HUMPBACKED WHALE IN VAVA'U (I wish some of my own photos had been this good, thanks Tansin)


We rolled into Neiafu Harbour in Tonga looking like drowned rats (Sunday 21st July) and whilst the rain eased off, it still blew half-a-hooley for the next few days. So having got ourselves checked-in with the authorities and done a bit of shopping we took ourselves over to the more sheltered western side of the bay and caught up with some sleep in between getting started on the necessary repair jobs. We knew that we’d broken The Lizard, our windvane self- steering unit and that the satphone-computer link-up wasn’t working, but we also found that the storm which caught us had caused some damage to a headsail too.
By the following weekend the wind had gone back into the more usual east/south east quadrant – still a bit lively though - and we moved across to the eastern shore and picked-up a mooring ball instead. Early the following week we found a welder – the end may be near as The Lizard’s stainless steel is now showing signs of age (we think it was built in 1996 or 97?) and this’ll be the fourth time we’ve had bits of it re-welded. Phillip repaired our genoa sail and the US yacht ‘Lynda Marie’ gave us not one but two sat-phone/computer cables; it’s now working better than it ever has and we’ve got a spare cable too. We meanwhile managed to ‘pass on’ Lynda Marie’s generosity by supplying a spare dinghy-pump that we had aboard to Inga on the German yacht ‘Carina’. Out in the mid-Pacific we’re more than ever reliant on each other for spare parts, tools and mechanical knowledge to keep ourselves floating. This last week or so especially, as we were far from the only yacht to get caught in the mid-ocean storm and whilst (thankfully) we’re not aware of any yachts having been lost because of it, there are an awful lot of other boats here which suffered far more damage in it than Moon Rebel did. She might be small and slow, but her design’s brilliant for when the shit hits the fan.
The weather was beautiful this week and lots of friends were heading out on tour-boats to swim with the humpbacked whales, one of the Vava'u Island Group's major tourist attractions; when we first arrived the word was that the whales were ‘late arriving’ this year so the trips had been disappointing but this week everyone was raving about them; I ought to have gone, but I wanted to get all the repair works finished first. By Friday all was sorted and we sailed out to explore the islands, just in time for yet another low pressures system to drift into the area and send us scuttling back to Neiafu again to hide from more SW winds and rain. We did at least see a few whales ‘playing’ in the deep water between the islands whilst we were out there and we had several instances when the echo-sounder/depth-gauge reading dropped from perhaps 70-80m down to < 10m and until it went back up again had us saying ‘please don’t surface just now’.

Back in Neiafu for another wet and squally week, no bad thing for Lesley as she’d ‘tweaked’ her back once again, so it gave her an excuse to lay around aboard MR and let it rest-up/recover; it did mean she wasn’t fit to go whale-swimming, but then again I don’t think she’d ever been too enamored by the idea in the first place? Saturday 10th August was finally promising some decent light winds & sunshine, albeit for just the one day, so along with Tansin, the Burmese crewman off ‘S/Y Burmese Breeze’ I booked a place on a whale-swimming boat and at the crack of dawn we headed out. We must’ve seen 15 – 20 whales (or perhaps just a few several times each?) but none of them we interested in swimming with us, though frustratingly several other dive boats did seem to be doing OK; by early afternoon we been in the water a couple of times, but never seen anything more than an obscure shadow perhaps 30-50m away, rapidly swimming away from us. The whale swimming boat operations and their certified/licenced guides make a big thing in their marketing pitches about their ecological, educational and preservation credentials, but as we charged around at high speed trying to head-off any passing whale, I didn’t see a lot to back up their claims. Having failed to find a sociable whale our guide/skipper radioed around and eventually ‘hired’ a couple whales off another boat: It seems their passengers had been swimming with them on and off for a couple of hours and were ready for a bit of a rest, so the two groups (maximum 4 per dive) on our boat got in for 15 minutes each whilst they recovered. We spent 10 minutes peering down through the gloom – the whales were submerged perhaps 15-20m below the surface – until they eventually surfaced – I along with everyone else I’m sure had the thought ‘it’s going to crash into me!’ as they passed no more than 15-20’ away, the whales surfaced, took a breath and sank back down to 20m once again and we returned to the boat. So, I’ve swum with the whales, but I probably wouldn’t bother again.

In the weeks since I went, I’ve spoken to several people who’d been subsequently and all had had very similar experiences to ours; I do wonder if on first arriving in the area there is some amusement for the whales in ‘swimming with humans’, but after a week or two the novelty had worn off and they’re generally no longer interested/tolerant so just swim away.
A few more days of unsettled weather kept us in Neiafu, but once that cleared we headed out to sail the archipelago once again – some lovely/sheltered sailing, beautiful anchorages, but not a lot to actually see/do and the snorkelling wasn’t too special either. As always, it’s what you’ve seen before – the NZ yachts who’ve just sailed up into the Tropics think the snorkelling’s ‘awesome, amazing and wonderful’, but those of us who’ve come through from French Polynesia, particularly the Tuamotus are less enamored. The highlight of our time out there was a ‘Tongan Feast’ out in one of the anchorages, which we shared with Burmese Breeze and a couple of New Zealand yachts – one a charter boat.
With whales swum with, a few of the anchorages visited, Moon Rebel fixed and Lesley’s back recovered, it was time to head back to Neiafu to check-out and sail on to Fiji.

Ah Cruising Plans’: One of the Kiwi Charterers we’d feasted with had ‘picked-up a bit of a snuffle’ on his flight to Tonga, two days later I was flattened by a stinking cold and barely crawled out of bed for the next three days; I only surfaced then to make room for Lesley who not unexpectedly had now caught it from me. I managed to get the water and propane tanks replenished, but when friends Tom & Shannon on the yacht ‘Finely Finished’ departed for Fiji, we barely had the strength to wave them off rather than follow them out to sea as we’d intended. Lesley’s dose of the bad cold proved even heavier than mine, but our frustration at the delay, was tempered by the news that there’d been an underwater volcanic eruption to the west and just slightly north of Vava’u and the resulting ‘pumice field’ that it’d created was drifting WSW, between Tonga & Fiji. If you saw any of the TV/Internet news reports of the event, then the video you likely watched was Tom & Shannon’s, ‘Finely Finished’ sailed right into the middle of it.

By the time the colds had begun to clear – at least that allowed time for the pumice field to drift clear of our intended route – yet another low –pressure system was forecast to drift up from New Zealand; will they ever stop? So more cool, grey damp days in Vava’u, but by the sound of things some much stronger winds and horrendous seas out in the open ocean, a couple of yachts made the passage, but it sounds to have been uncomfortable. The seas are finally easing again now, so preparations for our check-out and departure are underway; if the weather forecasts hold we should be checking-out and leaving on Thursday, heading directly to Savusavu near the NE corner of Fiji, (a bit over 400 miles, so should arrive on Monday) we would’ve preferred to go via Tonga’s Ha’apai Island group, but that’ll take us uncomfortably close, perhaps even into the pumice field and whilst it’d probably be a ‘cool’ thing to see, I’m not sure Moon Rebel would appreciate the abrasion.