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Starblazer - 11/06/2014 – Update from Vava’u



First I must apologise for the lack of logs, I really thought I had written one last week. If I had, it would probably have had some expletives deleted, but more of that later.



The first part of the week was taken up with rally events, the leg prize giving with a very good buffet on Tuesday evening, followed on Wednesday by a trip to the very interesting Botanical Garden, followed by a Tongan feast at lunchtime, then the Skippers’ briefing for Fiji. To my great surprise, we won the fun competition, guessing the date and time of our arrival in Tonga. I’d guessed at 0815 Bora Bora time but was a few hours out because the wind wasn’t very helpful during the preceding night! I was also presented with a Kava Bowl as one of the (fairly) regular bloggers, I’m not sure we will buy any Kava root for ourselves though.



On Thursday, with thoughts turning to cruising around the islands, the generator wouldn’t run. Once or twice the fuel pump has appeared to work intermittently, Thursday it refused to work at all. Undeterred, John set off to find the motor parts place he had happened across once before. No, they didn’t have a suitable pump but “come back tomorrow after 11:00 and we will have one for you.” Late Friday morning John trekked back to the garage and, sure enough, they had a suitable pump for him. We went to Beluga Diving on the way back to the boat to pay for our 9 nights on a buoy (15TOPS about £5 per night) then had lunch before casting off.



Our intended destination was the bay behind Lape Island, close to Vaka’eitu. We only had one nasty surprise, a fairly substantial chunk of coral with a lot of mature trees on it appeared in our path but wasn’t on the chart plotter or the sailing map from the Moorings charter company. The chart plotter indicated a patch of less than 5 metres but showed no land or even coral heads! We found several other rally boats in the anchorage already.

David and Hika live on the island with their 5 youngest children, the older ones who attend secondary school in Neiafu, stay with David’s aunt and uncle. One of the boats co-ordinated with David and we had a feast on the

beach on Saturday evening. David provided the pigs to spit roast, Hika and a friend provided some of the side dishes and the cruisers took ashore a dish per boat. We all paid the agreed price then didn’t ask for any change!

The feast was a fund raiser for the village school on Lape, of which David is the chairman of the PTA. Hika invited us to go to church with them the next morning. It is a Methodist church though nothing like St Andrew’s in

The Stow, Harlow, which we both attended as children. The dinghy ride to Lape was a very wet affair though I had grabbed a plastic poncho to protect me, John’s lightweight waterproof trousers weren’t brilliant and his silk shirt was sodden. Hika had carried dry clothes for all her family in a bag so they kindly lent John one of David’s shirts. Let me just say, we knew one song and joined in: Happy Birthday to You… It was an experience.



Back in the anchorage all the other rally boats had left. We had promised to print some photos for Hika which we then encapsulated to protect them from the damp. Their ramshackle hut has an old tarpaulin for a roof, the walls are woven matting with the odd bit of corrugated iron and it does rain here! We decided to stay another night as we hadn’t managed to snorkel the coral garden. We still haven’t because the wind has been blowing quite strongly for the past few days and we don’t feel it is safe to take the RIB over the reef through breaking water! We were joined on Monday by our friends on Chez Nous. Three other rally boats came in on Monday and Tuesday though we all left this morning, going to different destinations. Since we arrived in the anchorage north of Tapana Island at lunchtime, two different rally boats have arrived! We have booked dinner in the restaurant tonight, no guessing what sort of food it is but I think the restaurant’s name gives the game away: La Paella.



Generator diesel Pump installed successfully on Saturday morning, batteries charged on Sunday and lots of water made on Monday.



Joyce


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