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by KC2RIY, on October 6th, 2010 ( Callypso, Imagine, Kamaya, Tonga) The boat hadn’t moved too far from the buoy we dropped the night before. The bottom was about 30 feet down which is shallow enough to do some exploration with just a snorkel. I took an early morning dip hoping to find the missing fork but had no luck. I even moved the weight bad to see if we had a lucky (unlucky) covering and turned over a few large starfish. After the morning nets I tried again, this time with my tank on. I spent about 25 minutes searching around. I found some discarded carrots and the bones we through over the night before but no fork. There were a few deep holes from sea critters and I can only imagine it slid down one of those.
Shortly after this failed effort we raised the sails and set off. The winds were so light we motor sailed all the way to Euakafa threading our way through the pass. With our GPS track and memories of the features it was a lot easier this time.
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Euakafa is listed as having great snorkeling on the south side and a pleasant walk up to the summit where one can find the tomb of a princess. We arrived around midday to find Tim from Kamaya and Paul from Callypso working with Stuart (Imagine) on his four stroke engine. They’d all been out on the south side earlier in the day and had been tipped by a wave flipping the dinghy in the process. They’d had a bit of an adventure retrieving what they could from the flipped dinghy and even recovered some parts from the bottom at 70ft. I offered to help and lent some ignition fluid I’d acquired all the way back in Bequia when our hookah flipped. Stuart turned out to have some of that but I was ultimately able to help by giving some spare oil to allow another flush.
In the afternoon Stuart (Imagine), Paul and Maureen (Callypso) and we all headed ashore to ascend the trail to the summit. It was quite a pleasant walk. We reached the site of the tomb first. Typical for Tonga there was no information. Just a series of slabs partially covering a deep hole now empty of deceased princess. The trail continued onwards to a bluff overlooking the anchorage giving us a great view to the north.
We learned on the walk that Callypso had some TV Series we needed and we had some they did so after the walk we were able to exchange DVDs, etc.
We spent the evening watching one movie and one episode of Top Gear which has become a recent routine. Now that we have a complete collection of Prison Break we could well get into that soon.
No meaningful progress on our charger. We have received one forwarded communication which confirms the charger has reached the UPS office but is awaiting payment by some named individual presumably in someone’s finance office somewhere on this planet. No suggestion that anyone was doing anything about this nor any hint that our recent requests to have it sent to Tongatapu (instead of here) have been heeded. Certainly no tracking reference which would be a solid assurance that it’s on it’s way somewhere. We first requested assistance on the warranty replacement on August 18th. Anyone impressed?
by KC2RIY, on September 25th, 2010 ( A Cappella, Anthem, Bamboozle, Callisto, Desue, Freezing Rain, Imagine, Inspiration Lady, Jackster, Kamaya, Mojo, Paleides, Passages, Scream, Sea Mist, Tonga, Trim, Tyee, Visions of Johanna) The Jackster’s showed up and anchored next to us around midday. We soon had them over to share our experiences of the last few months as well as abandoning our plans to hoist the main sail in favour of a few beers.
Around 6pm we headed ashore to Ano Beach for the ferry service to the Full Moon Party. Sadly, the ferry service was the weak link of the whole evening requiring some folks to wait over two hours for their turn to board and make the passage round to the party. Fortunately we made it over on the second one out so we didn’t have to wait too long.
The party was a lot of fun. A lot of the people we have previously mentioned on our blog were there. Most people on their way to New Zealand this year are either now in Tonga or soon to be arriving. I’m probably missing a few but those that we can put our heads together and remember are : A Cappella, Anthem, Bamboozle, Callisto, Delos, Freezing Rain, Imagine, Inspiration Lady, Jackster, Kamaya, Mojo, Paleides, Passages, Scream, Sea Mist, Trim, Tyee & Visions of Johanna. There were many others and we made some new acquaintances along the way.
A lot of effort had been put into things including three 10 minute shows of which Ben played a part (dressed as a skeleton) in the first and third. Not everything went smoothly but it was all appreciated.
We didn’t get back until after midnight. We didn’t see Ben until the following morning around 11am which I saw him on the ferry. I dinghied over and he jumped in the water to avoid the trip to the beach. He hadn’t slept at all having had the beer and food go free around 3am and partying into the morning followed by helping to clear up.
We have some pictures, courtesy of Ann from Callisto, which will be posted when we can get a connection.
Tomorrow the fun continues so we’ll be off early round to Neiafu.
We’re continuing our push south towards a staging point for our run to eclipse umbral path on July 11th. This time we moved close to Teahupoo where Bamboozle are anchored. On the way we saw Imagine and Sea Mist heading out into rough water so we bid them farewell over the radio.
Shortly after arriving John and Kara, a young couple sailing on Orca a Cape Dory 30, rowed over. They’d bought one too many baguettes and offered us their spare. We invited them aboard and ended up sharing a beer and lunch with them. As they travel without a fridge the cold beer was a real treat for them.
We relaxed the afternoon away before preparing for a curry dinner with the Bamboozles in the evening. A jolly time was had.
This morning I’ve brought myself up to date with our passage log. Currently we stand at 9,384nm sailed to date with John covering over 6,100nm of that with us.
by KC2RIY, on July 7th, 2010 ( Imagine, Sea Mist, Society Islands) I started the day going ashore to collect baguettes. By prior agreement I picked up a couple each for Sea Mist and Imagine too. Unfortunately they weren’t as fresh as I’d hoped seeming to be left overs from the previous evening. I’d probably gone too early.
Later in the morning I set about finding the current cause of the port bilge pump going off. The pipe that runs from the port bow locker looked a little damp so I emptied out the port bow locker and looked around there for possible causes. There were no stains that suggested a significant flow. The woodwork was damp but this could be explained by the unemptied hose that had been placed there. That could have contributed some water that would eventually make it to the bilge but certainly didn’t explain the whole picture. I emptied out the bottom of the port bow locker and gave it a clean.
Back to the bilge I noticed it had filled some more. I pumped out the water and tested it. It wasn’t clean water but it was nowhere near the salinity of seawater. That was a good clue as it suggested the source was internal. The water being dirty I suspected a leak in the shower. There was a possibility it could be coming from under the shower but we’d only know that through monitoring. On inspecting the pipework I noticed another possibility. Both the second bilge pump and the shower sump pump teed into the same pipe which went upwards and along the hull to the exit through hull further back. If the one way valves in the bilge pump were both slightly open then some of the water from the shower could be backing through the bilge pump and into the bilge.
To test this I put a cup under the strainer for the bilge pump and took a shower to wash off the sweat and dirt from working in the port bow locker. Lo and behold, the cup began to fill a little following my brief shower. I therefore removed the pump fittings and then the pump from the bulkhead before taking it outside to clean. The rubber flaps comprising the one way valves were indeed a little crusty and there was a dead beetle jamming one of them open. This would also explain why the bilge always refills a little after pumping out.
I cleaned it all up, reassembled the pump and reinstalled it. The same cup test and another shower revealed no backfill. I left the test in place and a few hours later when Helen had a shower I still so no water. I was pleased.
Thinking back I think the bilge pump must have been gradually building up a small amount of crud. When the leak around the exhaust occurred a 2-3 weeks ago the bilge pumps were put to use and perhaps then the beetle got sucked in and made the situation worse. Hence, once I fixed the initial leak I was left with the bilge alarm going off but for a new cause. I am pleased the situation is resolved.
During all this time Helen cleaned out the starboard hull ready for Ben’s arrival.
In the afternoon we did little more than read and relax. Both Imagine and Sea Mist headed off. We’d heard that our packages had arrived but hadn’t received any confirmation that we had all the parts. Defender had said (perhaps in error) that the order had been split into two packages and without that confirmation I couldn’t know if we were done yet. We therefore had to hang around for this confirmation. We wanted to eat out so this wasn’t so bad. In the evening we went ashore. To stretch our legs we walked back along the main road far enough to see the fort and to see the sea on the eastern side of the isthmus. On the way back we popped into the larger Champion supermarket in town and picked up a few things. We then went to the restaurant where we had a very nice Chinese meal.
Today we’ll be definitely out of here. We have now received confirmation that all is with Ben and so we can finally relax knowing there is nothing further to chase. We have three more nights to spend behind the reefs around Tahiti-Iti, the southern end of Tahiti, before we dash south for the eclipse.
by steve, on July 6th, 2010 ( Imagine, Sea Mist, Society Islands) The weather cleared up soon after I wrote the previous entry so we decided to go ashore and see if we could find the public gardens mentioned in our guide book. The guidebook gave the position as being 2.7km west of the museum entrance so I created a waypoint on my portable GPS in the approximate position and went off to see  what we could find. At that spot we found a shallow reef close to the road. It was just deep enough to dinghy over to the road and chained the dinghy to a lamp post. From there we had a very short walk to the public gardens.
Although a bit noisy from the road the public gardens were very pretty and well kept. Having visited the expensive private gardens and the free public gardens I would recommend to anyone the latter. The gardens contained plenty of flowers, some nice lily ponds, some water features and a natural  waterfall. The only downside was that the public gardens were quite a bit smaller than the private ones.
The really big surprise was a marked trail up the hillside off the back of the gardens. There were a few trail options – the longest advertised as a two hour hike which we decided to take. The beginning of the trail was quite muddy no doubt influenced by the recent rain. While slippery the path was made easily manageable by plenty of well placed ropes to hang onto. Soon, the trail climbed into pine forests. This was a total  surprise. We had not expected pine forests in Tahiti. The path underfoot was soft with a bedding of pine needles and leveled out to a gentle incline. From time to time we would get excellent views of the reef outside.
The entire hike was a delight made more so by the fact that we had no idea it was there. It was not mentioned in any of the guides we had. We radioed back to Imagine and Sea Mist to  let them know of our discovery. We knew John on Sea Mist was an avid hiker and would not want to miss this. We were walking anti-clockwise round the outer loop so we suggested to John that he go clockwise so that we would at least meet up somewhere.
At the highest point of the hike a path led off that wasn’t advertised. We checked it out for about 5 minutes in case there was a viewpoint nearby. The path definitely went somewhere but in the end  we decided to turn back as as far as we knew it could have crossed the island.
On the way down we again saw some great views. We agreed that if someone had transported us here randomly and we opened our eyes we would not have guessed we were in Tahiti or some other tropical island. Being on the south side of the island the air was cooler than normal which added to the feeling.
We reached the bottom without seeing John. Our next stop was to visit the public springs a couple of hundred meters to the west. We soon found a car park at the end of a stream with some people visibly bathing a short way up the stream.  There we found a couple of pools surround natural upwelling of water from the hills. Hot and sweaty from our recent hike we immersed ourselves in the cold mountain water. It was invigorating.
On the way back to the dinghy we bumped into John who had just come down from the hike. We figured he must have passed us by when we were off on the side trail. We let him know where the pools were so he could cool off.
On the way back we passed by Imagine who invited us to stop by for lunch which we accepted. While there John passed and joined us. We didn’t stay long as we were all ready to head east to the  anchorage near the town of Taravao. Although we departed first, Sea Mist soon powered past us. The passage was simple enough as we’ve developed experience and confidence navigating the reefs in the last few days.
As soon as we’d arrived we checked for an internet connection and found two subscription services of which we have time on both. I was able to check our remaining internet orders and both are due for delivery on the 6th of July which is encouraging. It will be a relief for all when these are in as I know it’s inconveniencing Ben to arrange to have someone in to receive them.
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We decided to explore the town of Taravao so we dinghied ashore and tied off to a small jetty. We had to walk past a car wrecking site before finding the town. We wanted to find somewhere we could eat out as well as see what shops there were. We found a big ACE hardware store as well as a few supermarkets. There were a number of restaurants but none that really piqued our fancy. We walked about 3-4 miles before picking up some pizzas to eat that evening. On the way back we found a restaurant that we liked the look of about 50 yards in the opposite direction from the town from the road that led back to the where we’d left the dinghy. We may go there this evening.
We’ll stay here for the day and catch up with some internet things. Hopefully our parts will arrived today and we can head off for a relaxed few days not having to worry about things back home. We’ve been able to upload recent pictures so a few new albums should be available on our photos page.
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