Get Lost On Purpose

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  • Tonga ‘tastic!

    I’ve been doing my best to behave since the debauchery that was last Friday night and obeying the finger wagging via email of my mom who didn’t like it to much when she read that her daughter didn’t remember what she had for dinner. I’m sure she wasn’t surprised as I’ve always been a bit of a party girl but even from thousands of miles away, my mom can still get onto me and put me in my place. That’s some pretty powerful parenting, huh?! Okay, okay…we over indulged one night. Shame, shame but it sure did make for some awesome sudo memories for me. All I’ve been able to say in emails to folks back home about this place is that it is Tonga ‘tastic and I’ll tell ya, it’s making it hard to act right! Let’s see…for the first time in months we’ve got more than enough restaurants and bars to entertain us about 30 yards from the boat and getting two for every dollar in the exchange rate has allowed us to partake in those. Getting there was a bit of a challenge seeing how we still have no dinghy and we had pretty much resorted to sticking our thumbs out and hitching rides to and from shore. But our good friends Christa and Richard from s/v Karma had a spare dinghy and 4 hp engine on board and have been gracious enough to let us borrow it for the time being. So as far as the dinghy search goes, here’s a quick, hopefully brief, update—-

    We thought this place would be a gold mine for a new dinghy with the moorings fleet here. Oh it is…just none of them are for sale. For days Drew and I were teased by a stack of about 15 dinghys, one on top of the other on shore, but they all belong to the private yachts in the harbor and are spoken for. Well crap…there goes that idea. We have worked daily to find something to replace our poor dinghy but let’s face it, we aren’t settling for anything less than we wanted and don’t feel like we should have to, even if it means leaving here without one and moving onto Fiji and searching there. That being said, a restaurant owner here heard Drew was looking and he may or may not be interested in selling. So we’ve resorted to going to his restaurant for the past two days and we’re hoping to eventually wear him down and that we might be able to persuade him. If not, we’ll enjoy Karma’s spare for as long as they’ll allow us and we’ll move on and search in Fiji—-

    To top off the bars and restaurants there are birthday parties everywhere! Today we celebrate Allan’s 50th from s/v Lovesong and last Saturday Seth & Elizabeth of Honeymoon threw a joint birthday bash, which I made a cake for that turned out super yummy. Check out their website to read all about that as it was definitely a b-day extravaganza ! Yesterday Drew and I wandered over to Tonga Bob’s to work on the fellow with the dinghy only to find out that night the restaurant hosts a drag queen show for the Faka ladies of the island. Well we weren’t missing out on that and our bartender at the moment was going to be in the show. Drew went to the restroom and he proceeded to tell me that the two young gentlemen, roundabout 13 years old, in school uniforms who had been playing pool when we arrived told him to put something in Drew’s drink to make him woozy so that they could take me with them. I told Drew as soon as he came back and he brought to my attention that their name tags on their uniforms said prefects, meaning they were school leaders. Rather scary….goes to show that the strict religious foundation here in Tonga might be wavering a bit. We did in fact gather a group of other cruisers and ventured off to check out the show last night and our shy little bartender who’d served us up a couple of beers that afternoon was long gone and in his place was THE entertainer of the evening swinging from the rafters and lip synching to Celine Dion in panty hose, angel wings, and a diaper. HILARIOUS! We were all in tears from laughing so hard and it was a great night. There is little room for close minded people in the cruising world, trust me.

    We’re off to cruise the island with Lovesong, Karma, Zen, & Flashback today in 4 wheel drive buggies for Allan’s birthday. Tonight a birthday dinner of fresh mahi auctioned off on the local VHF net this morning to raise money for the hospital. I cannot tell you how awesome it is to finally be reunited with folks we hadn’t seen in several months. It’s like seeing family again, in a sense, as you can develop such close relationships with other cruisers. No doubt, there will be plenty of memories taken away from this place and mom, I’ll do better so that I can remember them all : )

  • Photos from Niue

    Here I am on the internet and I’ve prepared no new post.  How about some new pics?  Here’s a few from our last day in Niue.  What an amazing place!

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  • Neiafu Harbor, Vava’u, Kingdom of Tonga

    What a cool place. We cruised in early yesterday morning after probably the best sail we’ve ever had. We flew the spinnaker right up until dark the day we left Niue ghosting along at 7 knots. The next morning I flew it again for a couple of hours till I started seeing 9.5 knots. I figured maybe it was a good idea to keep the mast standing upright and I took it down. We stopped briefly at an anchorage right around the corner from the main harbor (Lotuma Bay #5) to take showers, clean up the boat, and give a couple of other guys the chance to check in and get off the wharf before we made our triumphant entrance. We could already hear our friends from Zen and Honeymoon on the radio so we gave a call and announced our presence. It’s was like entering a reunion. All the boats we’ve met along the way and all the people whose voices we’ve heard and never met all seem to be here. Even Jeff and Julie from Flashback who we affectionately call Ma and Pa after someone mistaked us for being their children! Check in was relatively simple. The Quarantine and Health officials were standing at the dock when we tied up so they came aboard first. I handed over the papers they needed with a couple of candy bars and some diet coke hoping to speed up the process. Twenty minutes later, paperwork done, we couldn’t figure out why these guy were still sitting on the boat. They were thumbing through some of Margie’s magazines, hanging out like they were right at home. I guess they needed a few minutes to study up on the latest Cosmo and Vogue before they decided it was time to go and finally they dawdled off the boat. Next came Customs. Simple. Then I took a walk to the bank and Immigration while Margie, sitting on the boat at the city dock, somehow ended up with some fresh bread after a local paddled by and made her a deal. Ten minutes later we were tied to a mooring owned by the Aquarium Cafe with three dinghies and all our friends hanging off the side of Dosia. Nice.

    Then came our first Friday night in Neiafu. Picture it. A georgeous harbor surrounded by hills and mangroves. A hundred plus sailboats, some charter, but mostly cruising yachts from all over the globe. Huge multimillion dollars catamarans with paid captains all the way down to 27′ single handers. Converted race boats, sleek lined Italian yachts, refurbished classics, and junkers. It doesn’t matter. On Friday night, everyone gathers at the Mermaid, home of the Vava’u Yacht Club for drinks. Right on the water with its own dinghy dock. T-shirts, burgees, and flags hanging from the ceiling. Happy hour prices on a selection of beers from Oz land, NZ, the local Ikale and Maka brews. Heaven on earth. After losing hope in French Polynesia and the Cooks, here it is. The perfect image of a south seas sailor bar in its truest form. It still exists. Where else can you find a 70 year old single-hander with a white beard in crocs and a tie-dye shirt arguing with a pressed linen German couple off a sleek 60 footer about the finer aspects of rum distillation? Classic.

    When you wake up in the morning and can’t remember what you had for dinner or if you even ate dinner or where you might have tried if you were so inclined, you had a good night. If it weren’t for the missing cash, I might have thought we missed my favorite meal of the day. I know it was pasta and I’m positive it had bacon in it because that’s something I rarely forget. Each bacon experience should be cherished. I haven’t a clue what Margie ordered but that’s alright…neither does she. We haven’t had a night like that in a long, long time and even though I felt like a million bucks this morning when I woke, I would have preferred to not wake up belching vanilla infused rum. In order to not take responsibility for the over-indulgence, I need to blame someone else. So Flashback, you’re it. It’s all your fault. 🙂

  • The Wildest Place I’ve Been

    I keep on saying it…Niue and Beveridge Reef (a part of Niue) were the wildest places I’ve ever been. Here’s why:

    1) The anchorage at Beveridge alone was an experience with the high winds and waves coming over the reef coupled with first time anchor drags and the resulting late-night, pitch-black resets. We haven’t sat calmly still at anchor since Aitutaki. It’s not comfortable but I guess one could see it as part of the wildness. I’d like to say we’ve grown accustomed to rolling around and sudden shifts of the boat while we’re “safely” anchored but screw that. Nobody likes that stuff. It was all part of the adventure though.

    2) The whales. From the first sighting outside Beveridge to basically living among them in the mooring field at Niue, the whales defined this part of the trip. People pay loads of money to experience nature like that. We had it outside our backdoor for free.

    3) Spearfishing at Beveridge. Patrick and I were all by ourselves in the water for hours on end while the only other people within hundreds of miles, Marge and Rebecca, were still over a mile away on an upwind dinghy ride. It was surreal. Hunting fish through underwater ravines and avoiding the curious grey sharks and the white tips will be a memory long after my blisters heal. The fact I duct taped my feet and ignored the pain of each fin stroke shows just how much fun it was. I’ll never forget losing that last really nice grouper to the white tips. Little f_c_ers!

    4) The hikes to the chasms and caves on Niue aren’t too long but nobody can deny they are dangerous. The eroding limestone is sharp and at some points you are basically crawling over the stuff. At other places large holes are hidden by decaying vegetation and still other places are covered in slippery rock. It seems the whole island is made for breaking ankles. And then there’s those huge dropoffs, cliffs, deep chasms and caves, massive seas crashing around everywhere throwing spray 30 feet in the air….basically everything you’re there to see. Check out these videos of us pushing the limits or being just plain stupid. Whichever, it was an adrenaline rush. The rock Allan and I were standing on was actually moving with the power of the waves coming in!

    **video will be inserted here** whenever I come to the realization that, yes, sometimes you have to pay for internet and I realize that internet is slow as crap here and I just have to be patient!

    5) Vaikona Cave. This place is wild and dangerous and scary and it’s almost ridiculous they allow people to explore on their own. That being said, I loved every minute of it. I’d do it again in a hot minute.

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    6) Even though we don’t have a dinghy at the moment and didn’t have to deal with it, you gotta love a place where the only dock in the only “safe harbor” on the island has a crane to lift your dinghy out of the water so it doesn’t get destroyed on rocks in the swell.

    7) Sea Snakes. I saw them on a dive I did with Seth and Elizabeth from Honeymoon and I saw them on the surface but one morning when I answered a call from a neighbor boat looking for a diver to untangle their anchor from the rocks I saw way too many of them. They are funky and weird and venomous as hell (harmless to humans because their mouths are too small) and Niue was my first time being in the water with them. One more wild thing to experience.

    So there you are. The wildest place I’ve ever been. Looking back on the last month, we’ve had crap weather and lost the dinghy but I still can’t complain. Somebody sent us an email saying we should put a donation tab on the site to try and recoup some money for what the dinghy mishap might cost. I considered it for a moment and thought about how much it ticks me off when cruisers or travelers ask for donations on their blogs. Margie reminded me of how f-ed up I thought it was that a certain cruiser was (and still is) bumming money off Latitude 38 readers and they keep on giving it to her. If you don’t have enough to be out here and pay for your lifestyle and your repairs and your f-ups, you shouldn’t be here. Don’t give me money to perpetuate my dream while putting yours off. So Get Lost On Purpose shall remain free of that crap. After all, I’m out here on a sailboat in the South-freaking-Pacific. What could I possibly have to complain about?

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