Author: Ocean Blue

21st May 2023 – 3rd July 2023

A few musings from the notes Lesley wrote down:

We have arrived safely in Tonga!

We have now completed our shakedown sail after relaunching Ocean Blue. 1133 miles from New Zealand to Tonga with 3 nights at Minerva reef. Not much to see there, since it’s all under water at high tide! Excellent place to stop for a rest though – quite unique.

Hopefully we can start to explore Tonga tomorrow.

There are 176 islands in the Tongan archipelago which are divided into four main groups. From south to north – Tongatapu, Ha’apai, Vav’u and Niuatoputapu groups.

Initially we were very happy to be here and looking forward to sundowners on the beach!

Tongatapu

We hired a car and took ourselves off on an island tour. We discovered Abel Tasmin’s landing site; it must looks much the same as after the tsunami the resorts have gone and the sand and plants have reclaimed everything.

Tongatapu was hit by a tsunami in 2022 after an underwater volcano eruption of the Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha’apai volcano. Waves of up to 15 meters struck the west coast of the island and wiped out several resorts. The island is still recovering and tourism is only just returning.

Our island tour took us to spectacular blow holes and a massive rock, ‘tsunami rock’, believed to be the largest tsunami debris ever found, although not from the 2022 one.

Next was a three headed coconut tree! the roosting place of a colony of fruit bats and spot Captain Cooks landing place. When we returned to Nuku’alofa we checked out the Royal Palace and the used the car to get provisions for the rest of our stay in Tonga.

The Vava’u and Ha’apai groups of Tonga are better suited as cruising grounds for visiting yachts with pristine beaches, healthy corals and enjoyable, easy snorkelling and diving.

Another draw to this area is the annual migration of humpback whales and we were hoping for an opportunity to go and see them once again in one of their breeding grounds.

Ha’apai group

We anchored off a little island called Ha’afeva in the Ha’apia island chain of Tonga. We took a walk across the small island of Ha’afeva to visit the village on the west side of the island where some 60 families live. There are apparently 7 churches, two small shops, a primary school, loads of pigs, some chickens a few cattle and an enormous spider!

As soon as we stepped ashore we were met by Pita Ofa Heanba who picked us limes from the tree by the path and invited us for lunch. I donated my crutches to Pita for his mother. Everyone was very friendly and the school children, who were immaculately dressed walked with us and conversed in pretty good English which is not their first language. Later in the afternoon we snorkelled the reef just by the anchorage.

The island has an impressive solar array and a generator, but the generator is broken though the engineers were on site trying to fix it.

In the late 1990s there was a roro dock built in the anchorage but it’s been destroyed by a cyclone leaving just a mass of broken concrete. Such a shame, but still good to tie the dinghy to.

The Tonga people are certainly living up to their reputation as being welcoming and warm to us visitor

Not a bad spot for Sunday lunch.

A short sail this morning took us to a stunning anchorage just north of the island O’Ua. Some excellent snorkelling followed by a barbecue on Supertramp rounded off the day very nicely. In the anchorage we saw turtles, squid, many small colourful fish and our first white tipped reef shark for this year.

Uoleva, the next island up the eastern chain of the Ha’apai group has a kite surfing school. An excellent opportunity for a quick refresher in superb surroundings, whilst Lesley made friends with the locals. Unfortunately the wind was rather light – around 10 to 11 knots but still good to get some new tips and a bit of supervised practice.

We took a long dinghy ride to the main town in this group, Pangi. There was limited shopping but some great ice cream.

We snorkelled the most beautiful coral garden at matafonua lodge at Northern tip of Pangai, Ha’apai. And We we’re even able to have a sundowners at the resort bar/restaurant over looking the brilliant turquoise lagoon to finish off a fabulous day. And sunshine at last!

Vavau

Vavau consists of one large island and over 40 smaller ones, which create a wonderful sheltered area for sailing and exploring. Neiafu is the main town for provisioning and also has several restaurants and yacht services.

15 June – We had great fun today exploring some of the caves in the area.  Swallows Cave is a located on Kava Island,  The cave  is named after the large number of swallows that nest within its walls. The entrance to the cave is located at the water’s edge, and visitors can enter the cave by boat or kayak. Once inside it is large with high ceilings and walls covered in formations of stalactites and stalagmites.

The water inside the cave is crystal clear and spectacular with a huge ball of fish inside. We had trouble finding Mariners Cave but the scenery along the way was stunning. Photos of the dinghy trip to the nearby Swallows Cave and some views of the anchorage.

More exploring of the eastern and southern Vava’au group. Lunch (and baking fresh bread rolls and doughnuts) anchored off the beautiful uninhabited Fua’amotu, now back anchored in the shelter of Euakafa island. The squid was swimming off our transom for a day at Olo’ua and the locals were busy fishing in the shallows off Koloa.

Just a few of the types of coral we saw on our snorkel on the reef. So wonderful to see such a healthy coral garden.

We took a trip outside the reef today since the wind and swell were low. We were rewarded with a walk around our very own island (actually Fonuafo’ou Island), lunch onboard in the bay, then an hour or watching whales play nearby. Every July to October, humpback whales migrate from the Antarctic to the South Pacific Ocean in order to mate and calve.

Then back at anchor tucked up inside the reef.

Our last weekend in Tonga has been spent enjoying the coral, Mariners and Swallows Caves, and spending time with friends Alex and Carla from Ari B.

On this dinghy trip we did find Mariners Cave on the west wall of the north end of Nuapupu Island. Unlike Swallows Cave, which can be entered on the surface, the entry to Mariner’s Cave is 1 to 3 meters underwater (depends on the tide), and you have to swim about 3 meters underwater to be able to come up inside the cave. The cave is not visible above the water. You can go close to the island and jump into the water. Once inside the only light is the ethereal blue coming through the underwater entrance, and the seal is so tight that when the swell rolls in, the water compresses the air in the cave fast enough to produce an instant fog-out!  As the swell ebbs, the air comes as instantly crystal clear.

Tomorrow we leave for the Lau group of islands in Fiji. Thank you Tonga for an amazing experience.

We had 3 surreal nights at Minerva reef. There is north and south Minerva reef, we went into the North one. The reefs are conveniently located on the way to Tonga from New Zealand, 485 kilometres (301 mi) southwest of the Tongatapu Group.

The Minerva Reefs are a group of submerged atolls located in the Pacific Ocean between Fiji, Niue and Tonga. The islands ownership are contested between Fiji and Tonga. Currently it is under Fiji.

The North reef is circular in shape with a small entrance into the flat lagoon with a deep harbour. It  is about 6.8 kilometres (4.2 mi) in diameter. The South reef is approx. 4.8 kilometres (3.0 mi).

Remnants of shipwrecks and platforms remain on the atolls, plus some functioning navigation beacons. Geologically, the Minerva Reefs are a limestone base formed from uplifted coral formations elevated by now-dormant volcanic activity.

We arrived the day before the forecast strong winds. We sat out strong winds gusting over 40 knots with about 30 other boats. At high water you cannot see the reef, but it breaks up the swell and waves from the Pacific Ocean. Its been an amazing experience being anchored in the middle of the Ocean over 300 miles from the nearest bit of land. 40 knots is a lot of breeze, but thankfully we have a very effective ‘Rocna’ anchor and loads of heavy chain to keep us safe. Despite waking several times during the night as the wind howled, our Vesper Anchor watch app on the phone beside the bed showed us stationary just bobbing up and down in the chop. Very reassuring.

and explored the reef at low tide.  Many others caught crayfish.

Perigee Sailboat  hosted a sundowners evening for all the boats anchored in Minerva Reef. Can you believe we first met up when we were the rafted up at the start of the Suzie Two rally 6 years ago.

Rangiroa is the largest atoll in the Tuamotus and one of the largest in the world. Approximately 43 NM long and 18 NM wide. The 240 islets string together in the ocean for more than 110 miles (177 km), completely encircling a deep lagoon

Several scuba diving operators will take you to dive the pass. Whales, manta rays, and sharks have been seen, as well as the resident pod of dolphins that stay here.

We took to regularly snorkelling off the motu Nuhi Nuhi by the Tiputa pass, known as the ‘aquarium’, which had an abundance of fish and colourful coral. There are also some informative markers there, under the water about the reef and fish!

There are two main villages of Avatoru and Tiputa which offer several magasins (shops), selling pretty much everything you need for the day to day simple life are restocked twice a week when the supply ship has unloaded. There are also churches, craft centres, local restaurants(snack bars) and even a boulangerie.

The strong winds and torrential rain limited exploration for a few days. Work and boat jobs continued though, a rain canopy for the aft hatch so we can still keep it open at night and get some ventilation through our cabin was made, the wind scoop fixed, cookies cooked, software written and training courses updated!

With calmer weather we took a day trip to the blue lagoon. This is an area on the western side of the atoll where the shallows are a nursery for black tip reef sharks and the shallow water is gin clear.

With prevailing winds from the East and the Blue Lagoon on the West, you need unusual weather to make a stay there comfortable, since the chop builds and makes anchoring uncomfortable and potentially dangerous, especially at this time of year where we have frequent squalls with wind coming from many different directions. We took friends, Frank and Sophie from Anastasia for the day trip, leaving at 8 and returning by 5 to motor across the atoll in the well marked channel. A great day out and well worth the visit.

Our dinghy is our transport between the boat and the shore, or the boat and any other adventures we undertake. In most places we anchor every destination is reasonable distance away. Sometimes just a few hundred metres but often much further, sometimes a few miles. Recently the dinghy outboard motor has been playing up.

Modern fuels in most parts of the world are made with more and more ethanol content every year. Whilst there are some good environmental arguments for adding ethanol to petrol, it also has some nasty side effects, including eating fuel hoses, seals and other rubber stuff that were manufactured prior to the high ethanol content being used. Ethanol is also hygroscopic, whereas petrol is hydrophobic, or in simple terms Ethanol absorbs water and petrol repels it.

Therefore in the humid marine environments we live in, we get a lot more water in the fuel than is good for the engine. We use additives to minimise it, but after leaving the outboard for a while, invariably the water from the fuel will have caused some crud to form in the carburettor meaning the engine doesn’t want to idle and a quick stripdown and clean of the carburettor jets is needed. It is so frequent that Derek can do this now in less than 10 minutes!

However the latest failures of the engine perplexed Derek for a good few weeks. The engine seemed to be running rich, using loads of fuel and cutting out at high revs. Even more strange was that the oil level rose and overflowed the dipstick! After sleeping on the problem, Derek identified it as a fuel pump problem. The rubber diaphragm had perished and the fuel was being pumped straight into the engine crankcase rather than the carburettor – not ideal!

That gave us a problem. We carry many many spares on board but not a fuel pump. There are virtually no chandleries or engine supplies in the atolls and an email to the Mercury dealer back in Tahiti got a quick answer stating it will be one to two months before they can obtain a new pump for us. Then we must organise it to be shipped to wherever we are somehow.

That’s a long time to wait and not go ashore or go and visit anything. Later that evening Derek proclaims:

‘Why do we need a pump anyway? We only need a pump if the petrol storage is lower than the carburettor. Gravity should do the job otherwise, that doesn’t break!’

The next morning, the pump was bypassed, the fuel can raised high and the starter chord pulled. Its not ideal, it does require a little use of the hand priming pump in the fuel line from time to time, but the engine runs, and we can at least get around until the new pump arrives. We have ordered one from the UK to be sent to Tahiti by DHL and then we will somehow hopefully get it sent on to wherever we are. Times like this make us eternally grateful to family back in the UK who can assist with shipping etc.

With the dinghy operational again, on Saturday we went ashore early, to get bread for breakfast and found a bustle of activity. There were small market stalls with clothes and fishing gear as well as dried snacks and general stores. The supply boat was also selling fresh fruit and vegetables directly on the quay. We purchased, mangoes, oranges, carrots and tomatoes but there were also cucumbers, limes, potatoes, onions and cabbage. The fridge was refilled!

With the wind forecast to drop and the arrival of a large cruise ship on Sunday, we decided to sail across the lagoon to the southeast corner for a few days away from the relative bustle of the village and a potential influx of tourists (its all relative!).

The area is called Tevare, Sables Rose and is famed for its pink sand. We had a light wind of 8-12 knots and had a glorious sail most of the way, before reverting to the engine for the last hour picking a somewhat torturous route through the bommies to the beautifully calm sheltered spot where we dropped anchor. Charts are somewhat lacking, within many of the atolls so Derek had his first go at producing a satellite image chart (something we had got used to using in the San Blas), so we tested its accuracy for bommies – very useful it was too, clearly showing all the shallow bommies that we encountered.

We stayed here for several days exploring the environment and enjoying the peace and quiet. Nature was close by, with the small bommie behind us being a nursery for juvenile fish. The flats to the pink sand banks had numerous black tip reef sharks and we saw eels and rays whilst walking through the shallows.

On another excursion we we took the dinghy as far as we could, waded through a soft bottom to get to the coral shore and followed the cairns to reach the outer Pacific shore. This gave us a very clear appreciation of the dramatic underwater coastline. We stood just metres from the reef edge in the crashing waves, and could see that less than 30 metres away the reef dropped off to depth of thousands of kilometres almost vertically.

There are a few dwellings along the shore where the inhabitants produce copra and collect shells to sell. We were told that they didn’t live there permanently, just stayed to do the work then returned to the villages. The upshot of this is that there was virtually no light pollution at night. When the skies cleared all we could see was a myriad of stars in a perfectly black sky. We saw stars and constellations that we haven’t been able to see for quite a while.

We read in one of the guides that there was a tiny Motu (Nao Nao) about halfway back towards the village anchorage that had good diving, so we took the opportunity to stop off there on the way back and enjoyed a lovely shallow dive with a great array of colourful fish. This was followed by a clean of the hull before returning to the anchorage as dusk fell and the light faded.

Knowing we would be leaving soon, we planned a quick shop for fresh bread, vegetables and fruit but found the shop had delayed its opening for a special event.  They were launching the European lottery ticket sales!  Free nibbles, ice cream and local dancing. Plus we could get our shopping!

And today we move on. Rangiroa grew on us as we stayed here. Due to its size, the anchorages can be rather exposed. If the wind picks up and has any south in it, the main village anchorage gets lumpy but then there are other places to anchor on the southern side. However its not a short hop across the atoll and does require good light.

Rangiroa does has a lot to offer the cruiser.  The local hotel we anchored off (The Kia Ora) is welcoming and when we emailed them to ask, they were happy for us to drink at the bar and watch the Polynesian entertainment. There is even some wine production here and a tasting tour at the Dominique Auroy Estate which is nestled within a coconut grove. It produces three grape varieties.  We didn’t explore this but we saw the wines for sale in the local magasin.

We have enjoyed our time here but look forward to the next atoll, which if the wind is as forecast will be the much smaller Ahe, just an overnight sail away.