Log August 25^th 2002 Tonga Vava’u 

After landing in anchorage #5 on the Mooring’s Chartering Guide in Vava’u we decided to officially clear into the country. The only problem was they make you come to a heavy commercial dock. Not my idea of a good time…. We already had put scars on Free Radical in American Samoa and this dock looked even worse. We lucked out however because the dock was already occupied by some big freighters. Permission was granted on the VHF to go anchor or moor. 

The first mooring ball we picked up was a Mooring’s ball and after initially allowing us to stay they kicked us off. We finally found one of Beluga Diving's moorings that was $8 paanga’s or  $4 US per night. The moorings were great and the cost low so we decided to hang around. The weather was still rainy and cold (70F).

We explored Neiafu with Lynn & Larry of Zephyr. The town was pretty typical of these islands, small Main Street with a couple of banks, grocery and hardware stores. A market and several little stores selling handicrafts. The streets we fairly clean, but pigs and dogs were in abundance roaming freely through the town and countryside. It is considered bad taste for women to show their thighs here, or to wear pants, so the women cruisers have to get out their long skirts and cover their shoulders in order not to offend. This town, however, is so inundated with tourists using the charter boats, that the residents don’t really raise an eyebrow at us ‘palangis’ with our indecent attire. 

Because the anchorages are good and the sailing relatively easy in the immediate area, Moorings & Sun Sail have set up charter fleets here. As a result lots of little cruiser bars have sprung up to supply us sailors an abundance of  grog & greasy food. Julie & I had lunch the first day at Bounty Bar and we surprised at the number of  Kiwi & Aussie  charters and whale watchers around. The “Burger” was small, but the “French Fries” were good, and the beer cheap. Not too bad but two hours later I was after the “Alka Seltzer”. 

The next day we had lunch there again, and Julie bought herself a small Manta Ray necklace from a local hustler. Carved out of genuine cow bone! That afternoon we were surprised by a visit from Juanita “Smiling Mermaid” who we hadn’t seen since St Martin in the Caribbean. What an unbelievably small world it is. We had excellent and uplifting discussions about “Hormone Therapy” or as I call it “Horney Therapy” to combat aging and menopause (male and female). It was off to the "Mermaid Bar" that night for happy hour, and this became our routine while at Neiafu. 

A week later, it was still rain, rain, rain. But there was one day where it actually stopped for a few hours, and with a very little wind, we took a very leisurely sail to another anchorage called Port Maurelle (or #7) for a break from the town and a change of scenery.

While we were there, we happened to hear about a charter boat, which had on board, a guy from Bobcaygeon, of all places (a town near our hometown of Peterborough). We had to meet this guy, so we dinghied over and introduced ourselves. There turned out to be 4 on board, the guy from Bobcaygeon now living in New Zealand for the last 20 years or so. All on board were very friendly and full of advice about sailing in NZ and Fiji. We took it all in, never being too proud to get local knowledge.

Funny thing happened on the way back to our own boat that evening. We noticed a bright cockpit light on in another charter boat. And a lot of loud laughter and conversation. As we passed, they all shouted for us to come alongside, and before you knew it, we were aboard yet another boat full of partying Kiwis! What fun. If this is the way all Kiwis are, we are certainly looking forward to spending time there. Hours later, we stumbled back aboard Free Radical. 

There really is not much to do in Vava’u when it is so miserable and rainy, at least in our books. We thought to take the boat out to the point to look for humpback whales (the moms and babies are here right now) – several of the cruisers have swam with them and said it was thrilling – but we were listless with the rotten weather and decided instead to dinghy out to Swallow’s cave with Zephyr.  That was fun, and the rain held off for this trip. We stopped at a very pretty beach which would be great on sunny day and had cold beer which we brought with us. 

Finally, having had enough of that fun, we decided to make a run back to Neiafu and get back to a little civilization. Now we are waiting for decent weather (i.e. lack of wind and at least a little sun!) to go to Fiji – a short hop of  450 miles. It has been ‘blowing a hoolie’ for 2 weeks now, and people we hear on the radio are getting ‘snotted’ out there with 35 knots. No fun and we don’t want to be there.