Humpbacks of Tonga (video)

The Humpbacks of Tonga ( still photos)

In Tonga

 

We are still in Tonga and plan to be here for another month or so until the weather for the passage to NZ comes good. Not a bad place to hang out. Lovely people, super-clear water, wonderful places to visit. 

We spent the morning scrubbing the boat’s bottom because the Kiwi’s insist on nothing less than perfection when they do their arrival biosecurity check. I think we will be scrubbing very regularly over the next month. It’s not the easiest job in the world as our keel is 2.3 metres deep but, fortunately, we have a Nemo surface air pump so I can scrub away underwater for an hour without becoming too hypoxic.

We had a significant technical challenge when 4 out of our 5 main isolator switches failed suddenly and without provocation. With the switches gone we couldn’t get power to most of our critical equipment so a hasty return to port in search of spares and someone more electrically minded than me. Michael and Anne on Nimue reserved us a mooring and ushered us onto it as anchoring is out of the question without the power to lift a 45kg anchor. Michael then turned up the next morning and confessed that he had been an electrician in a former life and it wasn’t long before we understood what had happened. Each of the four failed BEP switches have 4 plastic tabs that hold the switch together and I now know, courtesy of YouTube, that the plastic tabs become brittle and fail with age. When this happens the switch literally falls apart and the copper connector drops into the bilge rendering the switch permanently off. Michael beavered away for a couple of hours, re-jigged our electrical design and restored power to windlass, winches, fridge, freezer, our 12 volt instruments and the engine. The only thing that we didn’t lose was our internet connection and our ability to surf our way to a solution. Thank you Michael!

A short walk this afternoon took us to the idyllic Austrian run Reef Lodge Resort where we celebrated a successful morning of scrubbing with a Pina Colada each. The cocktail had rather more alcohol in than we are accustomed to (which is not much)! Anyway, we wobbled back to the boat without mishap where will revert to alcohol abstinence.

To Tonga

We were sad to leave Niue just as the 3 weekly supply ship arrived. We missed out on the fresh food it would have unloaded. 

Unusually for us and by coincidence, we made the 260 mile crossing to Tonga in the company of S/V Surface Interval and, throughout the passage, we were never more than 3 miles apart. It was fun to have a buddy boat and to share landfall photos of both yachts under sail. Thanks Kris and Mark. 

Half the passage was directly downwind in a confusion of swells (some quite high) and coming at us from all directions. It was during this part of the passage that our 12 volt power panel failed depriving us of our propane solenoid and, in turn, the ability to boil a kettle. It was too rough to go hunting for the electrical fault and so we were deprived of hot food and fresh coffee for most of the passage. Definitely a first world problem!

On the second half of the passage the wind backed to a broad reach and Shimshal took off and flew through the flattening waves. Surface Interval, an Outbound 44, flew with her and both were tied up on Vava’u’s Customs Dock just minutes apart. Good boats those Outbounds.

Tonga is a cruiser’s crossroads as it marks the end of the ‘Difficult Middle’ and the convergence of the ‘northern route’ with the ‘southern route’. The bars and restaurants that evening were full of familiar faces each with their own story of exotic, off-piste encounters with the remotest Pacific Islands.

Now we are in Tonga we can change down a gear to pottering mode as we cruise this independent Kingdom. Our next big passage will be in about 6 weeks when we point the boat south for 1,000 miles to New Zealand. But, before then I have an electricity panel to repair and the flow of caffeine to restore. The supply ship we left behind in Niue gets here tomorrow and so the shops will soon be stuffed with fresh(ish) produce to power us south. We have propane tanks to fill and engine checks to do in readiness for the challenging voyage south to the New Zealand summer.

Oh, I almost forgot, somewhere between Tonga and Niue we lost Wednesday having crossed the International Date Line!

Aitutaki

Changing Roles

Whether in a harbour, enclosed in in a tropical lagoon or cruising an ice bound, Greenlandic coast we are ultra-attentive to our boat’s needs. And, in recent months, she has been a needy mistress with lots of vital functions failing after a prolonged layup in the tropics! 

Three times in the last few weeks our anchor chain has snared a coral strewn seabed despite best efforts to float the chain. When raising the anchor the chain comes bar tight as it crunches against rock and the still-shiny new windlass grinds to a halt. There then follows a prolonged period of dodging and weaving with motor and rudder in an attempt to un-weave the submarine web. Sometimes it takes an hour to get ourselves free.

Always, within sight of land, we are wary about depth and intent on keeping Shimshal’s deep lead keel and fragile rudder away from rocks and reefs. Shimshal, strong though she is, does not enjoy contact with terra firma and her needs are always paramount.

But, once out of the pass and in the deep, blue ocean, the tables are turned and we become recipients of her care. Boats are built for the open sea and boat design has evolved over millenia to keep mariners safe. Shimshal is fast and solid and the three day passage from Maupihaa to Aitutaki gave her every chance to show off her capabilities in a variety of different conditions. All we had to do was point her in the right direction, put up roughly the right amount of sail and then let Shimshal do her bit.

Once out of the pass at Maupihaa we had a solid wind of 20 knots and a lumpy swell. The following wind meant that Shimshal rolled south west under one solitary, smallish headsail. 

Then came the calms and for a while we motored  in smoother seas until, as forecasted, a front passed and the wind backed to the SE and put us on a perfect beam reach. With Shimshal’s sails duly adjusted, she took off and flew south west through the night. When wind built she leaned a little but 5 tons of lead ballast kept her comfortably balanced as we surged into the night leaving a leaving phosphorescent wake. No jolting, no slamming or juddering. Instead just safe, solid and doing exactly what her designers intended. Together we ate the miles. 

Creaming through the waves at 9 knots under a bright, full, sturgeon moon is champaign sailing at its best. 

At dawn on the third day we glimpsed the mist strewn, low, solitary hill on Aitutaki and a light drizzle wet the decks and fogged our specs. Soon after we heard the surf crashing on the beach and then a humpback whale breached just a few metres to our starboard. 

Being so close to land it was now our turn to wrest control and make sure the needy mistress kept her keel coral free in the long, narrow, newly dredged pass that led to Aitutaki’s tiny harbour.

This time the current was not strong and the route was well marked so the stress levels were not too high as we neared the tiny harbour. Then, at the narrowest point a deafening shrill shriek came through Bluetooth headphones and a moment of panic as I thought I was about to put us on the reef. No need to panic as Sally’s enthusiastic outcry was her delight as she had spotted a turtle and not an imminent obstacle to collide with!

Thanks to the wonders of WhatsApp and the Aitutaki Welcoming Committee Group, the two boats already within the harbour were on standby to assist with our docking. Once through the narrow harbour heads we turned  to port, dropped the anchor, waited for it to sink into the mud before reversing to snub it and slide our stern alongside our neighbour. S/V Jandara’s dinghy  revved its outboard to give our stern a powerful shove to keep us clear of her mothership and then took 2 of our 40 metre lines ashore to tie off our stern to boulders ashore. 

Soon we were safely spread-eagles between anchor and stern lines and Shimshal was safely at ret without fear of grounding or collision. Our job was done and we had made it half way across the ‘Difficult Middle. Not so difficult after 

Nuie

 

Niue

Lit only by the stars of the Milky Way, Shimshal cut through the glassy, calm seas towards our designated mooring on the tiny island of Niue. Behind us lay a phosphorescent wake made by millions, perhaps billions, of bioluminescent organisms shaken into life by our churning propeller. The 580 mile passage from Aitutaki had been brisk at first but dying winds left us motoring for the last couple of days of our crossing. 

I went forward to prepare to moor and Sally steered us through the darkness on a precise bearing with her night vision destroyed by the glare of our chart plotter. Nevertheless, her aim was impeccable and Shimshal came to a gentle halt at exactly the right time enabling me to reach down with the boat hook and pick up the line that now connects us to 2 tons

of concrete on the seabed. At 0130 the engine went off signalling the end of our ocean passage and the beginning of a week or more of shore leave. We had arrived in Niue.

I knew that our time in Niue was going to be special because of its reputation but my first impressions exceeded those high expectations. 

A pod of silvery Spinner Dolphins sped under our bow as we approached our mooring. Lit only by the stars, the dolphins darted, ghost-like, on either side of our bow-wave as they guided us towards our resting place for the night. Then, once safely tethered to the seabed, the whales moved in. We couldn’t see them in the darkness but the noise of their spouting was all around us and they were so, so close. Every evening since our arrival, these gentle giants have visited the mooring field wandering, unperturbed, between the boats.

There can be no better welcome to a new island, a new country, a new culture and a tiny rock of coral and limestone perched on a lofty seamount rising 5,000 metres from the abyssal depths of the Samoan Basin. The island has no rivers and its porous rocks sieve out every grain of sediment making the water here gin clear. Perfect optics to view the annual humpback whale migration. We get to swim and snorkel with the whales on Monday after a forecast brief spell of inclement weather has passed.

The island is fringed with limestone pavements, weathered coves, caves and natural arches. Elsewhere there is thick, tropical vegetation dripping with ferns and fungus. Vanilla and ebony plantations add a little agriculture to this tiny spec in a big, blue ocean. 

Swimming in the coral strewn rock-pools and scrambling amongst stalactites was the perfect antidote to rolling down the 3m swells of the mid Pacific. Most important, is the warm welcome, the fine cafes, a relatively well stocked grocery and a meal ashore in the Niue Yacht Club decorated with burgees donated by visiting yachts. The OCC’s ‘Flying Fish’ burgee is, of course the most prominent one on display. What few land tourists there are here have been flown in on the weekly 3 hour flight from Auckland. All are here to revel in this pristine place.

Assuming that we avoid being bitten by sea snakes, whose venom is way more deadly than a cobra, we will be staying on this lovely island for another few days before raising the sails and pointing the boat 240 miles west toward Tonga. We are now 3/4 of our way across the ‘Difficult Middle’ and, apart from getting pended in an atoll for 3 weeks, we have had no dramas, scares or mishaps. The weather has been kind to us, the forecasts accurate and Shimshal has looked after us well.