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6th October– 29th October, 2005
the nose blew us off course, then a series of wind shifts zigzagged us between a scattered group
of reefs and sea-mounts, before we had to heave-to for half a night to time landfall at dawn. Thus
the vision of a beautiful collection of rocky islands rising in unison out of the morning light before
us came as a delightful pleasure, and we knew we had arrived at a special place. As we sailed
into the calm water between these islands the clouds evaporated, giving us the perfect chance to
launch the dinghy and get Mark snapping a few more shots of Skardu under full sail.
By 9am we had short-tacked the 10 miles up a winding doglegged channel to reach the main
town of Neiafu (cutting our path through a large charter fleet en route to a race start), picked up a
mooring ball directly in front of the infamous ‘Mermaid’ watering-hole, and dropped the sails after
a job well done. Who needs an engine anyway? Alongside us lay the British yacht ‘Amadis’
with a couple of good friends onboard: mid-twenties skipper Lily who set out from England about
the same time as us on a sponsored project to study the condition of tropical reefs around the
world, and her mid-thirties crew Stuart, a Dive Instructor with whom we were keen to do a bit of
diving (and ex-boyfriend of Lisa 'Pixie' who crewed for us from Columbia to Galapagos) Within
half an hour they were hosting us for a fried English breakfast, and we had reunited with Mark’s
sister Lisa who had arrived the evening before to join us, escaping her life as a lawyer in Boston
for a month.
Breathing Life Back into ‘Ernie’
First priority was to attend to the hulk of dead-weight metal languishing in our hold. Formerly
claiming to be a useful piece of equipment for mechanical propulsion, it was currently threatening
to be more valuable thrown overboard and used as a mooring weight! Fortunately we had
secured the attention of John B and Davie – a couple of itinerant Kiwi mechanics who had set up
shop in Vava'u operating ‘Sailing Safaris’, the only viable workshop between here and French
Polynesia 1,500 miles away – and they were mildly optimistic we could get it going again.
So before we got our hands dirty tackling the engine repair work, we arranged for Stuart to teach
Lisa how to scuba-dive, using ‘Amadis’ as the dive base with all the equipment aboard.
Meanwhile, our friends Rolf and Yolanda, a young Swiss couple onboard ‘Moana’, graciously
adopted Lisa and invited her to stay onboard with them while Yolanda and Lisa took their course
‘Moana’ is a beautiful 56-foot Oyster, the Rolls Royce of the sailing world, with lots of creature
comforts, and Lisa was given the run of half the yacht, with it's black marble galley,
espresso/cappuccino maker, gallons of fresh hot water, dive tanks and compressors, flat
screen TVs etc. Returning to life aboard Skardu after all that was a bit of a shock!
Not to be left out, we too took advantage of a little ‘Moana’ hospitality: since nothing happens in
Tonga between Saturday midday and Monday morning, we left Skardu moored up at the
workshop, hired some dive-kit, loaded up our dinghy with enough petrol canisters and motored
the 8 miles around to a lovely little bay where the other two yachts were anchored. We spent a
couple of nights on board with them, sleeping out on deck under the stars and joining Rolf for a
few fun dives, while the girls were kept busy under Stuart’s instruction. Rolf is a real foodie, so we
had a lot of fun planning and cooking all the meals together.
Back in Neiafu we rolled our sleeves up and proceeded to disassemble Skardu’s innards,
removing all the cabinetry panels around the engine housing, and turning the saloon into
complete disarray with engine parts laid out everywhere, and the delightful aroma of oil and diesel
fumes permeating everything! To save a bit of cash, we did all the time-consuming and back-
breaking work of disconnecting and hauling out 200kg's of metal, pipes, and wires through the
narrow cockpit companionway – they don’t teach you this one on the Yachtmaster course! The
trick is to use a couple of block-and-tackle pulleys from the boom, a two-by-four plank of wood, a
crow bar, and a lot of heaving – after two days we had our engine hauled out and spread out
across ‘Sailing Safaris’ workshop bench. JB, the Kiwi mechanic was a gem: he completely
disassembled the engine into a hundred little Volvo green parts and inspected everything
carefully. He really knew his stuff, having had the experience of servicing 30 of the exact same
Volvo 2003T engines on a fleet in the Med! The spare parts came on courier order from New
Zealand, and JB did a full overhaul and recondition job (for you techie engineers out there: new
piston rings; new main and big-end bearings; new cylinder exhaust valves; re-honed cylinder
bores; new head gasket; new coolant system gaskets and o-rings etc) before we dropped it
back in and connected everything back up. After a bit of fiddling and fine-tuning we finally had it up
and running happily again… propulsion at last, but most importantly the fridge could be switched
back on, so we had cold beers once more! The best thing about JB however, is that he charged
us a fraction of what he could have, and made a mockery of the Volvo prices in Europe!
Diving Wrecks and Exploring Caves
While our engine sat on the workbench waiting 10 days for the spare parts delivery, we intended
to make the most of our time here, so we sailed Skardu off to explore a few outlying anchorages
around these beautiful protected islands, socialising with other yachts by arranging elaborate
dinners every evening, and doing lots of independent scuba-diving using hired equipment. With
dive tank compressors aboard both ‘Amadis’ and ‘Moana’, re-filling tanks was not a problem,
and we kept all three dinghies busy shuttling dive equipment around on a daily basis. Armed with
Q’s catchphrase “deep-breathly”, Lisa and Yolanda soon completed their PADI Open Water
certificates with big smiles all round, and then Mark took the opportunity to do his PADI Rescue
Diver course with Stuart and Lily, bringing him up to Master Scubadiver level. In between we
packed in as many fun dives as possible, and found Vava’u to be an exceptional dive site: warm
water, great visibility, beautiful coral gardens, loads of huge fish, and fascinating underwater rock
formations that are pitted with caves everywhere. We particularly enjoyed an awesome wreck
dive on a 120meter steel-hulled cargo ship lying at 25-35m on the bottom of Neiafu harbour: as
you hover just meters above the hulking, coral encrusted deck of the ship and peer into the
gaping hold below schools of large fish and transparent jellyfish just swim right up under your
nose! It was great to see Lisa’s face all lit up when she came back from that one: big eyes, big
smile, and long forgotten was the hassle of having to struggle into all the dive gear. Most
memorable of all was our first major cave dive into a series of three linked underwater caves at
about 18m, the second of which is home to about 10 baby white-tipped sharks (whom we woke
up and chased around with our torches), and the third of which rises up to an internal cave at
sea-level, where we could remove our regulators to breath the trapped air for a minute or two
before re-descending! WOW, what an amazing experience.
The particular geology of the landscape in Vava’u has led to the erosion of countless caves all
along the steep-cliffed water’s edge, offering lots of opportunities for exploring. One of the larger
such formations is know as ‘Swallow’s Cave’, accessible by dinghy deep into the heart of the
cave where the intense blue water filters the light to create a unique ambience. We found the
dripping walls to be inhabited by starlings, bats, crayfish and sea-snakes, and a swim to a
slippery path lead into deeper chambers, one of which is illuminated by a shaft of light entering
through a circular opening high overhead. Apparently Tongan feasts used to be held here at the
turn of the last century, the food being lowered down by pulley through the opening – what an
event that must have been!
Equally impressive was ‘Mariners Cave’, a hidden cave that could only be accessed by free-
diving through an underwater tunnel! The entrance is an unmarked opening a meter below sea
level in the face of a cliff, and despite directions it took us quite some time to find the right spot! To
get into the cave you have to take a very deep breath and swim down and in about five meters
underwater beneath the rock ceiling (slightly more than diving under the belly of a yacht) before
surfacing into the trapped air in the dark interior. As our eyes became accustomed to the faint
sunlight filtering through the water, we could make out the smooth roof of the cave, with stalactites
hanging down in the corners. Extraordinarily the surging wave action pressurises the trapped air
inside, causing it to constantly change from foggy to clear, and pop your ears! Certainly not one
for those prone to claustrophobia, but we loved it! The main entrance is about 2 meters deep, but
there was another small entrance tunnel down at 16 meters depth, and after a bit of investigation,
Mark took a big lung-full and free-dived through this one too!! A very impressive achievement,
but one he topped soon afterwards by free-diving to a depth of 20 meters – now that is a helluva
long way to come back up when your running low on air!
Not to be outdone on new achievements, Quintin had the opportunity to single-hand Skardu for a
day while Mark was busy with his Rescue Diver course. After a long day of fine tuning the
reconditioned engine and taking it out for test runs around the harbour, he had the pleasure of
sailing her alone for the first time on a short trip to an outlying anchorage.
Full Moon Party
One weekend the news was that everyone was converging on a remote island to celebrate a
Full Moon Party… so we hightailed it over there! Old friends from amongst the cruising
community came together for an evening of fancy-dress mayhem… and don’t ask where we got
our outfits from! The island was privately owned, and as we landed our dinghy on the beach it
was clear that the local sailing expats had organised the party to rock on late into the night, with a
barbeque dinner, a Tongan fire-dancing show, lethal ‘moonshine’ cocktails, and dancing until we
dropped.
It was great to catch up with some of our friends from Suvarov, and in memory we organised
another beach volleyball game with most of the original players: great fun to hook up with so
many familiar faces once again. We even found access to televised rugby matches for the first
time in 16 months, and watched the New Zealand Premier Division Final amongst a group of
animated Kiwis!
After three excellent weeks it was time to move on, so we returned briefly to Neiafu to reprovision
at the local market, where fruit vendors jostled alongside stalls peddling local handicrafts at a tenth
the price of French Polynesia! Q fell in love with a huge fearsome Tongan carving of the ‘God of
Love’ (…appropriate?), formed out of a whole hollowed trunk of mahogany, and just had to have
it as a memento. It was half buried beneath the elderly banana-lady’s wares – that’s just how it is
here! Neiafu is the second largest town in Tonga, yet felt like a sleepy laid-back place happy to
lie back and let the world roll by.
Humpback Whales
Our departure was delayed 24 hours by a torrential downpour, so we set off from Vava'u around
lunchtime on the Saturday (to the sound of the Mermaid Bar’s ship’s bell ringing farewell across
the harbour to us), and we decided to take the long route by sailing out through all the lovely little
scattered islands in the hopes of finally seeing some whales before leaving Tonga. Fortunately
just as we were passing the last island Q spotted a mother and calf humpback surfacing
nearby. For around 30 minutes they swam alongside us at 20-50 yards distance, and our
presence seemed to make the little one very playful: we watched excitedly as the calf breached
at least a dozen times – jumping clean out of the water, landing with a big splash on its back –
before it’s mother told it to stop showing off! Although we didn't get to swim with them or capture
any really good photos, it was a magnificent sight, and a fitting end to our lovely month in Tonga.
