Vava'u, Tonga

The last part of our crossing from Niuatoputapu to Vava'u was some of the smoothest water we have seen since our Mexico/Nuka Hiva trip. As close as you can come to "glass" in this huge undulating body of water, and three to four knots of wind. So we arrived rather fresh and made our way into Neiafu harbor. Not surprisingly, the charts for this area are NOT accurate (go figure, they were charted in the 1800's) so it is good we had good light to enter the narrow, dog leg passage. If we were to go by charts, we drove well over the land all the way in. The big bay was calm and smooth and packed with boats of all kinds. We anchored by Ammonite, dropped the whaler and made ready to go do our customs clearing process. First, find a dingy dock that is kind enough to let us tie up and walk through the small, but busy town to the customs dock. Customs is closed until 1:30 O.K. so we go have lunch and chat with a few lost buddies and go back to customs again. After two different stops and two different desks in one place, we are done. There is nothing hard about this, it just takes the better part of the day to do and the tedious part is that you have to check in and check out of each of these islands.

There are many small restaurants and pubs along the water front, all seem to be owned by different nationalities, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Italy and the U.S. It is however refreshing to be able to go out and mix with all of the other boaters. So this town is not culturally interesting or scenic, but very social. There are a couple of grocery stores, but don't expect to buy much more than canned stuff. The local market is not large, but has a very nice selection of good seasonal fruits and vegetables.

After a couple of days of eating and drinking too much, we head out to see what this group of islands is all about. They are a pretty collection, with little sandy beaches dotting all around and many reef systems that create protection from the elements, but are very tricky to navigate. There are also a million boats here, probably because of all the above. A million sailboats and from what we have counted, three power boats. We are a definite minority and that is one of the things that makes this adventure so special, because we CAN do it!. So we find ourselves a cozy anchorage to call base and set about finding some good diving. Wow!! The diving is actually fantastic! Not a lot of fish, but the coral gardens are amazing. Healthy, large, abundant and on and on. A virtual kaleidoscope of color greets your eyes. There is so much to look at, you don't know where to look first. So the next week is going to be spent underwater, filling our senses with color. We heard the whales on two of our dives, but no sightings yet, I think we are getting close to the end of whale season now.

We have found a tiny, private, sandy beach bordered by turquoise water where we are going to have Happy Hour tonight. We are looking forward to sand in our toes.

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