Our conscience about upgrading our website have got a severe hit!
It's more than four month since we last published a log. Although there are  plentiful of reasons for that, it's still embarrassing. Our intension was to write as soon as we arrived in New Zealand, but one week of welcoming  party, meeting a lot of old and new friends and then we suddenly where deep down in the boat, working with upgrading and maintenance. But more about that in next log.  Last time we wrote we where in Tonga, waiting for a friend from Sweden to arrive. 

16 September Vava'a group, Tonga  

We are moored in Neiafu harbour at "our" mooring (the one we have succeeded to get every time we return to Neiafu) and have managed to get a car to the little airstrip north of town. It's really important to be able to speak the language. The negotiation about the prize for the trip, including waiting for the flight, was less than half the prize asked at the cab station. It's quite a relief, after having spent two years in places not knowing the local language, to be able to communicate with the locals, not only with the cruisers and some English spoken locals here and there. 

After a quick installation of Mimmi in the boat we set sail to Falewi Tahi where Mary and Scott had anchored with Egret, their Nord Haven . Next morning there was no wind. A perfect day for offshore fishing. We, Jan and Kerry from Vision and Rodger and Kimberly from New Paige where invited to Egret for a full day fishing tour.
We didn't catch much fish, only one Skip Jack tuna took the bait and a Blue Marlin showed us it's  capability under a minute before it spit out the hook.
But we where entertained by Humpbacks several times during the day, quite another camera angle from fly bridge compared to Lindisfarnes deck. (Although we sometimes climb the mast...)

Back at the anchorage we all where invited to New Paige for dinner. Iris and Aries Tour, who had arrived to the anchorage, where invited too. We where 14 people! Luckily New Paige, a Nord Haven 55, has a large dining table. A very nice evening, but Mimmi where quite exhausted when we came back to Lindisfarne and almost fell asleep sitting on her bed. 36 hours flight, time change, a lot of air and sun and on top of that almost only English spoken people around her the whole day took it's tribute.   

The rest of the week we did a lot of sailing around in the archipelago of Vava'u, searching for Humpbacks and nice anchorage. Friday the 19th we where back in Neiafu, stocking up for Ha'apai, the next group of Tonga islands 70 nm south of Vava'u. You are obliged to clear Custom and Immigration between the four groups of islands in Tonga, and after that, in the last daylight we left Neiafu and anchored in Lotuma "around the corner" to be able to leave in the dark next morning. Neiafu is crowded with moorings and boats which makes it quite dangerous to leave in the dark, especially at this time with clouds and no moon.
We started at four in the morning for Ha'apai with a relatively ok weather prediction. The wind where supposed to stay northerly until late afternoon.
Halfway we met a front with heavy rain and strong southerly wind. We struggled some miles but we soon understood that we would reach Ha'apai after dark, something we definitive wonted to avoid. Ha'apai have a lots of reef and shallow areas and are not very well chartered. We turned back to Vava'u in time to reach a protected anchorage before dark.
It's amazing how the surroundings change. Exactly the same ocean, wind and waves, but another course against the wind. Surfing north we talked about all the discussion we have heard about wind and weather. Very seldom people involve the actually course compared to the wind, the apparent wind, when the strength of the predicted wind where discussed. We love 20-30 knots downwind, but more than 20 knots headwind is a pain!
The rain stopped just before we anchored in Port Maurelle, well before darkness.  

The next day, Sunday, Mimmi and Annika went to one of the churches in the little village, not so much to pray for fair winds as to listen to the songs and admire the local traditional clothes. In the afternoon we moved further south to Vaka'eitu to be closer to open water when the wind turn to north again.
We did a lot of island excursions during Monday, waiting for the wind to change. We even tried to snorkel at "Coral Garden", but the tide and the waves where to tuff.

Tuesday morning in darkness we left a second time for Ha'apai. A reach 60° to the wind, 20-25 knots made the trip a little bit tuff. But Mimmi is used to rough condition in the North Sea so the only worries was the coming darkness. We reached  Haano in Ha'apai 13 hours and 60 nm later, just before darkness, quite relieved. We saw some Humpbacks during the trip but no boats.
The next day we motored a few miles to Pangia, where we cleared custom. No immigration was available...
We moored with the stern to the pier for the first time since Chile! Annika and Mimmi "did the town". One hour later they where back, and during that time they even had lunch at Mariners Café.
A nice little "Town" but very fast done. We cleared paper one hour later and left for Tongatapu (officially), but of course we anchored at Voelvá, a few miles to the south, which has a nice protected beach.

Mimmi had to fly out from Nukuálofa next Saturday, four days ahead, so a lay day where no longer on the menu. Once again we started early, but this time we had to wait for the light due to the more difficult navigation in Ha'apai. Full speed, 60° wind and 20-30 knots gave us a fast but a little wet trip down to  Numuka where we anchored between to islands. Surprisingly this was supposed to be a god anchorage according to the pilot. Quite a distance between the islands and only a not visible reef to protect us from the easterly swell. After our first worries, the anchorage turned out ok, but a little bit uncomfortable. But in Ha'apai there aren't many to choose between.
Next afternoon, Friday, after a nice open reach we arrived in  Nukuálofa just after custom closed. As Mimmi where flying out next day we understood that there would be some comments on Monday. To try to prevent any major trouble we visit the main police station Saturday morning, trying to have any of the officials to note Mimmis presence in Nukuálofa on our clearance paper. Finally we managed to get one of the police officers to sign our paper, which turned out to be our "salvation" at the customs on Monday morning. Immigration was no problem, they where computerised and at the town office they could see that Mimmi flew out on Saturday, quite impressing!
After visiting the police station we rented a car and did Tongatapu together with Mimmi before we left her at the airport in the afternoon flying to Fiji and Europe.

Alone back in the boat we where somewhat exhausted. Now we remember all our previous vacation sailing tours when we had a schedule to keep up to almost no matter what the weather was up to. We had almost forgotten what a relief it is to always be able to wait for preferable wind conditions. We will definitive try to arrange our guest tours with no fixed dates in conjunction with places. The Grib files are almost perfect, but we have not yet been able to "order" weather!
After seeing the customs and shopping on Monday we left Nukuálofa for some days anchoring among the surrounding islands while we where waiting for the wind to turn to south. We wanted to go back north to Ha'apai where we only had rushed through.

October

Already on Wednesday  we where back in Nukuálofa, shopping and cleared the papers for Ha'apai when our next guest arrived... Three o'clock in the night Björn met a rat in the cockpit! We where moored with long ropes to shore and obviously this little chap had climbed all the way.
In the light of the torch we tried to capture the rat, but it escaped, hopefully ashore along one of the ropes. Next morning we bought some mousetraps in town for safety if the rat still was in the boat.

We left Nukuálofa and anchored some miles east on the north coast to make the trip to Ha'apai possible to be done over one daylight.
One hour after we went to bed we heard the trap close, only to find it empty. Not even the cheese was there. Now we knew that we still had the rat on board!
Another type of mousetrap was a hard paper with a very sticky glue. Some small pieces of tomato in the middle and only minutes later the rat was completely stuck to the paper. The instructions on the paper was to fold it and press it together... We throw it upside down into the water, no rat anymore... After that we had a quiet sleep before we in the early morning started for Telekivavau, 50 nm to the north. An open reach and 20 knots of wind made it possible to navigate through all the reefs and we anchor just before dark.  
The protecting reef on the west side of Telekivavau is very small and the passage is very narrow and S-shaped, not an easy task in breaking sea. Luckily we had the sun behind us, the wind on the bow over the island and a very good waypoint position of the pass. Only 100 m from the 15 m wide pass it was visible in the foaming sea.
Inside the reef we had to use two anchors. The room behind the reef was not big enough for swinging on one anchor, but with two and the reef 20 m behind us we felt comfortable after a while when our heartbeat had come to normal! Sometimes cruising is very exciting!

We stayed  on this little lovely island for three days, completely on our own. Even the VHF was silent. There was plenty of Coco-nuts, Papaya and Bananas to eat, and walking around the island was perfect and enjoyable exercise. Barbecue on the beach was the perfect dinner, watching the sunset at leeward as a desert. Another Paradise, close to the one we found in Tahanea in the Tuamotu.

But everything must have an end, so we retrieved our anchors and continued north. We still hadn't cleared our papers in Ha'apai!  On route to Pangia we anchored west of the beach of Uhia protected from the south west wind, half way to Pangia. This time the anchoring was quite simple, no corals, no reef and most important, no breaking waves. 
Next morning on our trip to Pangia we came close to a couple of Humpbacks with one very playful calf, trying to do "the jump". Most of the time it was only a good attempt, but sometime he/or she succeeded to bring most of the body out of the water.

Pangia where this time not the empty place we visited a week earlier. Now the "crowds" going south had started coming, and the VHF was quite occupied. Most of the cruisers stayed on anchor outside the harbour, but we repeated our anchoring stern to. Two hours later we where four cruisers moored stern to, three European, used to stern mooring from the Med and Iris from Portland. We spent the evening together with Janet, John from Iris and their two guests Sue and Kregg. We had dinner at Mariners Café and of course a lot of mutual memories and experiences from our trips so far was on the menu.
Iris had to sail south next day due to guest flying out from Nukuálofa. We unfolded our bikes and biked to the north tip of the island, a nice 15 km ride one way. After another night on the wharf we did the southern tip, luckily a much shorter one, cleared the papers and took off going back south.

North of Limu we got a big Jackfish on the hook passing close to a reef and in the same time we saw a boat with a blue hull anchored at Limu. When we came closer we could determine that it was Iris. To the question about having fish barbecue on the beach, and to the answer "how old is the fish", we could reply "only 10 minutes".
Of course we had barbecue on the beach. Luckily there was a full moon, because by darkness some rats came out to our dieing fire to search for left over. Some coral stones skilfully thrown solved that problem. The water snakes was worse. They came out from the vegetation and wriggled over the sand to the water. One came from behind very close before we noticed it and John and Björn had to jump out of it's way sitting in the sand! 

The next day when we cleaned the beach we noticed a lots of tracks after the wriggling snakes. Not an island to be on the beach in the dark without a moon!
Iris left early, the flight was still to be reached. We moved more slowly, it was only 7 nm north to Uonukuhihifo, where we anchored west of the island protected from the wind and the swell. A nice refreshing walk around the island and later some parts from the fish yesterday barbecued on the stern grill made the day.

Now we thought that we had done the eastern part of Ha'apai and sailed west to Haafeva, a quite big island, where we anchored very protected and with good holding. Walking across the island where very different compared to the other islands we visited in Ha'apai. Tall trees and small muddy lakes here and there. A lot of Mango trees with it's just matured fruits laying on the small road, very smelly. The children in the village was very interested and asking us a lot of questions about names and where we come from. They told us that they know where Sweden is, but we aren't sure they really did that.
We where now in VHF reach from Pangia and we could here a number of known boats arriving from Vava'u. The second day at Haafeva came a Danish HR, "Chriann" and anchored close to Lindisfarne. Of course there was a Scandinavian meeting. We had dinner together and they wanted to here and see our photos from Antarctica, so we had a slide show as desert.

Knowing about all the boats heading south, we felt the time was running out for Ha'api and move to Tongatapu, waiting for a weather window for New Zealand.
The trip down to Kelefesia, half way to Tongatapu, was fast and comfortable. We arrived well before dark and the reef is quite bigger and easier than the reef at Telekivavau. The anchorage have room for several boats, compared to the small one at Telekivavau that hardly can accommodate more than one boat, at least under the circumstances we had when we anchored there.
We used an extra stern anchor to keep Lindisfarne at right angles to the swell. We had a calm night in spite the swell thanks to that.
We spent the next day exploring the little island. On the east side was some houses where fishermen from the next island lived for a week when they where fishing. They had just slaughtered a big pig in the heat and where preparing that. Because of the smell we where happy they didn't invite us for a meal!
Later Moonduster and  New Paige came to the anchorage and the next day we sailed together to Nukuálofa. Well, together is a question of definition. New Paige is a powerboat and Moonduster is a 45f Sparkman&Stevens old Admiral cup boat. But we where only one hour late at the anchorage at Pangiamutu, just a dinghy ride to town. This is where Big Mama has her restaurant/bar, famous among cruisers.

The anchorage opposite the restaurant became slowly quite crowded with cruisers waiting for the right opportunity to leave for New Zealand. Of course most of the conversation among cruisers was about the weather, and whether one should rely on a "weatherman" or just read the grib-files. This year the weatherman was not very successful. Four boats where guided and left only to be back 24 hours later. When they left we couldn't see a suitable weather pattern on our grib-files...

During this period of waiting we borrowed a airpump, hose and a regulator set to be able to clean the bottom. NZ is quite fussy about growth on the bottom, and if they judge it's to much you have to haul out and clean the boat at your expensive.
Finally the right time to leave had come and we sailed to Minerva reef some 200 mils to the south. The second night Iris, who was 15 miles ahead of us, called us on VHF reporting a heavy squall from the south and recommended us to start going further east to gain height.
After the squall we where only some miles west of our drum line to Minerva thanks to that call. We arrived around 9 to Minerva and motored almost two miles across the lagoon to the leeward side of the reef.  Here was already several boats anchored, among them Iris.
They had a leaking backstay tensioner and couldn't get the stay prestressed - a quite dangerous situation with strong headwind and rough sea. With a big rigging screw, a piece of high strength chain and some shackles we could manage to help them getting a temporary backstay tensioner, strong enough for the trip to Opua.
All boats left before noon next day. Of course some of the really fast ones disappeared out of VHF range, but we had VHF contact all the 700 nm down to Opua with 4-5 boats in spite the range of size was 37-55 feet. The trip took 6,5 days and the weather was next to perfect the whole way down. The final day where predicted to be gale from northwest, but the wind came later when we where south of cape Reinga, the north tip of NZ, and we got a fast run down the coast in sometime heavy rain. We didn't see much of the famous Bay of Island, passing in the dark and heavy rain. Coming up the fairway, guided by leading beacons we catched up with Iris and moored at the Quarantine dock an hour before midnight. Five relatively wet cruisers had a warm rum punch in Iris, quite pleased to have manage to come this far without having had any major difficulties.

November

Next morning the officials came to the isolated dock (actually the floating breakwater to the marina) and before noon we where cleared and had got a berth in the marina. Now we had a few days to settled down before the Rally "Opua from anywhere" started. A fantastic week with a lots of fringes, food and most of the time things that are related to that was on the menu at different establishments in Opua to welcome the community of cruisers. Many old friends from the Pacific met and we met even a lot of new friends whom we either heard of or had only seen the boat, not meeting the crew.

After this exhausting week we had to start preparing Lindisfarne to be ready to accommodate guests, starting mid December, but more about that in our next log.

13 November 2008
Annika & Björn
Lindisfarne

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