh water cave –
brrrrr.
  We do in fact start to really enjoy ourselves in
some more secluded bays and islands a little less visited by other yachts.
On Avalau we met the most remarkable couple Mary 88 and companion
Sergei, who escaped the crazy west some years ago and found their
Shangri La up on a remote hilltop. They’ve converted this piece of
jungle into a wonderful flower garden and eat only organic and build the houses
out of wood and see-through plastic. Mary has to be the most remarkable
88yr old we’ve ever met. She may not have a lot of teeth but she’s as fit as a
fiddle still writing from her ocean-side timber framed plastic lined hut not
with paper and pen as we had expected but on her state of the art Apple Mac
whilst reading the stars. These guys are hugely self sufficient using only
the sun for all power required to run electrical appliances. Their Kitchen
has to be the most wonderful hatched together place I’ve ever seen. All
rather a surreal experience.
      Through the narrow entrance in to the atoll of
Hunga to a small but hugely warm friendly community where a few Native Kiwi’s
have integrated and assisted ‘not patronised’ village life. So we where
able to off load some of our old books to their new Children’s Library.
Again we experienced incredible generosity, it’s almost impossible to walk
around a village without being welcomed in and after church on Sunday we were
walking down the path back to our boats when we’re beckoned over and given
enough warm packaged up food for a family of eight. Why? Who knows, it’s
just the natural welcome expected of a host of any remote village.
   
Going to a very odd church service on Sunday – unlike the Cook islands we were
almost alone in the church and it slowly filled up during the service. We
never quite got the hang of it, and then it was over.having another baby perhaps – or is it
a coconut?
 We’ve been told you can’t provision in the Ha'apai
group so we need to return to Neiafu to check-out and do our final stock before
hitting NZ in about 2 months time. I also manage to add to our growing
collection of Tribal art, having met an expat who knows a thing or two
about the subject I’m allowed to borrow some of her books showing all sorts of
carving weaving and painting. She call these books her pornography so very
quickly the children hook on to calling her ‘mummies porn queen’. I have
to say she was rather delighted with her new title.
Tongan basket – which I bought for my own Christmas
present and poor Colin had to hide somewhere in the boat – think he has lost it
now
 Whilst we’re in Vava’u I’m allows me to
go on a dive which I have to say is perhaps the best underwater topography I’ve
ever experienced. Also whilst we’re here we find the most extraordinary
coral garden we’ve ever seen abundant with fish and a range of types and shapes
colours and forms of coral we’ve not seen the likes of before. Reaching
this place was no child's play having to swim through the surf with only about
20cm under your belly, and that was a high tide but worth the risk, later
we took the boats around the other side of the reef whilst Doug and I took the
kids to see the beautiful under water spectacle Colin and Sue stood both boats
off the reef. We just can’t understand why Tonga isn’t promoting this
natural wonder rather than jeopardising their huge natural visitors, the whales,
from ever coming back.
Just before we left, tucked in behind Lamu Island
(Anchorage #15 !!) we chased one of the Vaka around the bay
quite a sight.We’d been in Vava’u for about a month and weren’t
too sad to leave early in the morning, before first light, for a 50nm sprint
South to the Ha’apai group
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