June 22 =========== Jon and Deborah Turnbull joined us as crew in Tonga a couple of days before Andria arrived. They had a great night when they joined the World Cruising Club dinner.
We did some sailing around Tonga before Andria arrived. It is what the British Virgin Islands must have been like 30 years ago before all the commercialization, but even better. Tonga is gorgeous, friendly people, smooth protected water for sailing, about 150 islands to visit, and many of them uninhabited.
One of the places of interest is a cave called Swallows Cave where you can take your dingy into the cave, go across the cave about 20m in diameter then get out of the dingy and walk a further 20m into the cave until you come to a huge open cavern. When you look up about 150 feet above you is a hole in the ground with light shining through. The floor of the cave is a bit sticky with batt shit and the smell in the air is not exactly Channel No 5, not even close.
One evening we stopped in Port Mourelle. This is a small beautiful protected bay with a white sandy beach. One of the other ARC rally boats was already there. We saw them sitting on the beach having a Sun Downers. We all thought this was a great idea as it was a perfect evening. We filled our glasses and jumped into the dingy being careful not to spill our drinks. Landing the dingy in the surf without spilling your drink was quite a feat.
When Andria was on board we anchored in Port Mourelle again just to show her this lovely bay.
Within about 10 minutes after anchoring a man came over in his dingy. His name was Pato. He is a professional surfer and makes videos for a Brazilian TV show. He was sailing with his wife, daughter and another crew member. He began to describe a problem with the water pressure on his boat and was asking if we could help as he had no fresh water at the kitchen sink, or for showers or hand basins.
I jumped in his dingy and went to his boat. After about 30 minutes I determined that the motors on both the pumps on his boat had gone to god.
The pumps were Jabsco pumps the same as I have on Zoom.
About 12 months ago I had the pump head on one of my pumps fail. The motor was ok, just the bit that does the pumping had failed. For less than half the cost of a replacement head/(service kit) I could buy a complete pump on eBay. Of course it was made in China. I bought two of these pumps thinking I would have a spare if the first failed. The first pump is still working perfectly since installation. I could not bring myself to throw out the working motor of the failed pump thinking one day I may need it.
Well this was the day. I did not need it but Pato and his family did. Using my old motor and a working pump head off one of Patos pumps we restored fresh water pressure on his yacht. His wife and daughter were very appreciative and later that evening bought over some freshly made bread.
About 10 minutes later after returning to Zoom another guy came over in an old wooden tender. It was Craig, we meet him when we were anchored in Mort Mourelle a few days ago. He transports a volunteer team of young female medics that bring free medical supplies and basic health training to Tongans on outlaying islands.
He is on this old yacht with 5 girls. We saw them walking topless around the yacht a few days ago. Tough Job but I guess someone has to do it.
He was asking if any of us knew anything about alternators because he thought his was not working because his batteries were flat. He had no lights and could not start the engine. He had a small solar panel to charge the battery but this was very slow.
I happened to have a spare alternator so I gave this too him to see if it would fit the mounts on his engine. Over the VHF radio I gave him some information on how to test if his alternator was dead. The day was the wedding anniversary for Andria so I said I if I wanted to see and another anniversary I could not come over tonight to help him but would try to help him tomorrow. He understood.
The next morning Craig returned my alternator, it did not suit his engine mounts. He also thought that the motor was seized. This was getting more serious. After he answered a few of my questions I thought that it was unlikely that the engine was seized.
To his boat I took some tools, jumper leads and the battery from our generator.
The motor was another hand me down from Noah and the Ark but it was not seized.
I tightened up the alternator mounts and the belt that drives the alternator. I explained to Craig that for the alternator to work the belt must be very much tighter than it was.
Using our battery the old motor started. Once a diesel motor is started it does not require a battery, unless it has an electric fuel pump. I asked Craig if it had an electric fuel pump. He said the fuel was gravity feed from the tank on the deck. Fantastic unless Newtons law of gravity changes this old diesel will run without a battery until the fuel tank runs dry. We quickly transferred me, the battery and my tools back to Zoom and he got on his way on the two hour motor back to Neiafu where he can get some qualified help with his battery charging problems.
When I got back on Zoom Jon said that he is going to act as my agent and that am to stop all this free fixing of other peoples yachts.
In Vavau we had about three to four days of rain and very unseasonal miserable weather. Collected lots of rain water so when we headed south to the Haapai Group we had full water tanks for washing clothes and ourselves.
Jeremy is now a fishing expert. He has caught 3 or 4 Tuna and a huge 6 feet long fish that looked very much like a Marlin. Looking in our fish identification guide we cannot find an exact match but the closest we can find is a Wahoo, but Marlin makes a much better story.
The freezer is now full.
Checked out of the Vavau to sail to the Haapai Group. Pangai is the main island of the Haapai group. I went to the customs office to check in and out while the others went to a coffee shop to get some free wifi. The coffee place looked pretty bad and they wanted $5 for wifi in addition to the price of the coffee. They decided to leave. However I did get a free cup of coffee at the customs office.
We left Pangai right away as we only had a short amount to time to get to Uoleva Island before it was too late to have good visibility of coral heads while looking for a place to anchor for the night.
It was a rear occurrence for me the fuel miser to run both engines at full power for about 40 minutes to get there instead of anchoring outside of Pangai. It was well worth the fuel burn. The bay on Uoleva Island was a spectacular white sandy beach that ran right out to deep water. Not a coral head in sight. It was one of the best anchoring spots I have come across.
The next morning Jeremy, Jacqui and I went for a walk up the beach. We came across a wonderful old Tongan couple (Soni and his wife) who own the Captain Cook Resort on the island. This consists of two bungalows. They have no electrical power because the generator died. I think this happened some time ago. They only get 2 or 3 guests a year. They do not know how to use the internet for any sort of marketing.
Soni cut the top of some coconuts to give us a drink of fresh coconut water. We asked how they communicate. He has a mobile phone but has to take his boat into Pangai about once a week to charge the batteries. We enquired why. Apparently he had a solar panel and an inverter but it stopped working. A visiting South African took it away to fix it and never returned. Jeremey and I looked across the table at each other, coconuts in hand, and knew that we were both thinking the same thought. When we get back to Australia we will send to Soni and his wife a replacement small solar panel and the bits he requires to charge his phone. We asked him to show us the phone so that we could send the correct connections. I had not seen a mobile phone like this. It looked like a regular handset that you would see in an office or home. I at first thought it was just a cordless phone, but when we opened it there was the Digicel SIM card. I think this mobile phone was a hand me down from Noah after he was finished with using it on the Ark. But it worked and that is all that it had to do. They also had a regular sized mobile phone which had connections for the charger the same as what is currently used on many modern Android type phones. When we left they gave as a bag of a variety of fruits. The Tongan people are so nice. I look forward to sending him a solution to his phone charging problems.
In the Haapai group we anchored on some uninhabited islands. On one of the islands we walked from one side to the other about 5 minutes. On our return Jeremy found some spectacles on the bush track. Jon and I had walked this track about 30 minutes ago. Jeremy approached us and asked, as a joke has anyone lost any glasses. Jon and I both said no. Then Jon put his hands to his eyes and his pockets, his glasses were missing. He had not even noticed that he was no longer wearing his glasses. The glasses were indeed Jons. How lucky was he!
On this same island I found about 5 fishing floats washed high up on the shore during storms. These make excellent anchor markers. I only needed one and intended to give the others away to some local Tongan fisherman.
Today we set off sailing from Nomuka at 6:30 am to get to Kelefesia Island. Kelefesia only has anchorage space for three yachts. If there was no room for us we were going to continue onto Tongatapu which is about an 8 our sail. This is why we left so early.
When leaving Nomuka another yacht called us on the VHF asking if we had a recent weather forecast. I shared our forecast from last night. We chatted further and found that they were in Kelefesia yesterday and they were the only yacht. The odds were good that we would also be the only yacht because the current wind direction did not favor yachts coming up from Tongatapu.
We were indeed the only yacht. Kelefesia is absolutely gorgeous. White sandy beach, high cliffs, reef protection from the swell.
We had the island and anchorage to ourselves and had a great time on the inflatable standup paddle boards. We found a path through the reef and explored ashore. I bought back two more floats that had washed up on the shore. Will give these to the people in Tanna who suffered from Hurricane.
In just made it to Tongatapu before it got dark. Pulled into the harbour but it looked very uninviting. The guide booked warned about the huge cockroach infestation there so we continued on to anchor next to Big Mumas yacht club which was on an island only about 10minutes motoring away.
This was a good choice. We all enjoyed getting off the boat for a while plus a nice dinner and wine.
The next day we went for lunch at the Fafa island resort. Allan and I went for a snorkel and saw some huge clams, the largest I have ever seen.
The next day we did a tour of Tongatapu Big Jon as a guide, and also got provisions for the trip to Fiji. We spent about an hour carefully checking all the supplies for cockroaches or their eggs.
Andria and Deborah have left the boat. Andria left two days early so that we can take advantage of good wind window to get to Fiji. So she will be slumming in a nice hotel in Tongatapu while we are slaving away sailing the boat.
When fueling at the dock at least two crew at a time were on cockroach guard duty. The cockroaches were easily seen on the dock and would jump onto the fenders attached to yacht when we touched the dock. Luckily the wind was blowing us off the dock so we would only touch occasionally. The sport for the morning was to use the dingy oars to push the roaches into the water where the fish would snap them up if they did not get back onto the dock quickly.
We are now on our way to Fiji. The log on the boat just clocked over 6000 miles. The SSB can now connected to Australia, but the transfer speed is still slow. We are getting closer to home.
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