Tonga-Vava'u August 30 2006

Well, it's been a month or so since our last missive and we are surprised there hasn't been a groundswell, demands, or even the tiniest hint of interest in hearing from us again. Anyway the muse is upon us to provide you with another witty and amusing discussion of the events on Rendezvous Cay. I might add that we do have a phone (country code 676 874 3923) of which you have all been informed, and with rare exception, everyone must be too cheap to call Tonga. For a $5 phone card (scratch the back, call the 800 number, enter the code revealed and then our number) you can get 1/2 hour or so. This is considerably cheaper than our $1/minute satphone, and Rose, especially, would like to hear from some of you! Speaking of Rose, her health continues to generally improve, but the stupid Lyme disease takes months to shake entirely. Lately, at least, there've been extended periods without any severe joint pain and associated symptoms. One of the characteristics of this situation is the symptoms do disappear and then reappear which is pretty depressing. The good news is the good days are longer and the bad days shorter each time.Well, we left you last with the boat in a shambles after our rough passage from New Potatoes. After a peaceful night at anchor, we dinghied in and checked into the Vava'u Group with virtually no problem, since we had already checked into the country from our last stop. We've since extended our visas for 2 months, but at a fairly high cost. Most of our first weeks here was getting stuff fixed, taking off and putting back the tramps, jib, water maker hose, etc. Happy to report all is well now, and the prices here were quite reasonable for all the work we had done. There's a multifaceted sort of shed called Sailing Safaris that do it all, except canvas, and is owned by a couple of Kiwis who have befriended us, especially Joey, but love to take the Mickey out of everyone. They've been real helpful and got our starboard engine running properly in about five minutes. Of course, they're part owners of the bar next door--a favorite watering hole for the cruisers. There are lots of good moorings, and they're only fifteen Pa'anga (about $7.50) a night so we moved off our first night's anchorage to one of those closer to all the "action"Neiafu is the "capital" of Vava'u and has a rather large Moorings charter base. Surprisingly, though, it is tough to get adequate provisioning here, and the ferry was out for a while so, actually, there weren't potatoes and several other staples in the stores. Must be like what the Soviet Union stores were like in the past. We're still waiting for cheese to come in. Seems strange on a verdant tropical island that they don't grow more stuff here!! The other side of the coin is the $2 bootleg Chinese DVDs which mostly work. Sorely disappointed, however, as their only copy of the DaVinci Code was crap. The populace is super friendly, and both sexes wear a rather unique outfit composed of a lava lava covered by a woven mat type thing. Rose read this has something to do with showing respect to the king. The king, by the way, is very old and, apparently on his last legs. His reign has spanned fifty years, and the speculation is that the place will shut down for two weeks or more should he die. This particular group Vava'u Group(of three in the Kingdom of Tonga) is a little more laid back and modern than the rest as there is a huge tourist trade heavily boat oriented, but everything still shuts down on Sunday when you aren't even supposed to swim or go fishing. Nonetheless, it's sort of like the BVI with lots of close-by anchorages with restaurants and bars. The big difference is the people here are friendly and appreciate you being here spending money in their economy. There's also a ton of Kiwis and Americans on a permanent or seasonal basis. We found out from one that Joe can easily get an under thirty work permit in NZ. They have a very helpful cruiser net every day, except Sunday, of course. We've met some new friends as well as met up with old ones here. Randy Repass, the founder of West Marine, is also here cruising with his family. Joe has met him and he's a regular guy.We did break up our maintenance hold-ups with a trip to one of the outer islands in early August for a "full moon" party. Not as good as the Bomba Shack on Tortola but good fun nonetheless with cheap food and booze and a fire dance. No dinghy dock on the island where it was held so they actually had free valet dinghy service. Of course, within the first few days here, Joe hooked up with another Polynesian chick, and the Sailing Safari guys have been kidding him about the date for the wedding. They have been virtually inseparable, and Joe has resisted any attempts to go to the outer islands. This will, unfortunately, cause him problems in NZ!! The girl here spends about half here time in Auckland, and he also hooked up with a Maori girl in Rarotonga on vacation from there. AND we still have Fiji to go. Hope he just finds a local girl there!We've whiled away the first two weeks or so on the ball, going to some really great and cheap restaurants, and working on the boat. One of the restaurants, the Dancing Rooster is owned by a Swiss chef, and Rose and the Captain had lobster dinners, with appetizers, and dessert, and, of course, the required bottle of wine for about $50 US. Happy hour drinks are about $3. As one guy put it, "this place is so cheap, I'm going broke" With great food and real happy hours, that means we're finding it very tempting to eat and drink out a bit more frequently. Joe has been doing the Friday night "Beer Can Regattas" with one of the Kiwis. Somehow they managed to beat a racing boat twice their length, and there is speculation that the iron spinnaker was involved. Also while we were here, we have met, in no particular order, a guy named Dave from South Africa, who used to work with Robin Downing from Voyage and knows Kimo who did deliveries for Voyage. One day, two Voyage 440's pulled in together, one of which was Kimo's last delivery. Also found a couple that used to charter out of St Thomas when we were there. Small world and all that.Well. after finally getting stuff fixed, we decided to go out for a week or so. By this time I was getting a bit frustrated with FedEx waiting for a few packages, but off we went anyway. Had two nice days and a bit of partying with Joe's Kiwi friends, but the weather and FedEx required us to go back to Neiafu. Everything is close here so it wasn't a problem, but we really wanted to see the out-islands. The weather has been quite strange by all accounts with the normal trade winds giving way to a series of low troughs. This is not severe weather, but it gets a bit cool--for us anyway--and it is rainy and overcast. We're the same latitude south as Tortola is north and expected consistently good weather. So we waited a couple of extra days in Neiafu for the weather to clear and off we went again. Boom!!! Boat problems again. We went to this really cool enclosed lagoon, cruised around looking for a nice place to anchor and went to drop the hook. Uh,oh; no windlass. Tried a few things and couldn't get it to work so we cruised over to another anchorage that had mooring balls. We spent the better part of the morning rewiring the whole thing as it simply wasn't getting power, but at the end, didn't have the right kind of connectors. Back to Neiafu; installed the right connectors; still no power. We scheduled some time at Sailing Safaris for the next AM to have them look at the damn thing. In the meantime, two of our speakers went out and had to be replaced. As part of all this, we finally figured out how we were getting water on the floor in rough seas. Turns out the inverted U's that feed the mast wires in to the boat were allowing water to enter. Mystery solved. When the boat was hauled a couple of years ago they took down the mast and neglected to reseal these things. So we recaulked them and checked the connections below. The right terminal block was all corroded and a couple of wires were loose. None of the electrical schematics show the windlass hooked up there, but we had had some instrument problems and the steaming light wasn't working. All this was repaired with the bonus that the Captain finished this rewiring about the time we pulled up to the SS dock, and the guy puts a meter on the windlass, pushes the button, and it works!!!!! We all had a good laugh and noted on the schematics that the windlass solenoids go through this terminal block.Okay, be patient, we're almost finished. Off we went again the day before yesterday (8/29) and had a delightful night at Mala island. Moved around yesterday to Port Mourelle and did a bonfire and beach BBQ last night. Beautiful beach with some really nice shelling. It rained late and looks sort of lousy today. Our FedExes are supposed to be in Neiafu, and Joe is going through Huli (his chick) withdrawal, so we think we'll head back in for a couple of days. There's a big benefit for Tonga Youth tonight and the race tomorrow, so we'll head out again Saturday.A final note on the wildlife here. There's a whole whale watching industry here, but Rendezvous doesn't need them. Just sailing around one sees tons of humpback whales, and close to the boat, too--almost like dolphin swimming with us, but about twenty times the size. Verrrrrry cool. They also have huge flying foxes or fruit bats here. You generally see them around dusk, but they do stay out all day. The wingspan must be a good two or three feet. Finally, there are thousands of moon jellyfish in Neiafu harbor, just like Tortola in August. These don't really sting, but several boats have had problems with them clogging water intakes for motors, generators, watermakers, etc.We plan to leave Tonga around the first of October for Fiji, spend about a month there, and then we'll head off for NZ when we get a good weather window.We love to hear from you guys so write or call.Tim, Rose and Joe.