It would be really nice to say that we started our day with a lobster breakfast having done a quick trade with some locals. It really would. So I will.
Just as we were preparing breakfast Ben called out to say we had some visitors. I quickly made myself decent and went to see who was here. A couple of Tongans were here in their dugout canoe with three lobsters for trade – two quite big and one enormous. They asked if we had any alcohol. As it happened, we did. We’d bought some Tongan spirits in Neiafu which we’d grown to dislike. Having no purpose with it ourselves we have them a bottle of the local ‘whiskey’ if you can call it that. Soon we had the lobsters in the pot. We could not fit all three in at once so the two smaller ones went in first and then the large one. A totally delicious breakfast.
The Tongans had told us we could find more on the reef near our boat so later that morning Ben and I went out in search of them. The reef turned out to be a fascinating place to explore – one of our best snorkels to date. There were plenty of small underwater caves we could swim in and the odd tunnel we couldn’t. But we found no lobsters of our own. We swam round to where La Tortue had sunk and spent a while peering inside. It was about 20ft down so easy enough to reach and stay for a while. We decided the whole place was fit to scuba dive.
Back at the boat we decided not to get out of our wetsuits but to ready the hookah so we could start fine cleaning the hulls. When we get to New Zealand we understand we’ll be inspected and if there’s much growth we’ll be forced to haul out and be cleaned off – all at our own expense. We almost finished the port hull before Ben got too cold and the fuel ran out in the hookah so we stopped there.
After a couple of hours of warming up we decided to go ashore. A second vessel, Tahina, arrived. We’d briefly met Frank and Karen in the past but had yet to get to know them. We called them on the radio to see if they were interested in going ashore. They had lunch to prepare but agreed to meet up later.
As we headed in, the dugout canoe, this time with three aboard, headed out to Tahina. We were met on the beach by another local who offered to show us around the island. We learned there were nine people on the island. They all lived on Nomuka but were here for three weeks to fish. He showed us where they were drying out fish and octopus for eventual sale to New Zealand in December. We climbed to the top of a local promontory for a great view all around before heading back into the depths of the island. The paths, such as there were any, were sporadic and mainly grown over. He had to use his machete to clear the way a lot of the time. At the peak of the island he cleared a view out to the bay by cutting away the undergrowth blocking the view. Our last stop was a beach on the far side of the peak where he opened up coconuts for us to drink from and eat – totally delicious.
He then took us back over the top of the island and down to their camp where we met Frank from Tahina and his new crewmate, Paul. We learned from them that the third man in the dugout – the elder – was pissed as a fart. He’d drunk most of the booze we’d traded earlier for our lobsters. As cruisers do we were soon chatting and had arranged for evening nibbles and beers – this time aboard Tahina.
Another short rest and we were over to Tahina. Frank turned out to have an interesting history, was more than a bit of a tech head who also knew the google founders personally. We’d heard about someone with a cool phone with an application that could show and identify the night sky wherever it was pointed. It turned out to be Frank. He also has a hobby flying kites over islands and photographing them from low altitude and feeding the images to Google for their Google Earth application.
Plans for today are to do our dive. Frank will probably join us. In the afternoon we hope to finish cleaning the port hull and to start and finish the starboard. Tomorrow we may move off to Nuku’alofa. The wind has calmed which is nice and the seas should now be settling.