Hello from Vava'u, Tonga

We are now legally checked in to Tonga. It was pouring with rain when we went to the customs dock with several other boats. The Customs man dealt with one boat then said that it was much too wet for all the other officials to come to the boats, and we should go to them! This was actually a much more efficient system, as Customs, Immigration, Health, and Quarantine officials usually tromp all over the boat, often suggesting little 'gifts'. A usual 3-hour process took about 30 mins.
Still not much to report about Vava'u. We've been no further than the little town to get provisions. It's high season so busy with yachties and NZ/Oz backpackers. The waterside bars and small restaurants all doing a roaring trade. But it's a 3rd world sort of place. Pigs and piglets roam the street, and some of the houses are no more than a few concrete blocks with corrugated iron. The supermarkets are very basic, but some enterprising foreigners have started small food businesses to cater for western tastes. There's an Austrian baker who makes very tasty, heavy, multigrain and rye bread, an Italian who does home made pasta to order, and New Zealanders running internet cafe/mooring rental/general info and help/diving and whale watching businesses.
The Tongans are large people, friendly and helpful but more reserved than those in the Cook Islands or French Polynesia. Quite a lot of the men wear the traditional dress of a black sarong with a length of tapa (bark cloth) over it folded over a belt at the waist. The women are in skirts and dresses (the wearing of trousers isn't the custom for women), and well covered. The missionary influence still holds strong. Sunday is a real day of rest, no work of any sort, no taking boats out, no swimming for the children, and certainly no businesses or restaurants open (except the international resorts but none of those here in town). There's a nice little daily market that sells local produce (quite limited, no fertile volcanic soil here), and some high quality wood and bone carvings and basketwork.
The genoa furling machanism has been really stiff recently, and couldn't be turned at all manually, so Geoff took advantage of a beautiful calm dry sunny day yesterday to take the whole thing apart. Quite a job as you can imagine. Today he is reassembling it, having cleaned it all. Bearings OK thank goodness, and nothing broken, just a bit dirty. We thought we would be stuck here waiting for spare parts to be sent in from NZ. Hopefully that's the problem. If he can get it together by this afternoon we hope to go for a walk to a local look out point and nature reserve.

Hello from Tonga

Well, the wind dropped a bit too much yesterday, but it meant that we had a lovely gentle sail along the steep cliffs of the northern side of Vava'u - green and wooded, very steep to, and not a single sign of habitation in sight.  Then we turned into a huge fiord-like area,  very calm and it has lots of little anchorages.  We had the anchor down before sunset and the boat was completely still for the first time for weeks.  In bed just after 8pm, and we slept until 7.30am so feel like new this morning.

Tomorrow (Mon) we have to go to the customs dock to check in, evidently a 3-hour process and there are about a dozen new arrivals so we expect it to take quite a while.  Evidently there's room for about 3 boats on the dock, and the rest have to raft up to them, we'd rather not be the one against the huge black fenders of the dock designed for big ships!

This is the gathering place for all the boats we've met over the last months.  Some take off for NZ from Fiji, but most from here.  Luckily it's a huge area, lots of islands to explore so room for lots of boats.

We're now over the international date line - not geographically, but Tonga prefers to be on the same day as NZ and Oz.  So instead of being 11 hrs behind GMT we are now 13 hrs ahead. Position 18 41 431 S and 174 01 764 W

progress report

  Caught a good sized WAHOO this morning, having lost one lure and had 3 other bites on the line yesterday.  The wind has dropped but the seas haven't calmed to match so it's a bit sloppy.  Had a really good sail all yesterday with a perfect combination of wind, waves and sunshine.

  AT 1930 GMT we have 40 miles to go to our waypoint off Vava'u  Position 18 40 776 S and 173 18 394 W

Pegasus Thursday 11 September

With 15-20 kts wind, all sail out for the first time in ages, seas down, and sun up Pegasus is tootling along nicely.  Just passed Niue which we cannot now visit as a low pressure system is moving in Monday that will bring westerly winds and a lee shore.  The five boats that are there are leaving today. Ever onwards thus.  Position at 08:00 local time (19:00 GMT) is 19deg 10.69min S and 170deg 25.03 min W.  207nm to go.  We will have to average 7kts to get in in daylight which will be a very close call and one we will probably lose as the wind is predicted to ease.

Pegasus: position Wednesday 10

Looks like the squalls are over.  The last one gave us a resounding goodbye at 40 kts just as we were doing our ablutions.  We were heavily reefed so all we could do was point th nose dead downwind and hope.  We are now going better, without these  sudden gusts, in steadier 20 to 25kts of wind.  Position as of 07:30 local time (18:30 GMT) is 19deg 50.21 min S and 167deg 23.36 min W.  It has been too rough even to think about fishing so it is bully beef tonight.

In spite of the above all is well on board both with boat and us.  A few hiccups - I left the cabin window open on 'ventilation' and got half a wave in all over starboard bunk, books, and even inside a cupboard.  Also we had been given about a dozen loose bananas, and with the rolling of the boat they mashed themselves up and dribbled over the veg. rack onto all the other veg, onto the carpet, and down into the underfloor lockers.  Someone on the dock asked me the other day what we did with our time while on passage........

Pegasus reporting, Tuesday 9 September

Conditions a little better but still squally - 35 knots for 30 minutes last night.  As of 12:15 local time (23:15 GMT - yes we have crossed a time zone) we are at 20deg 09.911min S and 165deg 07.313min W.  We have 512nM to go, now doing just undet 7 kts.

When we reach Tonga, we believe we will be over the international date line so instead of being 12 hours behind GMT we will be 12 hrs in front.  Still caught us out - planned to reach Tonga Friday but it will be Saturday instead.

Pegasus, Monday 7 September

Rolling and banging along in 20kts of wind but still squally so we remain heavily reefed.  No the best conditions but progress is being made.  As of 13:00 local (23:00 GMT) we are at 20 deg 28.62minS and 162deg 21.1minW.  669 nM to go to Neiafu in Tonga. Niue is 455 miles away on the rum line (still an option).  We are carefully watching a low that is approaching from the N but it appears - hopefully - to be losing its character.

Pegasus on the move

We are on our way to Tonga.  We waited a week for the weather so clear but it hasn't.  Either now in a rather difficult window or wait at least another week.  So it is now and hoping for the best with a low coming down from the north.  It is rough with winds 25-30kts and confused seas.  As of 18:30 our time on Sunday 6th, (04:30 GMT on Monday) we are at 21deg 03.86minN an 160 deg 41.30min W.  We are making about 7kts and have 767 miles to go.  May call in at Niue (Savage Island) but that will depend on conditions then.

The Dinghy Saga

 Woke up one morning in Papeete (Taihiti) where we were moored to a dock in the centre of town, to find that our dinghy and outboard had disappeared in the night.  Regret to say that we assumed it was a local and that we would never see it again.  But, after three days of detective work, we found out who had taken it - a young Brit who couldn't get a lift by hitch-hiking back to the marina, so 'borrowed' our dinghy.  In the meantime we had spent hours in the police station, hours being taken round the local area in the marine police launch looking for it, and hours looking at new and horribly expensive replacements.  Without a dinghy a sailing boat is quite stuck, we anchor out most of the time, and need it to get to land.  By the time we tracked down the culprit, who was crewing aboard another yacht, the dinghy had disappeared from the place where he had left it.  However the yacht he was on told him that he would have to buy us a replacement, and that they would provide the funds up front.  So we have a new dinghy, but not as good as the old one, and the same model of outboard as the one we bought new in Panama only a few months ago.  And A has a debt of 3,000 pounds at the age of 20 and fresh out of university.  An expensive taxi ride for him.

Followed by the Bike Saga......

This happened on Bora Bora when P was with us. We hired a bike for P, and had our two folding bikes and cycled right round the island - about 32 km.  Near the end of the circuit we locked up the bikes at the bottom of a steep track leading up to a WW2 American gun emplacement and trenches.  When we got down again the bikes had disappeared!  P noticed a 'guilty looking' boy in the woods, and she and G gave chase while I ran to the road to try and get him stopped.  With all our shouting (yes, we really said "stop thief"!) and running there were plenty of spectators, and a jogger told us which house the boy had gone to, and some builders called the police.  The parents of the lad put great pressure on him to tell us where the bikes were, and they were found in the wood - still locked together.

  By this time a community policeman had arrived, and then two police vans - 8 police in all!  They stopped a tour guide who was passing as she could speak English so we even had an interpreter.  It appeared that the local lad had seen what had happened but wasn't involved (he must have run because he was scared) and the others, one of whom threw a large rock at G, disappeared in the other direction.  It is such a small community, and the whole incident caused such local interest that someone probably knows who did it - they wanted the (new) hired mountain bike, not our bikes of course.  We were very pleased to see the bikes again, only slightly the worse for wear for having been carried/dragged together into the bushes.

  So the sailing life isn't all sailing!  However we have had P on board for 3 weeks, and have sailed the Society Islands fairly thoroughly.  In Moorea went to a spot where stingrays come to be fed.  A bit touristy (the rays have their stings cut off), but the rays come right up to you and take bits of fish from your hand.  We didn't take food for them, but there were enough people around who had, tinned sardines seemed just as welcome, so we had a close-up view.  Left the island with a good supply of small sweet pineapples which grow so well on the volcanic soil of Tahiti and Moorea. It was a night sail to Huahine, about 80 miles.  We chose a rough night, winds 25 knots which wasn't too bad, but the seas were big and we were running with the wind so rolling like mad.  Everything rattling and banging and none of us got much sleep, it was so nice to get into the calm shelter of the island early in the morning.

  Huahine is really two islands very close together and connected by a short bridge.  We explored the northern island by bike, filling our rucksacks with a tasty fruit called 'star apples' (not star fruit) bought at the roadside, and also some mangoes picked from a wayside tree, so were fairly heavily laden for much of the day but had plenty of fruity refreshment.  There were plenty of stops en route - a huge complex of ancient 'marae' or religious sites consisting of stone platforms and upright slabs of stone.  Some were beside the sea, and some up steep paved tracks through thick forest - plenty of mosquitoes. There was a vanilla farm to visit, and we hadn't realised that the pods grow on a sort of vine (the tourist info says it is an orchid??)  Only one harvest a year, then the pods are dried in the sun for 3 hrs a day for 3 months, so no wonder they are quite expensive to buy.  We've seen the pods used to make sweet-smelling bracelets, and also as a sauce for fish.  Don't fancy the latter.  Another break to take a short boat ride out to a pearl farm in the middle of the lagoon, with  demonstrations of how the oysters are prepared and a final stop was to see some sacred blue-eyed eels that live in a small river.  They come to the bank to be fed (tinned sardines again).  There's a taboo ('tapu') on eating them.

  We had hoped that there would be some dancing for P to see, so were pleased to hear that there was a local 'soiree' in the little town.  Actually it was a 20 min walk out of town, very dark and no pavement but luckily not very much traffic.  A large marquee had been erected with lots of food stalls and a bouncy castle around it.  It looked as though the whole town was there, and all evening people were coming and going into the marquee with food, and children were playing around, a real local event, not put on for tourists which was nice.  Many women were dressed in traditional brightly coloured mumus with coronets of flowers on their heads, and the men with necklaces of shells and sharks teeth and coronets of leaves and bark.  The dancing was great fun, lots of hip swinging and foot stamping to drums and guitars.  As we noticed before in Papeete, the dancers are all sizes, and those with rolls of fat dance as enthusiastically as the skinny ones, it's just not considered important. We have some good photos which hopefully will get on the blog in due course.

  Bora Bora was the last island we visited before leaving French Polynesia.  It has a population of 5,000, 50% of whom have arrived in the last 10 yrs or so to work in the tourist industry.  There are lots of resort complexes owned by Intercontinental, Sofitel, Club Med etc etc, ie international not local;  all very upmarket and self-contained, so the island outside these walled complexes appears poorer and less well-kept than the other islands in the group.  Local little restaurants and bars are only used by independent travellers, cruising people and Sunsail charter clients.  Whereas the other islands have income outside tourism - pearls, vanilla, pineapples etc., in Bora Bora there is nothing, even much of the artisan stuff in the shops is brought in from elsewhere.  A strange contrast.  The resorts all consist of thatched cottages built on stilts out over the water so you can swim in beautiful clear blue sea straight from your terrace.  And the lagoon is calm and has lovely colours, almost like the calendar pictures.

Now we have reached the Cook islands, a 500 mile, 3 night sail, and are in Rarotonga.