Wed. Oct 29 - Neiafu, Kingdom of Tonga
I woke up with a sore throat. Joel and several other cruisers said that they had sore throats too. With so many people in one port, I guess we're more likely to get sick.

Ogopogo left this morning. They are going to a few small islands and then checking out in the big city of Nuku'alofa before going to New Zealand. Jeffrey had just enough time to run to the hardware store and buy a 10-foot long piece of PVC pipe. He'd been lamenting to Tara the night before about wanting to learn to play an instrument, so Tara suggested the didgeridoo. Now that he had the PVC pipe, he demonstrated by blowing on the end of it and it made a deep, hollow sound. We couldn't believe that Peg had agreed to let him bring it on the boat. He also said he'd gotten permission to use the BBQ to cook the fish I'd shared with them (our friends on Rhythm had caught a dorado and given us a bunch). This is a big deal because the crew hasn't been given access to the galley or the BBQ so far on their trip. If they don't eat what Peg cooks, then they don't eat.

The majority of the boats that were here have now left to go to Nuku'alofa or New Zealand. It's still a bit early in the season to sail to New Zealand, so many of the boats heading there are hitting bad weather. Some have had to turn back because of storm damage and many more are having to take refuge at Minerva Reef, which is about 1/4th of the way to New Zealand. It's still winter time in New Zealand and cruisers can expect two weather systems to come through in the 9 or 10 days it takes to sail to NZ right now. The weather experts predict that in a few weeks it will calm to just one weather system.

I walked around town with the girls so they could do their last bit of shopping for shell and carved-bone jewelry. At the public market, I bought a carved bone whale tail for $8TP and found that there was a flood of pineapples on the market, which had caused the price to drop from $5TP for 3 medium-sized pineapples to $5TP for 4 large pineapples. Even though I was saving my fruit shopping for tomorrow, I decided to buy 4 now in case the price went up tomorrow.

When I got back to Adventure, Sean was waiting for me to go with him to find out how to get duty free fuel. We went to customs and they told us we'd need to schedule a truck to bring our fuel to the customs dock and then make sure we checked out of the country just before the fuel delivery. We took a $12TP taxi ride to the British Petroleum office and scheduled 530 liters of diesel to be brought to the customs dock tomorrow at 11am.

Even though it was really hot, I cooked chicken teriyaki and rice for dinner and we were happy to have a home-cooked meal again.
Thu. Oct 30 - Neiafu, Kingdom of Tonga
Sean had a diesel mechanic listen to our engine. He thinks he's hearing a pinging noise, but I haven't heard it. The mechanic worked on our engine for 3 hours, adjusting our pistons and doing general maintenance and charged $200TP ($100USD). He didn't speak English, so Sean left him alone to work on the engine. We called to reschedule our fuel delivery for tomorrow.

The girls and I went to the Aquarium to do internet and school work. Abbey (Gabby) and the kids from Georgia joined us so there wasn't much school work going on. It was also really hot. There hasn't been any wind in this super-protected bay so it's very uncomfortable unless you're in the water. But the water is a little questionable with so many boats flushing their heads into it. Usually it's not a problem because the tide and wave action clears it all away, but there aren't any waves and there isn't enough tide to take it all out to sea. Lots of people still swim in it, but we've chosen not to.

The Georgia family invited the girls to go with them to a beach they were driving to in their van. They said the beach was beautiful and the Family had set up a nice table with snacks and drinks on it for the kids. They came back with a mass of mosquito bites.

That night, Sean demanded another pizza from the Manahe'a restaurant. He took Tara with him and Casey and I cleaned the boat while we watched a movie. Tara and Abbey came back to Adventure to give us a pizza and then went back to sit with Sean, Clint, and Janet.

Fri. Oct 31 - Neiafu-traveling to Kapa Island, Kingdom of Tonga
Sean was stressed out because we needed to get fuel today. There were three other sailboats who'd also ordered fuel, so Sean told them we'd go last. We went to get immigration, the port captain, and then customs to check out and get our duty-free fuel letter, which will save us about $4TP per gallon. All three of the other boats were already at the customs dock and waiting for the fuel truck. Sean took the dinghy to fill our gasoline cans while I got the inside of the boat ready for departure. The second boat to get fuel called us and said we should head for the dock. We tied to the dock and the fuel tanker backed to our boat. It took about two hours to fill our tanks because we used our fuel filter, which is slow. The fuel guys were in a hurry to get our fill finished because the warship Resolution was coming in to get filled up too. We took on 456 liters (108 gallons) and paid $5USD per gallon. We pulled out a few minutes before Resolution came in.

We went back to our mooring ball and the girls and I dinghied to town to buy fruit, veggie, Coke, milk, and bread. I bought 3 watermelons for $1TP each (50 cents US), 4 more pineapples, 5 large cucumbers for $3TP, 8 medium-sized tomatoes for $3TP, a head of lettuce for $4TP, 10 mangos for $2TP, and a stock of bananas for $3TP.

We went back to Adventure and pulled from our mooring ball. Kairos followed us out of Neiafu and to Port Maurelle (anchorage #7). Free Spirit and Rhythm were both there and we needed to pick up photos from Free Spirit. Sean went below to start the water maker and notice that the same sound we'd had the mechanic come to fix was now louder.

We'd left town on Halloween day so the girls were upset with us because they wanted to stay for the parties and to trick or treat. But as we entered the anchorage and saw other boats we knew there, they were excited because they wanted to dress up and trick or treat.

After going to greet our friends, Clint and Joel came over to look at our engine with Sean. I called Sailing Safaris on the VHF to see if the mechanic would be in on Saturday so he could look at our engine again. They said that he was on one of the boats that was racing in the final yacht club race of the season. They said he'd call us back when he got back to the yacht club. Later, Sean got a call from the yacht club and they said Essley, the mechanic, would meet us at the dock at 10am. The yacht club was having a Halloween party that was in full swing, with free rum punch for anyone dressed as a woman.

The guys worked on the engine until 8pm and couldn't find the problem. Janet came over and I fed them all leftover teriyaki chicken and rice.

The girls (Tara, Casey and Abbey) were busy on Kairos making brownies and getting dressed up for Halloween. They dinghied over to other boats in our anchorage and yelled, "trick or treat!" But instead of getting candy, the girls passed out brownies and lollypops to the other cruisers. A French single-hander on one boat didn't know they were teens and served them all cups of a vodka drink. The girls thought it was water and took big swigs. Casey said that it burned her throat. They asked what was in the drink and the guy told them it was vodka. Our friends from Free Spirit and Rhythm were also on his boat and yelled at him about the girls only being teenagers. He said he was sorry, but thought they were older because they were wearing masks.

Sat. Nov 1 Kapa Island to Neiafu to Foeata (Blue Lagoon), Kingdom of Tonga
We motored back to Neiafu to have Essley listen to the engine and fix it. We pulled to the yacht club dinghy dock and Ongo met us there. He told us that Essley was really drunk the night before and he wasn't sure what we could expect from him today.

The kids from Georgia saw us come in and made their way to the yacht club to greet us. The girls went to The Aquarium to get internet. At 10:30am, Ongo called Essley's home and asked where he was. His wife said that he'd left the house a little earlier, but she didn't know where he was headed. Free Spirit had motored into the bay a little later than we had and now made their way to the yacht club to sit with us.

After lunch, Ongo drove around town looking for Essley, but couldn't find him. Someone must have told Essley that Ongo was looking for him because he showed up at Adventure a half an hour later. He'd evidently had resumed his drinking early in the morning because he was several sheets to the wind when he climbed aboard Adventure. He listened to and looked at the engine and pronounced that it was the fan belt that was making the noise. In fact, he was so sure it was the fan belt, he'd buy a ticket to New Zealand to fix it if it wasn't. I kept thinking that if the noise turns out to be something other than the fan belt, I really didn't want him working on my boat, even if he did fly to New Zealand. As we set to depart the dock, Essley shook Sean's hand reputedly and hugged me goodbye. The alcohol on his breath almost knocked me over.

We arrived at the Blue Lagoon anchorage late in day, so the sun was not right for seeing the reef. Kairos had anchored there earlier in the day, so Clint came out in his dinghy to lead us in. It was a beautiful anchorage, almost completely surrounded by small islands and coral reefs. Inside the lagoon, the water was various shades of blue and, with the sun directly overhead, we could see coral heads that extended from the sea floor to just under the surface of the water. We ate dinner, watched a movie, and then went to bed early.

Sun. Nov 2 Day two at Blue Lagoon, Kingdom of Tonga
The girls swam to Kairos to get Abbey and then swam to shore. Sean and I dinghied through a 2-foot deep pass to another lagoon. We saw a pod of dolphins, so we put on our snorkel gear and tried to get near enough to them to jump in. They swam away. There were a few sail boats in the lagoon and we watched as one left through a small pass between two islands. We tied our dinghy to a mooring ball next to the pass and snorkeled around the reef there. It was clear why the dolphins had chosen this lagoon as their home when we saw large fish in the depths by the reef. It looked like there was plenty of food for the dolphins. The snorkeling was great, but we had to swim out of the swift current when we got too close to the pass. Tara called on the VHF and asked where the machete was. I told her and then gave instructions on how to handle it safely. I didn't want any fingers chopped off in this remote place. We slowly motored back to our lagoon, where a catamaran had come in to join the Kairos and Adventure boats.

I saw that the girls were still playing on the beach, so I took them a bag of Doritos and some lemonade. They asked me to bring more food and then told me to leave. They were having fun without the adults today. I made them some lunch and then dropped it off at the beach. Later, they told me they had chopped coconuts to eat and drink them, built sand castles, and met a kid who came over in his kayak because he'd heard them screaming at the goat because it was peeing on their sand castles. Joel had come to the beach when he saw they had food and the girls took a great photo of him on the goat with the machete held high in the air. The girls made videos of Doritos commercials, which included Casey running back and forth with the empty Doritos bag on her head and the goat in the background; Abbey and Casey fighting over the Doritos bag with the goat in the background; and a shot of their snorkel gear hung on a tree with the boogie board below it and the bag of Doritos on it. They had a blast and came home with sunburns because they'd outlasted their sun block.

We left for the Ha'apai group of islands at 4pm, so we still had sun to show us where the reef was as we exited the anchorage. This meant that we'd have to sail the 64 miles to our new anchorage slow so we would get in at daylight.

Kairos called and told us there was something in the water just ahead of our boat. We saw what looked like a shiny black beacon buoy. As we got closer, we realized it was the head of a huge whale sticking vertically out of the water. We saw it and other whales blowing spray into the air. There was a baby right next to the head that was sticking out of the water. The adult whale showed us his huge body as it reclined back into the water. It was magnificent. Someone told me this behavior of looking around with head out of the water is called "spy-hopping".

As soon as we cleared the bottom island of the Va'vau group, the seas picked up and we had 6 foot, 6 second seas right on our bow. We were rocking uncomfortably from bow to stern and Tara and I were sea sick even though we'd taken medicine for it. We'd all lost our sea legs while in the placid waters of the islands and would pay the full price of getting them back.

With our stern going up and down violently, our rudder began to make a noise again. I was huddled under a blanket on the cockpit bench seat when I first heard it. Sean said that he'd been hearing it for a while and it sounded like there was too much play between the rudder and the rudder post sleeve. David, the guy who fixed the rudder, hadn't built up the fiberglass on the rudder enough to compensate for the weld job, which had extended the rudder slightly. When a wave hit our stern, the rudder post would move up and the rudder would hit the bottom of the boat as the post hit the top of the connector plate. This resulted in a knocking sound that matched the wave cycle.

Because of the rough waters and the fact that we need to continually change our sail configuration to keep a slow, but steady speed, Sean and I both stayed in the cockpit all night. Because I was sick, he did more of the getting up and checking our radar, wind speed, and boat speed; but neither of us got any sleep.

Mon. Nov 3 Ha'ano Island, Ha'apai Group, Kingdom of Tonga (19 48.0S:174 21.0W)
In the morning, Sean and I were both exhausted. At 7am, we came into the small anchorage just behind Kairos and dropped the anchor. I backed to set it and we dragged. I was so tired and sick that I just wanted to throw out a bunch of chain and hope for the best. The anchorage was calm and there was no wind. Sean told me to pull forward so he could pull up the anchor and we'd put it down again somewhere else. We quickly found that our anchor was stuck under a coral head. We tried to motor different directions to dislodge it, but nothing worked. Sean jumped in the water with his snorkel gear, but it was too deep for him to reach. Kairos called about a half hour later and asked what we were doing. Joel came over with his snorkel gear and dove the 35 feet to the anchor to pull it out. He can free-dive to 60 feet, which is very impressive to us. Wolfgang, one of our other friends, can stay under water for 4 minutes. It's amazing what some people can train their body to do. Joel said the ocean floor was all broken and live coral, so he swam around to find a sandy patch for us to drop our anchor. This time we stuck when I backed down on the anchor. Joel saw that Kairos' anchor was lying on top of dead coral, so he found a sand patch for them to reanchor in too.

I turned off the engine and went to bed. I awoke at 2pm and had a major sinus headache. I took 2 Motrin and 2 Sudafeds and lay back down. A little later, I got up and found that Sean, Clint, and Joel were working on our rudder. Joel used their snuba gear to provide air as he pounded a 10-inch long, 5/8ths-inch diameter line around the rudder post, between the rudder and the bottom of the boat.

The girls had gone snorkeling with Abbey and said it was the second-best snorkeling spot they've been in. The coral was alive and there were lots of bright-colored reef fish.

Kairos had caught a dorado in the middle of the night on the way over and invited us over for a fish dinner. I brought a lettuce salad with lots of fresh veggies in it, lemonade, and garlic bread. Janet made her famous mashed potatoes and Clint BBQed the marinated fish. It was delicious and just what we needed to revive us. We talked about how nice it is to have good, home-made food. Casey even ate the fish and some salad, along with her mashed potatoes and bread. She'd learning to eat healthier foods. To top of the wonderful evening, Janet brought out a yummy apple crumble, hot from the oven.

Tue. Nov 4 Ha'ano Island, Ha'apai Group, Kingdom of Tonga
The girls went to Kairos for waffles and I cut up some pineapple and mango for them to take over. After breakfast, Kairos pulled anchor to go to Lifuka, a close-by island to check out of the country. When they arrived, they found out that it was a holiday and everything was closed.

It rained all morning and it was hot inside the boat, so I sat on the swim step, scooping sea creatures up in a bucket and watching them swim around in it. One thing was about 6 inches in total length. It was almost translucent, with an eyeball at one end followed by a bunch of circular appendages going down its spine. About half way down, it flared out into many branches with what looked like small black eggs attached to them. Wherever it touched my white bucket it left little black stingers behind. It seemed really angry and tried to escape by banging its head on the sides of the bucket and swimming to just below the surface of the water before pulling its head and body back with a jerk. It seemed to shoot through the water like a torpedo and could swim really fast. I poured it back in the ocean and scooped up another bucket of water.

This time I caught two pink disks that resembled a thin cross-section of a pencil eraser with a bunch of tiny, short hairs on each side of the edge of its circular shape. They were able to propel through the water really well by undulating their bodies. Another bucket of sea water brought several small bell-shaped jelly fish and something that looked like small, bright blue bubbles stuck together. The girls would come out and look when I made excited discovery noises and Casey took my bucket in to show Sean the first long thingy I found.

We started seeing lightning and counted the seconds until we heard the thunder to determine how far away it was. One of the thunder claps lasted for a really long time and echoed through the little bay we were in. Sean and Casey were watching a movie and, when the lightning was just one mile away, I yelled for them to turn every thing off in case we were struck. Tara was sitting out in the cockpit with me and we decided we shouldn't hold onto the backstay in case lightning hit the mast. I tried fishing for a while, jigging a squid lure up and down by holding the line with my big toe and moving the pole up and down.

It was still raining, so I got out the boat wax and rust acid to clean the cockpit and stainless steel. Since I was cleaning with acid, Tara fed me a grilled cheese sandwich that Casey had made. In the afternoon, the rain finally stopped. Tara and Casey had started a movie, so Sean and I took the dinghy to the small village nearby. There were three sticks in the water to mark the entrance to the jetty. Unfortunately, only the locals know which sides of the sticks are the deep sides. The water here goes from 70 feet to 2 feet instantly. The trick is to know where the change happens. Since we were in the dinghy, we just motored slowly and looked into the water.

We passed two sticks successfully, but went on the wrong side of the third and ended up in some really shallow water full of sharp coral. We have a soft-bottomed dinghy, so we need to avoid coral. Sean backed out and went around the other side of the stick where it was deeper. There were 5 kids playing at the end of the jetty and they were really excited to see us. They did some sort of warrior dance for us and, as we approached, they jumped into the water and hung onto the side of our dinghy. The engine was still on and I was afraid they would get hurt. Sean turned off the engine and asked them to pull us in the rest of the way. They spoke a little bit of English that they learned in school, but they clearly didn't speak it normally. When they would say a few English words that they knew, all the boys would giggle.

We walked through the small village with the kids. A few adults waved to us, but none came to speak to us. There is no airport here and not many cruisers come to the village. Our books state that most Tongans on these islands do not speak English.

The village was completely fenced in, with one dirt road that had a fence at both ends of the village. There were pigs and goats foraging all around the village. There were fenced areas for crops and there were four churches (two that we saw were in ruins). We walked down the road until we came to a gate and then turned back to the village. As we passed one of the kids who we'd met at the jetty, she asked if we were going to the other village. We asked how far it was and she said it was a short distance. We walked past a small store that was in a building about 10 feet by 5 feet. We found out later that it was the only store on the island. We came to another gate (the other end of the village) and went through it.

We found that the gates were to keep the pigs and goats in the village so they wouldn't eat the crops growing outside the village. The dirt road extended about half a mile, where we passed plantations of banana, mango, papaya, taro and other vegetables. These people know how to grow stuff! We came to another gate and went through. There was a smaller village with a few homes and, as we passed one, a woman from Germany named Zina spoke to us. She had come to the island two months prior with her 4 year old daughter. They had flown into a nearby island and inquired about a place to stay for a few months. The person she spoke to yelled out to someone walking past on the street to see if they had a room available. That's how she ended up on this island and in the house she and her daughter now stayed. She told us a bit about the island and then told us to walk just a little further to see the beach before turning back on our walk. The beach was beautiful.

When we returned to our dinghy, the sun was out and the clouds were in the distance. We turned off the engine when we were over part of the reef so we could look down at the beautiful coral and fish. I put our underwater camera below the surface and snapped a few pictures.

Two other boats had come into the anchorage before we left for the village. James from Kaama came over with a video for us to watch. It was a documentary about a 27-foot boat that was sailed to Antarctica. The boat was the same make and model as the other boat in our anchorage, which a woman named Julia had just bought in Neiafu. She'd been crew on another boat and decided she wanted to own her own boat. She's single-handing her new (used) boat to New Zealand and James is buddy-boating with her to help out.


The video was great and the girls really enjoyed it too. I know that it was only because we are sailors too and understand some of what the captain and crew in the video were going through.