It has been a while since we have put up a new webpage. We can only say that we had no access to an internet shop while in Tonga and we have been very preoccupied with the upgrades and maintenance on Active Light since arriving in New Zealand. It has been an exciting four months in our lives, we have learned much about ocean passagemaking. We had our first major gear failure - our Monitor windvane waterblade broke off and was lost in a storm and we worked our way to a solution in a remote environment. We have been out cruising for two and a half years now with over 13,600 nm under Active Light's keel.
As we left Bora Bora and headed west, we were not certain whether or not we were going to stop at Suwarrow Island or continue on toward Vava'U in the Kingdom of Tonga. We were going to let the wind and weather patterns decide for us. Things changed, however, when we hailed a boat paralleling us about a mile to the south on the VHF radio. They turned out to be our friends Simon and Kitty Van Hagen aboard the custom aluminum yacht Duet. They informed us they had just lost a blade on their feathering prop as they motored out of the pass at Bora Bora and were going straight to Vava'U to get the prop replaced. We agreed to "accompany" them straight to Tonga to tow them in or lend whatever assistance we could, as they had neither propulsion nor SSB transmit capabilities aboard. Although our intentions were good, it turned out to be one of the silliest gestures of assistance we have ever made. We stayed with them until about 2:00 am the first night out, at which time, in light winds, they put up a spinnaker chute and we never saw them again. Even without an engine in light airs, they beat us into Neiafu, Vava'U by a whole day. It turns out that both Simon and Kitty are seasoned Solo Transatlantic racing sailors and there was no way Active Light, fast for a cruiser though she may be, was going to keep up with their custom designed 44' aluminum sloop. Simon still holds the solo transatlantic crossing record for the 40 foot class, which he set back in 1990. We have since read about him in sailing magazines.
Our trip took 11 days and was not our most wonderful passage to date. It was characterized by light winds from almost directly astern. Then we would get a front passing through, wind for a half day, and be left rolling and slatting and banging in short, sloppy seas with no wind. We discovered that we did not have a good strategy for sailing downwind in light airs. We resorted to flying the asymmetrical spinnaker with the main down to minimize slatting. Neil caught a beautiful tuna about four days out and we had tuna for breakfast, lunch and dinner for two days. Did we get tired of tuna?
We had an uncomfortable, but not a miserable time until the evening of September 3rd. We were receiving several daily weather bulletins, both text and map format, from several sources on the ham radio email. One of the weather maps, one which Neil failed to examine until the next day (ahem! ), showed a very active cold front and trough moving towards us at a fast rate as we approached the island of Niue (see map, left photo). Neil was on watch in the cockpit at dusk, saw it coming, rolled up the roller furling genoa but failed to get the reefed mainsail down. So we were hit by winds steady at 44 knots on a beam reach, gusting to 51 knots, for two hours. We did not know Active Light could do 9 knots! It was a pretty frightening experience. It was also a very cold experience. We were completely soaked through, even in our foul-weather gear. We had several emergencies going on at once, trying to keep things from breaking and blowing away, so we were unable to drop the mainsail. We also forgot to disengage the expensive water steering blade for our Monitor vane. As a result, the blade snapped off and we were without self-steering for the rest of the trip. This meant someone had to sit and steer the boat by hand, two hours off and on, for the remaining three days of the trip to Vava'U. We were already sleep-deprived and making some poor decisions, but this became a problem. Fortunately, we suffered no more accidents.
We arrived in Vava'U just at sunset on the 11th day of our trip. We very carefully motored into a quiet anchorage in the dark, using every resource we could think of; visual, good paper charts, depthmeter, GPS, our ears, spotlight on cliffs, . . . could have used some night vision glasses. There are no navigation lights coming into Vava'U. Our state of sleep deprivation was so great we did not even think of using the radar until we were already anchored. (At this point in our travels, we did not have a GPS interface to our electronic charts, . . . probably a good thing because Vava'U charts have a 0.1 nm northerly offset and a 0.11 nm westerly offset, we were to find out!) We are certain that some of our "blunders" and mistakes on this passage seem ridiculous to those of you back home. Please remember, until you have been without good sleep for a week or more, you may not understand what a detrimental effect it can have on your thinking and actions.
We wound up staying in Vava'U for over two months. We got involved with one of the local high schools, teaching music, fixing computers, making chalkboards, scrounging and donating science textbooks and educational materials from amongst the cruiser community. Our cruiser friends of all nationalities were so generous giving what they could. We have learned in the last two and a half years of cruising that it is the friends you meet that become the best part of cruising. They have taught us that no matter how well prepared you think you are, everyone needs assistance from their neighbors at some point. We did our share of diving and shelling at beautiful beaches. The water is great here. Since the value of the US dollar is 2 for 1 in buying power, we also did a lot of dining out and partying in the local cruiser hangouts. It was fun.
Going ashore our very first morning after clearing (easy) customs, we found a huge line of school children trooping down to the waterfront to line the streets and cheer for the King of Tonga who was visiting to dedicate a new building. We waited and watched with them, only to catch the merest glimpse of the King's car as he roared by, not waving to anyone.
Nancy was befriended by an amazing weaver named Finau whom she met in the local market. Finau gave lessons to Nancy in basketry and invited her to her home. In turn, Nancy showed Finau a new technique for making necklaces and was amazed at the rapidity with which she picked up the technique. Finua remained a good friend throughout our visit to Tonga.
Our favorite resting place in Neiafu is the Mermaid Cafe. This is a true "cruisers' home" where you can get a huge platter of beer-batter fried onion rings, great thick ones, for US$1.50, and is the site of many good times visiting with friends. The photo above shows Mele, one of the owners who holds a Masters 100 ton license for offshore power and sailing vessels, and Salome, one of the world's nicest waitresses. Neil undertook a personal mission to sample all of the items listed on the menu board behind them. We recommend the herb-encrusted chicken with a Tongan beer.
Neil spent many happy hours waiting while Nancy shopped her little heart out at the downtown market. Active Light (middle yacht above) was always moored a short five minutes row from the Mermaid. Our mooring in this deep harbor cost US$5.00 per day.
One of our first tasks regarding boat maintenance upon reaching Vava'U was to repair our broken Monitor windvane. If you are of the mind that our retirement cruise is all play and no work, you would be very wrong. The maintenance work on even a very well-prepared boat like Active Light is endless. Endless! You may let the maintenance work go for one month or for one port, but that only means twice the work at the next port. We would be terribly remiss were we not to laud the skillful and generous help of Jon Beauchamp, proprietor of Sailing Safaris in Vava'U (in the blue vest, left photo). With Jon, Neil built a replacement waterblade from locally scavenged parts and Jon's skillful welding. The Monitor people at Scanmar Marine in San Francisco Bay simply disowned us, declaring the vane was so old that it was not even a Monitor. They had no reservations, however, accepting our US$1048. for a complete windvane rebuild when we visited their shop back in September of 2000. The blade Neil and Jon built worked, but not well, as it was too heavy. Fortunately, the Canadians John and Ariana aboard By Chance gave us (!) their old Monitor water blade which had broken in exactly the same place (!!!) a few months before. They managed to save the blade when it separated because they had a second retrieval line attached. John and Ari are the most generous and helpful couple of all those we met in the South Pacific, always the first to offer help to others. They are an outstanding credit to their country. And we must mention Hollie, the manager of the Mermaid Cafe and Jon's partner in Sailing Safaris. She looks a bit like Nancy's daughter Shawna, so were adopted her. She is from England, called us Mum and Dad. She has pure adrenalin running through her veins and is a delight to all who know her.
Friday nights Neil was invited to sit in with a local Tongan band. They played everything, lots of blues. The pianoman is Nisa, one of the high school music teachers. On the drums is John, who also sings well, and "Stoney" does a very good job playing guitar and singing lead vocals. Yep, that is a genuine coral sand floor. If Neil fell over backwards, he would be in the bay, about waistdeep in water, depending on the tide.
After meeting Nisa in the Mermaid band, Neil was invited to come up to the Chanel College high school with his trombone. This is a school supported by the Catholic Church, educating about 300 students aged 12 through 18 years. Last New Year's Eve, a cyclone took the top off the main building, spoiling all of the textbooks and ruining the computer lab.
The first time we saw Nisa teaching, he was using a stick to point to notes he had written in chalk on a piece of black-painted plywood which was broken in half. The chalk board he is using here we bought for him for US$8.00 at the local hardware store. The only instrumental music in Tongan schools is brass band, . . . trumpets, euphoniums, trombones, and tubas. That's it! And they all read Bb tenor clef, like the trumpets. They get an amazingly good sound with a wide variety of music, lots of British band transcriptions. Their instruments are in poor shape, but they have no lack of talented and eager students. Tongan brass bands have toured to Australia, New Zealand, and the USA. We often wished we could connect all these good brass players with the Youth Orchestra in La Paz, Mexico. What a good result that would be, a full brass section!
Steve, from the US-registered cruiser Poet's Place, volunteered to lend his welding skills to help fix some of their ailing brass instruments. Six hours work rescued about a dozen horns. Neil had never before seen a trumpet in use by a student held together by copper wire. There were two in this condition. No one had valve oil. No one's tuning slide had ever been greased or moved. Note the missing valve caps on the trumpet. The biggest problem with the trombones was a missing and open waterkey. Neil could not play on many of these instruments, they were in such poor condition.
We bought more hardboard and supplies and spent about two days making a doubled sided music chalkboard for the music students. Nancy's 30 years experience as an elementary schoolteacher was useful here. She knew just how to make a green chalkboard with black permanent marker staff lines and then how to chalk the whole surface over and erase it before writing upon it. Nisa was delighted with the result.
Neil also did what he could repairing and upgrading the school's very few computers. Shown above is the faculty room and what is left of the school's library after the cyclone last year. They are still trying to recover from the damage. We asked for help on the morning VHF cruisers radio net and many, many people contributed science textbooks. Jon and Ariana on By Chance donated an entire 7 - 12 mathematics independent study package. Someone donated a much needed PC mouse. Ed, Jane, and their wonderful son, Dan from the trimaran Etak donated many high school equivalency CD's. Sarah and GB from Djarka donated a CD encyclopedia and an astronomy CD.
And then there was the big party put together by the Puddlejump crowd (Puddlejumpers are those cruisers who started the crossing together out of Puerta Vallarta, Mexico). All cruisers were invited. It was held at a large hotel with a tremendous view of the bay and islands. The inevitable cruiser bands played Jimmy Buffet tunes, "Margaritaville" and "Hotel California" all night long. Left photo, Neil accompanies Greg from Gitana, Louise from L'il Gem, Adrian from L'Eau Life and Mark from Natanga, all of whom we have known and played with since Mexico. Right photo, Neil backs the British crowd in a loud and enthusiastic blues rendition. The nearest guitarist is Woody from Norwegian Blue. He is a pretty good jazz musician. We had just finished playing a version of "Summertime" and "All of Me" with Woody which Nancy sang and just knocked everyone out. It was the best music all night! We are still getting favorable comments on those two songs three months later in New Zealand. The rest of the guys in the right photo are from the traditional wooden sailing schooner Tree of Life. Nice blokes!
We toured the island with a local guide. We are here atop Mount Talau, now a sacred park to the Tongans. The views were wonderful. Here you can see evidence of the sunken volcanic crater which form the many islands and deep lagoons of Vava'U.
There is a lot of cottage industry in weaving baskets in Vava'U. Tongans may well be the best basket weavers in the world. The lady in the left photo sat there all day long stripping pandanus fronds into basket weaving material. In the right photo, these ladies work together, each on their own section, to produce a huge sturdy floor mat for people's homes.
These ladies put in 8 hour days in this position sitting on the floor. Their only tools were a small cane slicer fashioned out of a tin can top. Right photo, we visit a kava manufacturing shed. This was run by one man and his wife. There is also a young child hidden behind the tamping machine. The noise level was pretty high.
And there were the Tongan feasts. The cost was about US$12 per person. Usually held on a beach, we attended two. A roasted pig was always included and the food was delicious. We both sampled kava from the communal coconut shell. It was pretty awful tasting. The lobster was wonderful. Neil thinks Tongan pineapple is the world's best fruit. The dinner is followed by dancing and music.
Lest you think we spent all of our time helping out in schools, playing music and eating, we hereby declare we did spent the requisite amount of time anchored out in beautiful bays snorkeling, reading and walking beaches, but by this time we have seen so many beautiful beaches, we don't take so many pictures of them anymore. Here is a photo of a typical rocky islet in Vava'U that comes up out of the deep water. You can sail up quite close to them. This one has a cave called "Swallow's Cave", inhabited by a large colony of swifts.
Near one of the anchorages we visited, Port Maurelle, was the tiny village of Falevai. Left photo shows Nancy and a view of the village center. Of course, it had a school, called GPS (Government Primary School) Falevai, shown in the right photo.
The principal for this school was Ms. Lesieli Latu. Nancy formed the opinion that she was an excellent teacher and became friends with her. We donated all of our schools supplies we had been carrying around for two years, erasers, tablets, crayon sets, pencils. Norwegian Blue donated a whole box of nice ball point pens from some company in England. Many other cruisers have made similar donations. If you are thinking of coming here, please do remember to bring something for these schoolchildren, and not just candy! If you want to write or send school supplies, the address is as follows: Principal Lesieli Latu, G.P.S. Falevai, Vava'U, Kingdom of Tonga. We can assure you your gift will be appreciated and well utilized by an excellent teacher doing a good job teaching English reading and writing skills in a small school. Primary readers are especially appreciated and will be reread many, many times.
Left photo: the Principal of GPS Falevai, Ms. Latu. Center: students from one of her classes. Right: the classroom bulletin board. In the lower center of the right photo, the "Teacher's Duties Responsibilities" are listed. Nancy says these are nearly identical to those posted in her classroom at Esquire Hills Elementary School back in the States. We reproduce this list below for our many dear teacher friends back home in Kitsap County:
This school has a new roof after the cyclone took the old one away. The roof was donated by the French Polynesian government. Tonga is not a protectorate of any other government. It is an independent kingdom.
Our second Tongan feast was sponsored by local Tongan carver, Leonati, and his wife, Annie. He is reputed to be the best carver in the islands. They are the Tongan business partners of our friends, Americans Andy and Sandy of Jacaranda.
Annie's oldest son slices up the roast pig. Andy and Sandy talk with Neil. Sandy must be standing in a hole, she is not that short! They are sailmakers, rent out moorings in Neiafu, and have the best stories about Lin and Larry Pardey from about 15 years ago. They are really, really nice people, been out cruising for about 20 years now. They spend the summer cyclone season (December - April) in New Zealand or Australia and then come back to Vava'U, always carrying large donations of medical supplies for the local hospital. One year they even procured an entire x-ray machine the hospital is still using. Andy and Sandy probably do more toward enhancing the reputation of Americans abroad than any ten politicians you can name.
Tongan feasts always include a firedancer. This young man was pretty good. The dancers are much more modest, restrained, and demure than those in Tahiti. No hip shaking and low-cut halters here, the many missionaries have eliminated that. But the dancing is still unique and beautiful. It is a Tongan tradition to coat the dancer's arms and shoulders with cooking oil so dollar bills will stick when slapped on there by admirers, relatives, and palangis (white ghosts).
In Leonati and Annie's home, we bought a beautiful sculpture of two gray whales in ebony, another in bone, and a necklace for Nancy. We would like to have bought the large whale carving in the right photo, but we did not have room on the boat. Could you imagine bringing that through customs? But, oh, how beautiful it was. Leonati is a wonderful artist and craftsman. We gave him a large piece of purpleheart wood we had leftover from making our ruddercheeks. He had sketched into it a couple of whale carvings before we left.
Our last night in Neiafu, Neil was playing at the Mermaid Cafe for the last time and the principal of Chanel College and his wife showed up and, surprise, presented us with a huge tapa cloth in appreciation of our work at the school. We were so flattered. We feel a bit like this tapa really belongs to all those cruisers who donated so many books and resources to the school.
Goodbye Vava'U after two wonderful months. We do not have any photos of the passage to New Zealand. The repaired Monitor waterblade from By Chance worked better than ever. We will remember this passage as another hard one, all upwind on the starboard tack in 15 to 30 knots of wind, bashing into large seas, decks awash, and lots of leaks because some fool neglected to plug the three (!) chain hawsepipes. That would be Neil! All three hawsepipes now have custom fitted plugs. The passage took 11 days and we will remember that it got colder and colder such that we could not or would not take a bath for the last six (6) days. Whew! We arrived at Opua in the Bay of Islands after dark and made our first harbor entrance using GPS connected electronic charts on our computer. They were amazingly accurate and helpful. Nevertheless, we will never trust the electronic charts. We were verifying our position with radar, depth finder, spotlight, compass, and visual contacts. We tied up to th customs wharf in Opua at 2300. Next morning, New Zealand customs were very thorough and polite. They allowed us to cook and eat our remaining Tongan eggs, but they wanted the shells and scraps as garbage residue to be disposed of properly. New Zealand is the most environmentally conscious nation we have yet encountered. We had the drug-sniffing dog on board and were most happy to connect with a slip in the Opua marina, showers, laundry, running fresh water to wash the salt off the boat, and a meal shore. And, oh yes, sleep, sleep, and sleep!
After nine enjoyable days in Opua, meeting cruiser friends, celebrating and rejoicing in the arrival of each one, enjoying the hospitality, good beer, and great food of the Opua Cruising Club, we pushed on south overnight to Whangarei where we intend to pass the South Pacific cyclone season. We bought a car, a new laptop computer, and visited Bream Head, where Smuggler's Cove may well be the most beautiful beach we have yet seen.
Active Light is now "on the hard" at Ray Robert's Riverside Drive Marina in Whangarei, New Zealand. We have a shore-based mail address until about May 1st, 2003. That would be s/v Active Light, P.O. Box 1709, Whangarei, New Zealand, no zip code. We are very pleased with this yard. We rented a car and toured several area shipyards and marinas on North Island before settling on this one. The owner, Ray Roberts, runs a very professional yard, has all the requisite services of welding, engine, painting, chandlery in the yard. But the real difference is Ray Roberts himself. He has been a boat builder all his life and is never hesitant to give you good honest advice about anything regarding boat maintenance when you ask. He built Eric Hiscock's Wanderer V and is pictured here in front of Curiosity, another one of his boats built of kauri wood strips covered in glass. He has exhibited many instances of kindness and extra consideration toward us and other guests in his marina.We recommend him highly.
Nancy is shown here with the "White Gnat", our 1988 Daihatsu which we bought for US$650 from a departing cruiser. It has performed famously thus far. Active Light is getting all new "flush fit" through-hull fittings and valves of marine reinforced plastic. We have stripped the antifouling from the hull and will apply 5 coats of International Interprotect barrier coat below the waterline and new polyurethane on the topsides. We are adding about 4 inches to the trailing edge of the rudder for fairing purposes (inspired by visits to America's Cup Village in Auckland, looking at the New Zealand boats) and adding tabbing to fair the aperture between the trailing edge of the keel and the rudder. We have been talking to several naval architects and hydrodynamic experts and we feel we can expect at least a 1/4 knot additional speed at 5 knots. "Pooh pooh, 1/4 knot, so what?", you say? That little difference will add up to 66 nm over an 11 day passage between Fiji and New Zealand. If it does, we'll take it and be happy. We are also working to present a more laminar water flow to the forward edge of our propeller, resulting in better motoring efficiency.
Finally, here is the Christmas 2002 scene aboard the happy ship Active Light. We gave each other nice pragmatic gifts of Casio wristwatches with all the lights and timers galore to help us through our night watches. Then Neil gave Nancy a surprise gift of 100 new Dremel tool bits which she has always wanted for her shell necklace making. You can tell how delighted she is with it by the big smile. From the captain and first mate of Active Light to each of you, we hope you had a good Christmas season and will be able to enjoy your lives and pursue your dreams in 2003.
Bon jour, ya'll!
Neil and Nancy
s/v Active Light
Whangarei, New Zealand