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Lobsters?

by KC2RIY, on October 26th, 2010 (Gryphon 2, Recently Updated, Sara 2, Sea Mist, Tonga)

At 6:30am, John from Sea Mist dropped by and picked me up to go ashore. We trecked the 1/2 mile across the island to the village on the windward side to find the chap who bought lobsters from the overnight fishermen and sold them on. With all our luck finding them ourselves, this represented our best chance. It turned out the seas had been too rough the night before so noone had brought any in. So it turns out we can’t even buy them.

On the way back to the wharf we found Peter who had agreed to find us some fruit. After nearly a couple of hours of trekking through the plantations outside of the village we had a few bags full of lemons, mangoes and papaya. At the wharf we negotiated a price for it all and headed back.

During the morning I did a few minor projects. I tend not to mention this in the blog these days as I think it’s a little boring to write about and mainly I tend to forget about it when I get round to writing the blog.

Shortly before 12:30am John picked all three of us up to go ashore for the dinner we had been offered by Miimi in the village. Another trek across the island and we met up with Chris and John from Sara 2 and Lorraine and Chris from Gryphon 2. Cheryl and Ian from Sea Mist had stayed behind as neither were into sea food and we had been promised fish and lobster. On entering Miimi’s house we saw that our luck was in. There were indeed lobsters on the table. As seems to be the custom, the eight of us guests sat down to a prepared dinner while Miimi, her husband and other relatives were around. Two of them spent the entire dinner wafting fans to keep the flies away from us. The dinner was tasty and filling. At the end, after some conversation, we offered the gifts we’d all brought from our boats to Miimi who seemed quite pleased.

The afternoon, such that was left, was spent back on the boat generally relaxing.

Today we’ll definitely be moving on. Not without one more trip ashore to see if we can pick up lobsters today. You never know.

Category: Gryphon 2, Recently Updated, Sara 2, Sea Mist, Tonga | Here is my comment

Ha’afeva

by KC2RIY, on October 25th, 2010 (Gryphon 2, Kamaya, Leu Cat, Sara 2, Sea Mist, Tonga)

For our sail to Ha’afeva I again gave Helen and Ben a challenge. This was to determine the best route and plot this into the chart plotter. There was a choice of going around the north or south of the island and based on wind direction, etc. it was really up to them. They decided to go head sail only. With 20 knots of wind this was a reasonable thing to do. I performed my usual (for now) role at the helm to get us off the anchor but handed over to them to set the head sail, get us out from the reef and sail us over to Ha’afeva.

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On arrival we saw Sea Mist and Leu Cat here with Kamaya just raising their anchor. Behind us Sara 2 was arriving. The Sea Mists having been here 24 hours were just going ashore at the same time as we were so we ended up hiking the road across the island to the village together. In the village we found a chap who sells lobsters and agreed to pick up two each the following morning.

Later on during our walk around the village we were greeted by Miimi who invited us over to lunch the following day. We’d heard about this before and were half hoping this would happen. The custom is they invite us to lunch and we bring gifts from the boat. She promised us sea food, including more lobster.

On the way back we bumped into another local called Peter who I think wanted to invite us to lunch but on discovering we’d been invited by Miimi he offered us (probably to sell) some mangoes. We were interested but suggested we’d bring some bags the following day when we collected the lobsters.

Back in the dinghy we dropped by Leu Cat to say hello as we hadn’t spoken to them since Tahiti although we had seen them in Nieafu. As we eventually arrived back at Dignity we were offered a generous chunk of Wahoo from Griffon 2 who’d also just arrived. They’d caught a 36lb fish and had too much for themselves. That was turned into a delicious curry for the evening.

Right now I’m downloading the day’s weather forecasts while I wait to go ashore with John from Sea Mist to get our lobsters and mangoes.

Category: Gryphon 2, Kamaya, Leu Cat, Sara 2, Sea Mist, Tonga | Here is my comment

Staying put

by KC2RIY, on October 24th, 2010 (Tonga)

When I made my attempt to rally the troops to sail to our next destination I met a resounding wall of desire to stay put for the day. So that’s what we did. Helen read. Ben’s back to studying for his next actuary exam mixed with playing on his computer. I did a bit more paper work and played some games too. In the evening we finished the first series of Prison Break.

Power wise we’re doing pretty good. Sitting behind a thin strip of sand joining the islands we’re exposed to the 17-22 knots of trade winds blowing through while being protected from the swell. The wind generator is certainly earning it’s keep as we’re power neutral despite running 2-3 laptops throughout the day and fridge, freezer and TV in the evenings.

Category: Tonga | Here is my comment

Uonukuhihifo

by KC2RIY, on October 23rd, 2010 (Sea Mist, Tonga)

Try saying that with a mouthful of biscuit crumbs.

We decided not to stay at the last stop setting sail mid-morning. The wind was up around 20 knots and I decided it would be a good day to give Ben and Helen some sailing practice. Although there was a pass that would make the trip to Uonukuhihifo somewhat simpler I decided to go the long way around the reef forcing us to make more turns and put in a lot of tacks to recover the distance we’d lose against the wind. I more or less told them to work out how they would work together to bring the boat to the anchorage and stood back to keep an eye on things. It was a good exercise as by the end both had noticeably improved on their handling of the boat. With the big and challenging trip to NZ ahead of this we’ll need more of this.

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Arriving at Uonukuhihifo we discovered we were the only ones there. This was not to last as Sea Mist had the same intentions – we’re both using the same guide book and hence are choosing more or less the same anchorages. Ben and I went ashore and walked around the island scouting out possible places to go lobstering and somewhere to have a fire in the evening. Uonukuhihifo turned out to be too exposed to the wind for a fire so we went over to Uonukuhahaki and found a good spot and spent some time nearby collecting firewood.

We invited the Sea Mists ashore for company around the fire and around 6pm we lit up spending a pleasant few hours chewing the cud ashore. Ben, Ian and I had agreed to come out at 6:30am on the reef to hunt lobsters. However, when I woke this morning the continued trades have picked up the seas on the outer reef making the prospects of snorkeling there less than inviting.

We’re probably going to head west today to the island of Ha’afeva. Sea Mist have the same plans so we’ll be in lockstep for a while still.

Category: Sea Mist, Tonga | Here is my comment

Uoleva

by KC2RIY, on October 22nd, 2010 (Sea Mist, Sympatica, Tonga, Visions of Johanna)

Before we left Pangai I did one more trip ashore to do some final internetting, buy some more phone time and get some bread. On the way back I saw a tent set up and underneath they were cooking chicken dinners. I managed to get a nice pile of chicken for about 5 bucks which I took back to the boat for our brunch.

Shortly after we raised the anchor and, with the trade winds reasserting themselves, hoisted the sails for our 5nm sail to Uoleva.

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Already in the anchorage were Sympatica and Visions of Johanna. Behind us, coming to the same anchorage, was Sea Mist – even though we’d not discussed our plans. Somehow we ended up snoozing much of the afternoon. Bill from Visions borrowed our hookah to clean his bottom as well as inviting us, the Sea Mists and Sympaticas over for cocktails later. Although we came here for a nice walk along the beach we never found the time to do it.

We had a good evening aboard Visions – Bill being liberal with the rum cocktails. We got the usual boat tour which was quite amazing. Bill had designed a lot of the interior himself. The boat is a whopping 62ft long but he’s laid out the interior for convenience rather than packing in as many state rooms as possible. His engine room is a picture of redundancy.

Not sure what we’ll do today. Maybe we’ll go ashore or perhaps just push on. Maybe both.

Category: Sea Mist, Sympatica, Tonga, Visions of Johanna | Here is my comment
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