At anchor, near Vaka'eitu Island (#16)

Vava'u Group, Kingdom of Tonga

Dear friends and family:

This was our first anchorage in the Vava'u Group and will likely be our last (at least for this trip). The weather is finally shaping up to allow for a departure for New Zealand tomorrow.

There was a weather trough that came through a few days ago. Most people rode out the bad weather on a mooring buoy in Neiafu. We chose to go to Hunga, a large lagoon with only a very narrow entrance. (The entrance is only about 40 feet wide with an evil rock sticking about 6 feet out of the water, right in the middle). We motored down the lee side of Hunga Island, but when we got close to the entrance the winds kicked up to about 25 knots, coming right out of the entrance. You have to motor pretty slowly, because of the narrow entrance and shallow depths close by. (The passge, at its most shallow, is only about 8 feet deep -- we draw 6 1/2 feet -- and you can see the bottom so clearly you could almost touch it). We got through without any "events" but on our first attempt to find a place for the night, we dragged a mooring buoy several hundred feet before we were able to drop it. (It turned out the mooring buoy was attached to a sunken log, not to a several-ton concrete pad, as it's supposed to be...) We anchored instead close to the village of Hunga, where red mud flows into the lagoon when it rains hard. (Craig wrote last time with more detail about the mooring buoy incident).

That night it did indeed rain hard, and the winds did blow. Judging by the amount of water in the dinghy in the morning, it must have rained about 8 inches during the night. We heard reports on the net that a single-hander from Canada was found floating face down in the Neiafu harbor -- evidently the casualty of the weather. We've been following the outcome of this -- there's no doctor in Neiafu to do an autopsy, no one really knew the fellow, the refrigeration (for the body) has failed, everyone "sort of agreed" that it was an accidental death, so the body was buried yesterday, before the family could even arrive. I guess that's the way things are done in Tonga. It's certainly very different than the police procedures we're used to at home. I think the cruising community was somewhat shocked by the whole turn of events -- not only the death, but also the casual manner in which the investigation was handled.

Vaha wanted to stay and talk a long time. He told us a little about the social structure in Tonga. His village is led by a hereditary "noble." Right now the "noble" is 20 years old, and is off at university somewhere. He inherited that title when he was 18 and his father died. While he is gone at school, the village is run by a village official. Vaha said he met the King once, in Neiafu, when he and about seven other men went with his noble for an audience with the King. The King comes to Neiafu 3 or 4 times a year, and the Prince has come to the village of Hunga several times. There is a different vocabulary for speaking to a noble, and a different one yet for speaking to the King. All this strikes is as extremely feudal, but it seems to work for Tonga.

When Vaha brought the fruit the next day, he asked for anything we might have to throw away because it would not be allowed into New Zealand. We gave him some honey and some beans and lentils. He had never seen beans or lentils before, and didn't know what to do with them. But he speaks English pretty well, and I pointed out the directions on each package. Who knows -- perhaps they'll feed them to the pigs!

We had dinner one night at the Ika Lahi Lodge -- very nice, run by New Zealanders, delicious dinner. The next day, when we visited the village of Hunga, we met a woman, Sia, who works at the Lodge. She showed us some basil, said she knew it was a Palangi (white person) herb, and that Tongans never use it. They have so much growing around because it is said to repel mosquitos. She found out that Palangis use it in cooking when she saw the chef at the Ika Lahi use it. She picked great quantities of it and gave it to us. Sia took us along muddy paths, and through basil fields to find Vaha's house. It turned out he was away fishing, but we spoke with his mother. Sia took us back to her house. Her 4 or 5 year old daughter, Mele, took my hand, and then Barbara Bates' hand, and insisted on walking between us all the way back to the house.  There, Sia introduced us to her husband, Ofa, and showed us the mat she was weaving. We bought a small placemat for $10 US, although I knew I could buy six of them for $12 at the public market.

After we left Hunga to go back to Neiafu, we stopped by Mariner's Cave. Barbara Bates has a cold, so neither she nor Reggie wanted to go in the water. They drove the boat in circles while Craig and I contemplated the dive into the cave. About four feet underwater, there is a gigantic black hole, going back under the cliff. You really have to believe that there is a cave in there, and that there is air to breathe, and that you aren't going to drown! Craig went in first, with his dive light, and when he came out, I screwed up my courage and went in after him. Halfway through the opening, you are supposed to turn over on your back, look up, and watch for where the ceiling meets the air and you can once again see the surface of the water. When I rolled over, I must have veered sideways, because I scraped my head, shoulder and arm on the cave wall when I came up. That was a shock, and I swallowed a bunch of sea water. But what an experience that cave is! The light is dim blue, coming in the opening. The surge of the waves comes in, compressing the air. Fog forms, your eardrums get squeezed, and then five seconds later, as the surge subsides, the fog disappears and your ears are OK again. Craig shone the dive light around the walls of the cave, and much of it was purple or blue, with dribbles of white, almost as though people had been burning candles in there. We looked for (but did not see) the platform where a nineteenth century local chief supposedly hid his stolen bride for two weeks. We decided that as fun and interesting as the cave was, we wouldn't want to spend two weeks there.

We didn't get any pictures in Mariner's Cave, but we've seen some good pictures on the website of S/V Interlude -- Check it out here.

Best wishes to all our friends and family!

Craig & Barbara Johnston

S/V Sequoia

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