Different Drummer Offshore 2018
by Phil Plimmer 6 Nov 2018 04:45 PST
Tonga's Ha'apai Islands © Island Cruising NZ
We left Pangaimotu late afternoon for the overnight sail north to the Ha'apai group of islands. There was a steady breeze from the east and conditions were very pleasant apart from some rolling at times due to the relatively shallow and uneven sea bed.
We started reducing sail at midnight so as not to arrive before daylight,. There were 30 yachts already in the northern anchorage when we arrived!
The Royal Nomuka Iki Yacht Club which has been established on the uninhabited island with the Crown Prince's support and put on a wonderful feast in the evening. It was prepared in a very basic kitchen and was the best island dinner I have ever experienced.
The following day I dinghied over the channel to Nomuka Island to accept an invitation to look at an eco resort operated by Dave and Trish. They are very green, growing much of their own veges, disposing of waste environmentally, and working with the local community to encourage them to be more environmentally conscious. They also run a whale watching business using a large catamaran which doubles as guest transport from Nukualofa, and a dog desexing programme. It was a short trip from Nomuka Iki to Haafeva Island. 20 kts SE on a beam reach and we sailed at 6-7 knots with just the Yankee, arriving mid day.
We had had another couple of autopilot drive unit failures so I moved the stuff in the way and went exploring around the rudder shaft. I found the rudder feedback was not centred, and a hose that might have been fouling the feedback unit arm. I doubt if either of these would be the cause of the failures but sorted them and redid the dockside settings for the pilot. To be continued.
The interisland ferry, a substantial ship, was anchored off when we poked our heads out after dawn the following day, and there was much activity at the wharf as people and supplies were ferried ashore. We went ashore later for a look around the village on the eastern side of the island. Very sleepy, not many people around and nothing except the first aid post open (thank you Australia, also the village generator, and probably the solar street lighting).
Then from Haafeva to Uoleva Island, one of the most sheltered and coral free anchorages in the group. It was into the wind so 20 nm trip took seven hours, and covered a lot of ground as we tacked back and forth, but it was pleasant trade wind sailing.
Next was another highlight of the trip. We went ashore with the handheld GPS looking for the orange grove in the jungle Anne and I discovered in 2006. There was a track in then, but I discovered in 2013 when I revisited it had totally grown over and the GPS was needed. The orange trees at the original location had died out, but we found some close by, and came back with two supermarket bags of oranges. Shades of Johnny Wray!
There is a resort on the island called Sea Change Eco Retreat. It is quite substantial, and they are booked out for the winter season for the next two years.
We moved from Uoleva to Pangai on Lifuka Is via a reef to sea which we hoped would provide good fishing. It didn't, but we did get a small Spanish Mackeral type later. The ICNZ fleet was anchored off the harbour around the designated anchorage on the charts. We had been asked to anchor here so the King could see the lights at night from his local palace. No sooner had everyone settled when the Harbourmaster's rep came up on the vhf and asked everyone to move as we were in shipping channel! Captain Nigel from Island Cruising went ashore for discussions, and the HM produced a chart showing a shipping channel that was not on any other charts. We moved!
For Kiwi readers: Shortly after we arrived a local resort came up to advise 'its a girl'. 'No name yet'. A wag came up to say Winston was going to be the middle name. The lady from the resort responded "that's a nice name"!
The following day was one of Pangai's big days - the Royal Agricultural Show. Plenty of woven mats on show, a few pigs, some fruit and veges, and a lot of fish. The King turned up at mid-day and there were long speeches from many dignitaries, and when it was done and the King had inspected the exhibits we were able to buy some of the produce. In the evening the Tongan Tourist Board put on a good reception for us (the Island Cruising fleet). Next up was Foa Island just to the north. The batteries needed charging, and we went trolling out along a reef with no result, and it was really just a change of scene. Being Sunday we didn't bother going ashore and spent the afternoon doing some of those never ending boat jobs.
We moved back to Pangai the following day as we wanted to stock up on bread in particular - should have been easy on a Monday morning - yeah right! Whatever they had baked was sold out by the time we got there. But we did find some beautiful tomatoes.
We had another very pleasant sail in 10-15 kts SE back to Uoleva trolling outside the reef again (same result again), spotting a couple of large turtles on the way. The point of the move was being closer to the eco retreat where ICNZ had organised a fun and games afternoon followed by another Tongan feast. Most rally boats were there, and the fun and games were original and good. The tug of war was really demanding with a slippery rope, the hermit crab race hard to bet on, and the 'multithon' was a lot of fun. And again the food was great, and included pig cooked in the traditional manner.
We moved on to Uiha Island. It was not far but we had to go out around the long reef between the islands and the last part was on the wind so it took all morning. We had a look around the Felemea village; it is where the King was going to greet us before he learnt of the death of a cousin and went into mourning.
It was a very tidy village in the sense of well maintained sand roads and colourful gardens, although that said there was still plenty of scope for picking up litter. There were lots of people around to talk to in the late afternoon. One was a German who has lived there as a villager for 23 years. He was very chatty and interesting.
Arrangements made to return to villages to pick up prearranged fruit and veges are often not fruitful (pun intended!). Craig went ashore again the next morning and returned with more than had been arranged. Then back around the reef to Uoleva for a ICNZ rum punch pot luck lunch. A futuristic shelter tent and some tables for the food appeared on the beach and it was yet another well organised and enjoyable function.
The autopilot had still been playing up and I made an adjustment to the length of the tiller feedback arm and redid the dockside settings. We have just had a single failure since.
The weather maps were showing a large high (= big fat high high, BFH in cruisers parlance) forming over eastern Australia which looked like giving us strong wind in a few days. Many of the Island Cruising yachts left early the following morning for the passage to the Vavau's - to arrive before the strong wind and in some cases because their one month visas were nearing expiry and can't be renewed in the Ha'apais.
We elected to stay and let the weather go past first in the hope we would see more of the Ha'apais, but in the event we didn't get to see as much as we had hoped. We moved back to Pangai and went ashore to pick up some supplies before the weekend, and in case we did not get another opportunity before Neiafu (as it turned out). Also went and had a coffee at the internationally known (in cruising circles) Mariners Cafe for old times sake.
We dug the anchor well in at an anchorage just north of Pangai. I studied the weather information closely to see if we could find a gap in the wind to allow us to visit Haano or Nukunamo. All I could see was 30+ kt winds for two or three days. I resigned myself to staying put and catching up with boat jobs. We didn't need the motor for power while we were there; the wind generator more than kept the batteries fully charged. It wasn't hard being lazy, writing another newsletter, and doing a few more of the little jobs on the list.
We left on an overnight passage to the Vavau's as the wind started to ease.
This article has been provided by the courtesy of Island Cruising NZ.