Bits and Pieces of Tonga

While we were in Neiafu on Vava'u, we meet a colorful couple from Banff, Alberta. They are the owners of the "Giggling Whale and the Tipsy Turtle" a happening little restaurant and bar. Sandy and Cathy come to Vava'u every year for six months to run the restaurant and their small guest house while they ultimately enjoy the Tongan winter (30 plus degrees in tropical beauty - tough!). Then they rush back to Alberta, Canada to wallow in our winter months while they put their hands to the ski industry in Banff and Lake Louise. They certainly like extremes! Being the great Canadian advocates that we are, we quickly found them out by noticing the "Ski Louise" sticker on their restaurant door. Great people, fully engaged in their Tonga community, they offer the local school children an evening to perform their traditional dance and music at the restaurant, a very popular event for the traveling yachties and a great way for the kids to generate donations for their education (school is only free until 7th level). Meeting Sandy and Cathy broadened our experience of Vava'u which makes traveling that much more special. They came for a BBQ on the boat and we of course attended their restaurant. Cathy took us shopping, which is an adventure in itself, you go to one little shack with bars on the window/counter to buy hard to find North American products, you go to a store 6 blocks up and one over to get good meat, you back track 3 blocks for the store with best cheezes and yet another store for the best bakery selections. For fresh produce, the local market is the best place for selection of seasonal items and the best price, plus Glen really has a good time teasing all the shop ladies, young and old, as he searches for the ultimate tasting watermelon. Sandy just does everything and anything for anybody that needs help. You need it? Sandy can find it.

Upon arriving at Nuku'alofa on Tongatapu, we anchored the boat with the herd of sail boats off of the beach on a small island across from the commercial wharf. On the island is Big Mama's Resort, a rustic pole building with sand floors and a ceiling filled with flags from every corner of the world, signed by the boaters that presented them. Mama's strives to make everybody's life easy by providing free internet, garbage disposal and of course cold beer and easy pub food. They also have a water taxi service to the main island where the town of Nuku'alofa is. She held a big birthday feast for the resort while we were there complete with the traditional roast suckling pig. Very nice and well attended - the food was free, you paid for your drinks.

The weather is not so nice at this point in Nuku'alofa, the wind is a steady 15 to 20 knots and the water is constantly whipped into steep white caps. A trip by dingy to the main island is maddness and travel in the whaler is a guaranteed salt water bath, but we have to go there so you just do it. We picked up our boat parts and Jeff got the boat all tuned up. We are crossing our fingers, but so far the smoking is greatly reduced. Jeff really was loving life, we went diving and eating and checking out the town. We enjoyed having him on the boat too, he turned out to be good company and a knowledgeable boat hand as well as a talented mechanic (the reason he was sent here for). Arranging a taxi for his trip to the airport on his departure was easy as the drivers hang out at the dingy dock ready to offer their services as soon as you set foot on land.

This is our last port of call before New Zealand, so we have to clear customs, immigration and so on here. There are a lot of boats expected in the next short period of time, all preparing for the 1100 mile crossing. The ideal is to clear in and out of the port at the same time as you have three different stops to make in order to get all of the paperwork done and the offices are at opposite sides of the town. You also get your duty free fuel paper at the clearing out stage. The catch is that when the officials have cleared you out of the country, they want you gone within 24 hrs. But as boaters, we have to wait for weather conditions to be safe and they are a moving target, obsessed over at length by all boaters, we need to have everything done and prepared so that when the conditions are right we can leave on a moments notice. With clearance proceedures taking the better part of a day and fueling appointments the better part of the next day as you have to wait for high tide to access the fuel dock, there is nothing spontainious about the leaving process, thus we all strive to have everything done in advance. As it turned out it took two days for us to clear customs as the officer would not clear us in and out at the same time because we came in the afternoon, if we had come in the morning we could have cleared in and out, so we had to return the next "morning" to clear out and get our fuel paper. Diesel is $2.49/ltr normally and $1.53/ltr duty free, well worth the wait. So with all of the boring stuff done, we settle in to wait for our weather window (we need 5 good days) to begin our journey. As things unfold, we get to wait a whole week. But we won't have any problem filling the time.

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