The Kingdom of Tonga, and, Return to New Zealand

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Niuatoputapu

Turtle in the lagoon

It is just an overnight sail of 190nm to reach the most northern islands of Tonga, the Niua Group. The group is made up of three small volcanic islands. This definitely has not been one of our better legs. We lost the wind yesterday afternoon and have to motor sail. I had my fishing line out, but no luck on that front. Again I am convinced these waters have been over-fished. Also there was an incredible amount of weed about. Alec needed to clear the props on more than one occasion. The following afternoon we motor into a very well protected lagoon on the north-western side of Niuatoputapu. Like most lagoon passes one would not attempt this in bad light or rough weather. The channel is winding with some of its markers broken off at the high-water mark, but with care we make it safely to the excellent anchorage.

History:  Like Samoa, Tonga was also first settled by the Lapita people some two to three thousand years ago.  Carbon dating of their pottery has shown this.

SHAMAL in Niua Lagoon

Fuel Station

Tonga had its first king sometime in the middle of the 10^th century AD. Since then around 40 men have held this title. The four main island groups, from north to south, Niua, Vava’u, Ha’apai, and Tongata’u, were discovered by Europeans at different dates between 1616 and 1781. The Kingdom is made up of about 170 islands, some being high volcanic and others low coral islands.

The population is around 106,000 people. It is thought that just as many Tongans are living abroad, mostly in New Zealand, Australia and the United States. They are a very religious nation, and Sunday sees the whole country nearly coming to a standstill. The kingdom became an independent state in the mid-1970 after being under British protection since 1900.

Western Samoa

 

Hello Again

Alec cutting up Pomelos
 

We leave Palmerston Atoll with east south east winds. It is a sunny morning, but lots of cloud about. We are running under a reef in the main and no jib, and are able to maintain a speed between 5.5-6.5kts. The seas are between 2-3mts with breaking tops. It is a little rolly, but not too uncomfortable. I am able to make muffins to go with our morning coffee, and make a batch of yogurt. Dinner is crumbed parrot fish fillets which we were given. It really is a yummy fish.

An evening of light winds
 

It takes us five days to cover the 595nm to Western Samoa. The last couple of days the winds dropped making for a slower trip. But we are now anchored in Apia harbour on Western Samoa’s north coast. We passed American Samoa to our starboard during the night.

We did have squalls on this leg, but the winds were never above 17-19kts. We are also notice how much warmer and more humid it is here. The nights in Rarotonga had been quite cool.

The Cook Islands

Bora Bora

Sunday 21^st. September.  An email arrives on the “Puddle Jumpers” web page for which we have joined for our Pacific crossing, from Bob McDavitt, the New Zealand weather guru, saying a Tuesday departure from Tahiti to Tonga is recommended due to a front passing over the Cook Islands and then Tahiti. We are heading for the Cook Islands, so we will wait a little longer here in Bora Bora.

Bora Bora Yacht Club

Monday afternoon arrives and Alec is ready to leave. By 1500 we have raised the anchor and are motoring out through the reef. Destination, Rarotonga, the largest and most populous of the Cook Islands.

Leaving Bora Bora

Once through the reef we raise the sails and are on our way. Winds are east north east at 15-20kts. Seas 1-1.5mts. All is good. Just on dawn the following morning, we run into the tail of Bob’s frontal system. The wind has now gone around to the south east at 25kts with breaking seas. There are some squalls about. We reef down and spend the next 24 hours with things a little more uncomfortable than we had hoped for. The following morning the system has passed and the seas have dropped, so we are able to raise the full ‘main again.

French Polynesia

Hello to you all once more.

Bastille Day, Nuku Hiva

French Polynesia – A French overseas territory consisting of about 130 tropical islands strewn over some four million square kilometres in the South Eastern Pacific Ocean. It is made up of five main groups.

The Marquesas Islands are the most northerly sitting between 8deg.-11deg. south of the equator. They are high volcanically formed islands of which there are twelve.

The Tuamotu Archipelago is made up of approximately 78 islands, all but two being coral atolls. The atolls are made up of coral reefs and motu (small coral islands on which many have been planted with coconut palms) surrounding beautiful lagoons. Many have one or two navigable passes into these lagoons. They lie around 550 miles south east of the Marquesas and extend almost 1,000 miles in a NW-SE direction.

Tuamotus

The Gambier Islands are located at the south eastern end of the Tuamotu Archipelago, and situated 1,700km east of Tahiti. This group of 5 high islands and 18 motu lie in a lagoon surrounded by a single coral reef. As they are close to the Tropic of Capricorn-25deg. south of the equator, lush vegetation and fruit trees thrive here.

The Society Islands lie approximately 250 miles west of the Tuamotu Archipelago. This group is made up of twelve major islands and divided into the Windward and Leeward Islands. The main islands of the Windwards are Tahiti and Moorea. The main islands of the Leewards are Raiatea and Tahaa, Bora-Bora, and Huahine. The Society group are a mixture of high volcanic islands, and atolls. They extend over 400 miles.

Tuamotus

Lastly, the Austral Islands. This group are spread along the Tropic of Capricorn for over 800miles. There are 5 islands, some surrounded with a reef and lagoon. Again their situation makes for fertile lands where coffee, oranges and tropical fruits are grown.

As for our visit, we are given a three month visa on arrival into French Polynesia. There is no way we can explore this vast area, so time will tell just how much we can see.

Panama and into the Pacific

Panama, then out to the Marquesas-French Polynesia

Hello To You All Again

Our resident croc in the marina

Reluctantly we settle into life in Shelter Bay Marina (Shelter “Pay” Marina as it is known, and yes it is so expensive in here) as we await the arrival of our two replacement rudders. Alec spends hours on the internet sorting out other replacement parts, and spares, for the long crossing across the Pacific. There will be no suppliers till we reach Tahiti, so one needs to be well prepared. He orders a new wind transducer for the top of the mast, plus the wind instrument at the helm. After sitting in the marina without being connected to mains power we also discover it is time for new house batteries. This set has only lasted four years, whereas the first set we had lasted eight years. We replace some of our sheets and halyards keeping the old ones for spares.

When we have done as much as we can with SHAMAL in the water, we make our list of everything to be done when she is lifted. Now with time while we wait for the rudders to arrive, we get out our folding bikes and explore some of the local area. We also go on jungle walks to see the monkeys and whatever else pops out from among the foliage. The bird life here is also amazing, and quite noisy.

Colombia to Panama

Santa Marta
 

 

 

Hello Again

Santa Marta, Colombia. What a delightful stop this was. Once again it was such a pity we could not have stayed longer and really explored the area. For starters the marina there is great. Very clean with a wonderful team of staff to look after you. They took care of all our check in and out paperwork which is really helpful as our Spanish is very limited at best. Anyway one has to have an agent here by law to do your paperwork.

Santa Marta
 

We had arrived into one of the oldest cities in South America. It was founded in 1525 by the Spanish.  Of course there are the more ancient city ruins scattered throughout South America which were built by its indigenous inhabitants. Santa Marta sits along a sandy bay surrounded by the highest coastal mountain range in the world – the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.  Its two highest peaks are 5,775mts. National Parks and lovely beaches are also in close vicinity. We were told that for some days each month a katabatic wind blows off the mountains at up to 50kts at times, creating spray filled waves in the marina. Fortunately for us these winds did not occur during our stay. In fact it was hot and sunny. The temperature was not below 30deg. C. During the day, but in the evenings it dropped somewhat to make going out for dinner and sitting at the outside tables at the restaurants really pleasant.

Santa Marta
 



Santa Marta
 



The city really comes to life in the evenings with people coming out to enjoy the beach front promenade where street vendors set up stalls selling everything imaginable. We found the supermarket had a wonderful selection of foods at very reasonable prices on meats and local produce. We also found fruits which we have in New Zealand and not seen for ages, like feijoas, tree tomatoes, and banana passionfruit, along with another three varieties of passion fruit. Also there are the lovely purple skinned sweet potatoes everywhere.

Grenada To Santa Marta, Colombia

Hello To You All Once Again

Shamal in Grenada
 

 


Grenada
 

Well the time finally came where we were as ready as one could be ( so we thought ) to head on out for the next leg of our Adventures.  We had dived to check the hulls and give the props a good clean. The new water maker pump had been installed, and we had even delayed our departure by a day as we had an engineer on board looking at the electro magnetic clutch, which was causing a problem. Alec got the water maker sort of working, but he decided we needed to start moving and he would check it out along the way!! Then one morning just before departure my Nespresso coffee machine would not work properly. We had just had the new inverter installed, so put it down to the cloudy days, but really our 1,000 watt solar panels are pretty good plus we have the wind generator. We started an engine to boost the batteries and I got my morning coffee fix. There were the usual dinners and drinks to farewell new and old friends, then on Saturday 2^nd February we moved SHAMAL off her mooring and over to the marina to take on water, just in case the water maker didn’t behave. We check out of Grenada, then spent the last of our local money on a few more supplies.

 

Fishing on way to Bonaire
 

It wasn’t till after 1300 that we finally motored out of the bay, put the sails up, and set on a heading to the first of the A B C Islands – Bonaire. We set a course north of our rhumb line to keep off the coast of Venezuela due to the political problems they are having at the moment. Also it gave us the advantage of a lovely broad reach to down wind run. From the sailing point of view it was a great run, BUT, other issues arose which were not so great. After dark we were obviously in an area where the Grenadian Fisherman were working, but that proved no problems. It was just a case of keeping well away from their boats and set nets, which were well lit with the usual flashing lights in an array of different colours.  In the early hours of that first morning, the radar decided not to work. There was some shipping about which we could pick up on the AIS, and we were far enough off the coast not to be around small craft. We just ran an engine for a while and the radar was up and running again. So why had the batteries dropped so low? Second afternoon we did a tack and the wind direction instrument stopped working. Then about an hour later it was working fine! That night we only turned the radar on from time to time to check shipping. Later I tried to make coffee with my machine, trouble doing that again. Then to top it all off, again at night, the chart plotter dies on us. We do have a back up on the iPad with Blue Charts which are very good, but with no A I S or radar overlay. Again on another tack the wind instrument stopped working. Help the gremlins are having a field day with us at the moment. The chart plotter would come and go being quite spasmodic in working.

Grenada - USA for Christmas - Grenada

Rainbow off St George

Shamal dressed in world flags

A Very Very Happy New Year To You All.  We hope your festive season was a happy one. How time flies, here we are nearly at the end of the first month of 2019!! Yes I am  a little late with another posting to the blog, but we have not yet set sail for more adventures this season.

 

We sat out the latter part of the hurricane season in Prickly Bay, Grenada. Made new friends, and when not doing boat maintenance, or visiting the local area, we enjoyed the peace of the bay and lots of swimming. It is so nice to stop and reflect on all the great adventures we have each season. We do a trip into St George each week to the fruit and vegetable market. See photo for an example of an imported New Zealand Honeycrisp apple from the supermarket,, and yes I am talking about the price per apple.  Local money $8.22 – converts to NZ $ 4.47, so we left that behind!!  The local mango and pawpaw are much better priced, and yummy. Passionfruit are in season, so this all makes for a lovely fruit salad. The fishing is good if one knows where to drop your line, so we enjoyed lovely fish meals as well.  As our water maker pump died, I collect rain water, and we have not needed to buy water which has been great.

New Zealand Apple
 

 

Local Mango and Pawpaw

Then in early December we flew up to New Jersey to spend Christmas and New Year with our daughter and her family. After only being their three days our daughter had a work trip to London for five days. Her husband flew to the UK to meet her as he had not been to London before, and they were able to see the Grand Old City all dressed up for Christmas, and have a few days together which is difficult for them with their busy schedules. So Nana and Poppa were left with the twins, who are now six, to get off to school, and the baby who is 14 months old. It all worked very smoothly, and we were so grateful for that quality time with our grandsons.