Footnotes from Water Music

Position: 20.02.8S, 174.40.9W

After enviously (most of the time!) reading the Water Music blog over the last 7 months- what an honour it is to contribute! This joint post from Ferg and Charlie follows their arrival into Tongatapu and the following 4 days.

Day 1:

We arrived in this tropical paradise, to be met with a tropical downpour. Fergus observed it was a bit chillier than Edinburgh he'd left behind. Stephen and Grace met us on arrival and immediately dismissed any notion of getting a snooze to combat our jetlag. And so the grand tour of Tongatapu thus followed, featuring some fairly epic caves and Tonga's answer to Stonehenge. Everywhere we drove through featured lots of churches, dozens of wee piglets, dogs, girls in traditional skirts, boys in traditional skirts and the most over the top graves you could imagine - piles of earth, garlands of flowers and some with billboards telling the world what a great guy the occupant was. To the boat, anchored off Pangaimotu, and headed to Big Mama's for a beer, a bite to eat and a glorious sunset. Early to bed.

Day 2:

Short motor from Pangaimotu to the beautiful island of Malinoa. A picture perfect place to ourselves. Until the whale watching boats came in for lunch and had the audacity to picnic on our beach. Once they'd left, Charlie and Fergus snorkelled in from the boat while Stephen and Grace took the dinghy ashore. Stephen, increasingly taking the form of a marooned Man Friday, headed into the interior to climb a tree and find some coconuts whilst the others circled the island on the gorgeous sands. Drinks and supper with a perfect cloud free sunset, and a green flash on the horizon.

Day 3:

We had a long beat of about 40 miles from Malinoa to Kelefesia. Was gorgeous if not the comfiest of sailing. The sheer number of whales out to play was incredible - it seemed every ten minutes or so we would spot one breaching, diving, or popping up to say hello. The closest we saw at around 150 yards put on a real show, slapping its tail off the sea with some force - making quite the din. The tough old upwind sail didn't get us to our intended destination as quickly as hoped for. Despite Charlie's insistence that it doesn't get dark in Tonga until after 8pm (he's wrong, incidentally), we faced a tricky entry through a small gap in the reef to our anchorage for the night. We got there around 7pm and right on cue the heavens opened. Charlie and Fergus were despatched to the bow with torches to spot any hazards. With loud breakers at both sides, and next to no visibility, it was slightly unnerving. Charlie and Ferg saved us from the bommie to our starboard side which rose to just half a foot under the surface, but we briefly touched something else fairly crunchy and corally that appeared from nowhere. We were relieved to anchor for the night. All talk of tuna ceviche and a chilled glass of rose that we'd had earlier in the day was long forgotten. We reached instead for some strong rum and cokes - thank god Fergus had stocked up at duty free.

Day 4:

Not the easiest of nights, between the swell in the bay and the noise of breakers over the nearby reef. An easy going fetch up to the island of Telekivavau. Whales aplenty everywhere. And a decent enough sized tuna caught for supper.

Though our guidebook mentioned there was a small resort here, we found it had been long abandoned. We headed ashore to explore, and found the place teeming with crabs, snakes and rather aggressive birds with a particular dislike for Stephen.

We invited our friends James, Sean, Liam and Sophia from Love Child aboard for a barbeque. We had a great evening with freshly caught tuna ceviche, spatchcock chicken and pork ribs with more than enough wine flowing. Rounded off with a sing song on deck with Ferg's tin whistle and harmonica put to good use.

A much more settled night within a perfectly sheltered lagoon.

Day 5: A late start to the day before setting off to Oua island. Some excitement about the prospect of hoisting the famous Foot print spinnaker unfortunately did not come to fruition, and we had a white sail beam reach most of the way. Beautiful sunny day, and steady breeze so it wasn't too bad. Big day for the fish of all varieties, as one of our many whale friends breached about 10 metres from the stern letting out a big breath; we also had a double strike on the fishing lines (although only managed to reel one in successfully)- another bite and an even bigger yellow-finned tuna has ensured that we certainly won't be going hungry tonight! After navigating between the reefs to anchor off Oua island (it turns out these are rather easier in the light), we set off to explore the small village. We were assured by our pilot book, that visitors would make quite the impression in this rural Tongan village and sure enough within two minutes of entering the picturesque village we had an entourage of extremely smiley children escorting us around and pointing out the sites, including at least three churches, their school, their teacher's house, and their solar panels (funded by the Japanese- it seems like the children may speak better Japanese than English!). Lots of pigs, dogs, fish drying on washing lines, and even some singing overheard from the adults- probably in a church service of some sort. A very happy Water Music crew in an idyllic anchorage, and looking forward to the next variants of tuna dishes and an early night.