After a great couple of weeks in the Ha’apai we are now back on a mooring in Neiafu to do some re-provisioning and also pick up our first guest of the season – Amanda.

Current position is 18:39.638S 173:59.003W

 

We spent much of our time in the Ha’apai in the anchorage at Uoleva which was both very well protected and a nice place to hang out to do some snorkelling, walking, a bit of kite flying (no board attached) and also a great place to watch the ICA fleet come into as their official port of entry is Pangai which is just a few miles up the road.

As mentioned previously our fishing has not been going that well but our scavenging is making up for it.  The latest was a piece of a 65kg sail fish that Caprice caught in one of the lagoon a few miles west to Uoleva!! 

 

 

 

 

 

After departing from Uoleva on the 6th June we wandered up to Pangai to do our local check in and out which went pretty seamlessly.  Pangai is not one of the Ha’apai highlights so far but we did have a wander around and saw a couple of gems – one being this excellent specimen of an island car and the other is the old ‘Justice of the Peace’ building which was blown off its foundations in one of the cyclones that passed here in the not too distant past.

 

 

 

 

From Pangai we continued north up the island chain and back to Nukanamo where the kite boarding was in full swing – unfortunately we arrived a bit late in the day to organise any lessons or a boat tow up wind but we did get to go for a snorkel in the lagoon which to date has been the best snorkelling in Tonga as so far much of the coral we have seen is in a pretty bad way but we will keep on our endless search for some more good snorkelling spots.

 

 

We did drop in and see Darren from Matafanoa Resort who took this awesome photo of Mustang Sally from his drone from when we were here a few weeks ago – pretty special!!

 

 

 

On the 8th June we finally departed from Ha’apai and headed back on the 70NM passage up to Vava’u.  We didn’t get to depart until around 7:30am as we needed some light to exit through the coral but then got on our way and had a lovely sail up to Vava’u dropping anchor off Mala Island at around 8pm which is not ideal as we normally aim to arrive at any new anchorage in daylight hours but this was just not possible however, with a bit of assistance from Motion X HD we found a good spot to drop the pick for the night.

 

As there are still a few days before we have to be back in Neiafu to pick up Miss Amanda we thought we would check out a few more spots in the Vava’u so we first headed around to the anchorage off Nuapapu Island where we spent the day and went for a drift snorkel on one of the nearby islands.  With the forecast for the wind to go around the clock AGAIN we decided to head over to the anchorage called the Coral Garden or Nuapapu South which is a nice little bay that is pretty much surrounded by coral or island.  This does make the entrance a bit tricky but as we found out the depth over the reef is around 4-5mts so it looks a lot worse than what it really is.  When we arrived there were about 3 boats in the anchorage but little did we know that a group from the ICA Rally  had organised an Tongan Island Feast for Saturday night so were quickly inundated with yachts and ended up with about 20 in the anchorage for the night.  Even though we are not part of the rally we were invited in to join in the feast which was a lot of fun.

 

At the recommendation from Margy and Monty from Whistler it looks like we have found a great spot to hone out kite boarding skills – or at least a place where we won’t get too banged up when we crash – it is off Mounu island which has a lovely resort, runs kite boarding lessons and has lots of shallow water over sand so perfect – we will be back!!!

 

As we are heading back into the big smoke of Neiafu on Tuesday Port Maurelle is the destination for Monday Night (12th June).  We are starting to feel like the ICA are now stalking us.  Again we arrived at Port Maurelle with only a few boats anchored up and by dark there were 20 with many being ICA boats.  One of these boats – Kittiwake II which is very small (maybe 30ft in total) and has made it out here all the way from NZ – Pretty Amazing!!! 

 

 

 

 

 

How small is the world.  We had downed tools for the arvo and Mark was enjoying a quiet beverage in the cockpit whilst watching the anchoring antics of one of the Moorings Charter boats when we have a visit from one of their crew, Steve, who turns out had been told to keep an eye out for a yacht called Mustang Sally who is out in Tonga from Australia from some mutual friends at home!!! How Bizarre is that.

 

We are now back in at Neiafu, safely attached the Beluga Dives Mooring number 19.  We have done a few jobs this morning including organising a gas fill, dropped the laundry off and disposed of the garbage.  We are now about to head in for our first all fresh water shower in 2months before catching up with Kathy and Richard (Persistent Shift) and Paul (Brian Marklew’s brother from Summer Lovin) for a beverage and meal in at Mango Cafe....  There are some nice things about being back in town!!!