Lagoon, Vava'u, Tonga
Yesterday morning I was at the top of the mast replacing a jury rigged
Windex that had fallen off in my hand a couple of weeks ago when I looked
up and our pals on Pickity Witch sailed into the anchorage at Neiafu. I
yelled hello to them as they sailed in and it was quite comical as they
looked around unsuccessfully to see who was calling. I guess that's why
deer blinds in trees work so well - nobody looks up. They eventually
found me at the top of the mast and had a laugh, and they ended up
anchored about 100 yards away from Moku pe'a.
On Friday afternoon at 330 Craig from Pickity Witch came by in his dinghy
and asked me if I was sailing Moku pe'a in the weekly Friday night race.
I told him no, and he asked me to sail with him in Pickity Witch. I
agreed and we met him ashore at 4PM for the skippers meeting at The Mango
restaurant.
Craig and his girlfriend Anna were keen to participate, but they had never
raced anything bigger than dinghies before. Their crew Tom had flown home
to England and Craig's sister Ally opted out, so it was just the three of
us. We were racing against three other similarly sized cruisers from
France, Germany, and a local boat. Fortunately, the competition made it
easy for us by starting on the unfavored end of the line, sailing in our
dirty air, and sailing to the wrong side of the shift on the upwind leg.
They were also slow to set and jybe their spinnakers on the downwind leg,
so we won by a mile! Anna had seen the spinnaker up before, "but never
with another sail up too". She was beside herself when we had main, jib,
and spinnaker up as we reached into the leeward mark. Craig had never
jybed with the kite up before, and wasn't aware that you could end for end
the spinnaker pole in a jybe, so I talked him through it and he did it
perfectly. Craig and Anna were ecstatic with our win, and couldn't
believe that it was possible with no yelling aboard.
Afterwards all the crews gathered at the Mango and we celebrated together.
The international contingent from Germany, New Zealand, France, United
States, and South Africa got along fine. Why can't the UN work this way?
After a few beers the party migrated to the Aquarium where we celebrated
my 60th birthday.
The next morning we decided to get out of town. We had enough of the
noise and excitement of Neiafu and departed for one of our favorite
anchorages in Hunga lagoon. We would be out in the ocean approaching
Hunga, so I put out the fish line as soon as the sails were up and the
engine shut down in Port of Refuge Harbor. We had just jybed between the
buoys at the entrance to the harbor when Lori said "Hey, what's dragging
behind the boat?" Fish on! I hadn't even heard the cloths pin snap. It
must have hit while we were in the middle of the jybe. I pulled it in,
and it was a nice fifteen plus pound spanish mackerel! Caught in Port of
Refuge Harbor! Rocky, can you believe that? That's the second fish
caught in Tonga on a Randy Reed special lure.
When we entered Hunga Lagoon we had it all to ourselves and anchored off
the beach on the eastern side of the bay. Later in the afternoon a
thirty three foot Sunsail charter monohull came in and then Paul and Ally
on Kepa II, who we had met a week or so earlier in Vaka'eitu lagoon, came
in. They invited the fleet over for cocktails, so we brought enough fresh
mackerel along to feed everybody. We got to meet Pete and Julie from
Australia who were on the Sunsail, and everybody raved about the fish the
next morning.
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