Hi everyone,
We spent two weeks in the Tonga island group of Ha'apai. The first week was spent anchored off Pangai during strong winds. We then cleared out domestically and island hopped our way south to Tongatapu, visiting four anchorages along the way. We sailed in company with OCC sv Thestral, a Northwind 435.
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| Dawn departure from Telefesia |
Here's our overall track and graphs...
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| Track |
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| Graphs |
Our 6 days anchored off Pangai flew by. On windy days we stayed aboard and 'spring cleaned' the boat. Wouldn't want NZ biosecurity to find any evidence of infestation! Thankfully all we cleaned up was dust. Perfectly dry bilges and all lockers clean.
On better days we dinghied ashore to look around town. Nice bread in the supermarkets. Otherwise we only bought eggs and (drum roll) chocolate. At last we can keep chocolate without refrigerating, so it's allowed back aboard. Yay! Temperatures are now about 22 to 26C.
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| Pangai anchorage |
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| Pangai port from anchorage |
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| Slippery dinghy dock |
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| Ships anchor-off too |
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| In town |
On the Friday we did our domestic clear-out and motored down to the Uoleva Island anchorage. The water was cleaner and clearer there. We spent a couple of afternoons swimming on the boat to clean the hull. We concentrated on recesses and niches including stern tube, skeg-rudder gap, top of rudder, cockpit drains and thru-hulls.
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| Uoleva Island anchorage |
On Monday we had a great 18nm sail WSW to Haafeva. Winds were moderate SE giving us a very pleasant beam reach. The anchorage was well protected during our two night stay and hull cleaning continued, along with a morning coffee on Thestral.
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| Haafeva |
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| Haafeva dawn |
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| With sv Thestral at Haafeva |
On Wednesday we headed 22nm S to Nomuka. Winds were stronger with a little more S, making this a close reach but a great sail. We motored into the breeze between Nomuka and Nomuka Iki to reach the anchorage. We tucked in behind the reef in 3-4m of water over deep sand. With a well established ESE wind of 15G20 1m waves were getting over the reef at high tide. So this is an anchorage for shelter not fun!
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| Nomuka |
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| In company with sv Thestral |
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| Anchored in lee of reef off Nomuka Iki |
On Thursday we headed 16nm onward S to Telefesia Island. Another great sail where we continued our run of keeping ahead of Thestral. The charts of the island are very inaccurate. There's more water than shown within the bay on the island's W side. We anchored too early and ended up in 8m over 50/50 sand/bombies - not good! We should have used the satellite imagery which shows a sandy bottom further in. It's a spectacular island with nesting flocks of boobies and frigate birds.
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| Kelefesia |
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| Anchored at Kelefesia Island |
On Friday we departed Kelefesia after first getting the chain clear of a bombie. Could have been ugly but we were lucky. From there we sailed SSW to Tongatapu. It was supposed to be a light SE wind but rapidly became a moderate SSE and we were hard on the wind. Another great sail. It was such fun we stood on into the harbour and tacked E towards the anchorage, only using the engine for the last mile. By then it was drizzling and the wind was picking up. Big Mama's anchorage was a little busy so we headed over to the SE side of the bay to anchor for the night.
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| Nuku'alofa Arrival |
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| Beating into Nuku'alofa Harbour |
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| Fun Times! |
This morning we moved over to Big Mama's, anchoring in 12m over sand. Winds were lighter and it wasn't raining, and the wind is predicted to back into the E which will give us better protection here.
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| Anchored off Big Mama's |
It's been great fun exploring the Ha'apai island group. Lots of great sailing and fun to be in company with sv Thestral.
Trust all's well where you are!
