Pitufa.at

Yesterday it was blowing hard from the Southeast again, we set the windvane to ‘go-as-hard-as-you-can’ and Wayne Vaney sailed Pitufa straight towards Niue. When we contemplated the evening grib, we found that he was probably right: there’s a phase with easterly winds coming up–no good beating into that. Instead we decided to take a break in Niue and wait for the next clocking of the wind.

In the evening the wind freshened up even more during a squall, of course just then the fishing line stretched out and Christian and I cried out at the same time: oh, no! Fish always seem to bite in the least convenient conditions. Christian had to tie himself to the backstay with the harness, while he was fighting the biggest mahi-mahi we’ve caught so far. Butchering the 1.5 m fish on the stomping aft deck was a bloody mess, but at least we have the fridge full of fish again, a very happy cat and enough to give out some to our neighbours in the buoy field of Niue.

We arrived in Niue at 2 o’clock in the morning, but knowing the mooring field from our last stop here (who would have thought that we’d come back so quickly…) it wasn’t a big deal to pick up a buoy in the dark. This morning we cleaned the salt of the decks outside and the passage-chaos inside and now we’re waiting for the officials to check us into the country.

Tonga’s a developing country, but the hospital is surprisingly well equipped, the staff friendly, services are free for locals and very cheap for non-residents, but they don’t have enough doctors (a few GPs, one ear-nose-throat specialist, a pediatrician, a radiologist, one surgeon who has to play specialist for everything else and two part-time surgeons) and therefore the waiting halls are full–we spent 30 hours in July just waiting for appointments. Dr. Kolini (the surgeon) was willing to find the reason(s) for Christian’s nonspecific symptoms (back problems, stomach pains, weight loss) and tried a blood analysis, ultrasound, a CT scan (yes, they even have a scanner) and even an endoscopy, but to no avail. Everything seems normal, but Christian’s still not feeling better. In Tahiti the medical system is at a European level–it’s just cheaper and waiting times are shorter than e.g. in Austria. In the meantime we try back exercises (well, not during this rough passage now) a
nd a gluten free diet (today I made a tapioca-rice-flour flatbread with Pitufa stomping 40 degrees on the wind in 25 knots apparent and heeling quite a bit).

Hundreds of boats sail across the Pacific towards the west each year riding the easterly trades, but only a handful sails eastwards–at least in the trade wind belt. Tough boats from New Zealand who want to sail to French Poly take a ride on the westerlies way down south in the ‘roaring fourties’ and ‘screaming fifties’–their names speak for themselves… When I checked in on the radio net for boats on passage this morning, I had to repeat our course twice, until the moderator finally believed me and added ‘oh, you’re going in the wrong direction’.

We didn’t take this decision lightly, but Pitufa sails well to windward and we’ve done it before when going from Tahiti to the Gambier and from Tahiti to the Marquesas. We set out yesterday in full foul-weather gear into a southerly wind of 20 knots in pouring rain and only about 18 degrees Celsius at the end of a trough that brought nasty weather, but we wanted to get a headstart going with this system. We got seasick like never before with this rough start–poor Leeloo was the only one to throw up though (3 times, to make up for the rest of the crew), but at least we made 120 nm on the first day. Today it’s much more pleasant, sunny and light winds (Leeloo’s already munching cat food again), but while the grib files insist that we have 15 knots from the south, we get 10 knots from the east-southeast instead–and are driven way to far north. Well, Wayne Vaney the windvane is set on a windangle of 50 degrees and we’ll see where he’ll take us. The Cook Islands are spread out f
rom north to south, so we’re bound to manage to get to one of them.

Cruising’s not much fun when you’re not fit and Christian hasn’t felt well since May. We tried everything out the Tongan health system has to offer, but still have no diagnosis. After long pondering we’ve therefore decided to sail back to Tahiti. New Zealand would have been another option, but it’s winter there and difficult with the cat, sailing to Fiji and flying back to Austria would have been other possibility, but then who knows how long that quest would have taken.
Tahiti’s the only option where we can all go together, but it won’t be easy sailing 1500 nm against the prevailing winds.

Just north of Tonga’s densely populated main island Tongatapu a barrier reef with a few tiny motus on it extends about 5 nm east and another 5 nm north. Yesterday we took Pitufa up to the south-eastern corner of this reef–just 8 miles as the seagull flies, but we still took 4 hours for this stretch of careful reef navigation (about 12 nm around the reef). The motus here are pretty with fine, golden sand, a dense vegetation, but it seems that (fortunately) hardly anybody comes here. The anchorages are not mentioned in cruising guides, only the motu closest to Nuku’alofa has a tourist resort on it, so we share this quiet corner just with a few birds.

Today we walked around the motu next to our anchorage and it reminded us a lot of the motus in the Tuamotus or Gambier. Sadly the resemblance ends when you look into the water: the coral seems to be mostly dead and the rocks are just covered in a coarse, brown algae that overgrows the reefs once the coral’s dead (or maybe it suffocates coral underneath?). This plant seems to dominate the underwater landscape not only in the Society Islands of French Polynesia, but also here around Tongatapu. We’ve seen hardly any fish so far–the fishermen who sell bags of colourful reef fish (there is no ciguatera here) on the market have to go further and further to find some catch. We haven’t seen any tuna or mahi-mahi at the fishmarket at all (fished empty?). In town there are signs at many buildings (hospital, harbour extension, etc.) that praise ‘the people of Japan’ as sponsors–probably they got fishing rights and a vote at the International Whaling Commission in exchange. We hope tha
t the reefs are in better shape around the other archipelagos of Tonga.

After a period of southerly winds, the breeze has shifted to the East and it’s much warmer, finally it’s pleasant enough to sit in the cockpit without hoodie and socks The water in our 2.5 m shallow anchorage has reached 26°C again (after the chilly 24°C of last week).

Yesterday the wind turned to the west and will stay like this for a few days and we sailed 6 miles to a motu with an anchorage that gives good shelter from the west. The entrance through the reef into the lagoon off Motu Atata is a bit tricky, but we planned it with the help of SAS planet (satellite pictures) and found a nice, sandy spot.

Atata is a pretty palmfringed island just off the coast of Tongatapu and there’s one small resort in the South where we are anchored and a little village up North. Today is Sunday and we heard singing from the church this morning, but we’re anchored far enough from the motu to be hidden from curious eyes, so we dared to do some laundry, despite the strict rules about Sunday rest

The westerly wind brought pleasantly warm air with it and for once it’s warm enough to sunbath on deck and go swimming without goose bumps. According to the Tongan homepage men should wear long shorts for swimming and women long shorts and shirts, but out here we can just hop in with swim pants/bikini bottom.

Yesterday we reached Nuku Alofa (Tonga’s capital) after a pleasantly eventless passage. During the last night we had to slow down to reach the reef passage in daylight, first we put the main into the second reef, then we rolled up the genoa, then we took the main sail down completely and were still going too fast just under bare poles running in 25 knots of wind… After a passage we are usually quite exhausted, just clean up the boat a bit, get the deck saltfree for Leeloo’s paws, quaff a bottle of sparkling wind and drop into the bunk. This time everything was different: we arrived on a Friday and had to clear in immediately or be confined to the boat until the next working day on Tuesday. So right after dropping the anchor we took the dinghy one mile to the port, asked our way to customs and started filling in forms, but then we were told that we’d have to take Pitufa to the quarantine pier for an inspection afterwards. When the lady from the quarantine office heard that
we had a cat she asked whether we had a cage to confine ‘it’ in. ‘It’ would have to stay in that cage during our visit to Tonga and a vet would have to come daily to inspect the health status. She ignored our protests that according to our info a cat that would not be imported only had to remain on board all the time. What now? Leave for Fiji without further ado?

We dinghied back to Pitufa against a bumpy windsea, arrived soaking wet, lifted the anchor and motored to the harbour and went with the stern to the quarantine pier, where the officials soon showed up. The guy from the health ministry filled in a form in the cockpit (without even ask about our health), the quarantine lady refrained from an inspection, but munched chocolate cookies in the cockpit (she then asked for a bag to take the rest of the cookies back home) and the young man who had accompanied her only gave me an embarrassed smile when I asked whether he was the local vet (yeah, something like that…) and didn’t even want to see the cat and was not interested in further visits… Of course they all cashed in a fee, but we’re still a bit puzzled, why cruisers can’t just fill in the forms at the office, but have to take the boat to the pier, manoeuvring the boat in close quarters in an overtired state to have inspectors aboard who then don’t inspect anything.

Anyway, now we’re legally here and ready for Tonga!