Date First Posted: August 25, 2006
Log Entry Start Date - July 27, 2006
Log Entry End Date - August 23, 2006
Locations Covered - Northern Society Islands, Palmerston, Niue, Tonga
Present Location: Neiafu, Vava'u Island Group, Tonga
Latitude: 18 Deg 39.5 S Longitude: 173 Deg 58.9 W
Weather: Partly Cloudy, Upper 70's
Distance covered since last entry: 1411 nautical miles
Total distance traveled since departure from Antigua: 8014 nautical miles
Commentary:
After spending ten weeks at home, we returned to Encore II in Raiatea. While we were home we got in a lot of golf, Nancy visited with friends and relatives and tended to her garden while Paul collected spare parts and items for our continuing voyage. We enjoyed the brief time with family and friends and would have spent more time at home if we still didn’t have over 3000 miles to go to reach Australia in just over three months. We did get to take Encore I out for some day sails and even made a 32 mile round trip voyage to the Old Club on Harsens Island with our friends Desmond and Sue Davies.
Our flights back included a one night layover in Tahiti, and then on to Raiatea and Marina Apooiti where Encore II had been left. Although the boat was safe and sound, there was a lot of mildew to clean up inside in spite of being aired out by the folks at the boatyard, Raiatea Careenage, from time to time. It has been an unusually wet “dry season” in French Polynesia, and this contributes to the mildew. The main town on Raiatea is Uturoa, and it is the second largest town in the entire region. Although the grocery store was tiny compared to Tahiti, we reprovisioned for the next several legs of our voyage. We stopped for lunch in town a couple times for the poisson cru au coco lait (marinated raw fish with coconut milk), running into other cruisers we began to meet in the marina and anchored nearby. We joined a group of them one night to go to a hula dance competition featuring the winners of a contest in Bora Bora. This was not a “tourist” show, but similar to the band competitions that our daughter Jennifer performed in. The show went on for over an hour and featured dozens of costumed men and women and accompanying drum line.
We debated about having Encore II lifted out of the water to check the propeller and rudder, and in the end decided to go ahead. Raiatea Careenage had prepared the back of our boat for some paint retouching and really wanted the boat out of the water to complete this task. They agreed to lift us the next Monday morning and put us back in the water the same day. Considering the amount of rain before and after that day, we were lucky to have a nice dry day. Part of the work being done was to replace the electrical insulators on our backstay (the wire holding the mast up from the back of the boat) which acts as our antenna for our high seas radio. In order to lift the boat out of the water, we had to take down this backstay anyways, so it all added up to a one day job.
Once we were out of the water, Fred, our contact at the yard, began work on our backstay. He then checked out our propeller and reached the conclusion that it had been mounted backwards, causing us to have excessive vibration and reduced performance. This is hard to explain, but in short, our propeller (a MaxProp) is designed to feather when we are not motoring. That means that the blades rotate so they are facing into the flow of water, reducing drag and allowing us to sail faster. When we do motor, the blades rotate into position. The way the propeller had been mounted, the blades rotated so that the back edge was angled toward the front by mistake. Because the blades are not symmetrically shaped, this causes the problems we had noticed. While this doesn’t keep the propeller from working at all, it is hardly desirable. We have no idea how long the propeller has been like this, perhaps since we bought the boat. The gearbox had been replaced by the prior owner and this might have been the time when the mistake was made. We had heard of this happening on other boats, but couldn’t believe it happened to us as well.
While we had
the boat's hull being cleaned, Fred remounted the propeller correctly and we
waited to be relaunched. Most yards, including this one, use a movable
crane called a Travelift. It is a motorized “U” shaped frame mounted on
huge tires and with straps that go under the boat to lift it out. It takes
a lot of experience and people to work the Travelift, especially for a boat
that weighs over 50,000 pounds. In fact, sometime after we had been hauled
out and were still in the slings, but being supported by our keel and some
portable stands, one of the tires on the Travelift failed. This was a major
problem for the yard and threatened to delay our return to the water.
The picture at right is of Encore I being lifted out of the water in Trinidad.
The tires on these Travelifts are literally the ones used on 747 airplanes. After a life in the air, these 87 ply tires find homes in marinas around the world. Finding a repair shop for this kind of a tire isn’t easy, and we appreciated Dominique, the manager of the yard, getting the tire fixed and back in place so we could go back in the water late in the day after most of his staff would have long gone home.
The next morning Fred remounted our backstay and we motored out to a mooring near the Marina Apooiti. We still had a surprise. Fred had forgotten that after reversing the prop, we also had to reverse the lever on the engine control so that “forward gear” was still forward. Dominique explained this, but it is still a bit confusing. The good news is that the vibration from the propeller is much less, and we increased the pitch (angle) of the propeller and are now having somewhat higher motoring speeds at the same RPMs.
We had assumed it was going to be several days after we returned before we could leave Raiatea, and we were still on schedule. Fred lives on the sister island of Tahaa which shares a common lagoon with Raiatea. He gave us several suggestions of anchorages and snorkeling spots for Raiatea, Tahaa and nearby Bora Bora, and we finally got underway to a spot he told us about in a bay on Tahaa. A French couple, Alain and Christina, have lived on this bay for 20 years and run a vanilla plantation. Now Alain specializes in giving botanical tours.
We
were able to use one of their moorings near their home and shared a tour
with an Italian couple from a nearby charter sailboat. We saw dozens of
different fruit trees as well as some of the vanilla plants on his property,
and then rode in his 4 wheel drive truck to see more of the island. Alain
and Christina (at left) are very interesting in themselves. He explained
that he studied (and practiced?) as an optician in France, but also worked
at a sailing school. Over twenty years ago, they sailed their boat from
France, and after having visited many of the islands in the Pacific, decided
to settle here. He is self taught in botany, and gave us very detailed
explanations of not only his plants and trees, but those all over the
island.
Their house overlooks Hurepiti Bay, and consists of several buildings. One is for sleeping, another for cooking and eating, and another for visiting. Built out of traditional materials including a thatched roof made from Pandanus fronds, we did notice the Sub-Zero refrigerator and modern appliances.
Their backyard was literally a botanical garden with dozens of plants that Alain explained to us. At the edge of the yard was a small area with vanilla plants. Up until a few years ago, they had a large vanilla plantation, but now only grow a small batch. Vanilla is an important cash crop for Tahaa, where one kilo (2.2 pounds) sells for $200-300 here, but four times as much back in France.
It
is a labor intensive crop, where every day during the four month or so
“flowering” season, someone has to go to find every flower that has
blossomed, and hand pollinate them. Originally vanilla was grown in Mexico,
and the bees that naturally pollinate the vanilla plants there could not be
adapted to live elsewhere. The blooms only last one day, so you can’t take
a day off, and Alain said he has pollinated up to 3000 blooms in one day.
Within a day, you can see the vanilla bean start to grow from the stem of
the bloom, and after nine months, the bean is ready for harvesting. It
takes on a dark brown color and can be 3 to 8 inches long.
After
being picked, the beans are then spread out in the sun for four hours a day,
for many months in a row, to dry out. Each day they are put on flat metal
trays, and turned over every hour. Finally, when they have dried enough,
they are hand sorted by length, packaged and shipped to export.
As
we drove around the island in the back of Alain's tour "bus", we learned
about dozens of other plants, including a type of basil that is used as an
anesthetic in dentistry, wild hibiscus flowers used for a wide variety of
purposes, as well as nuts and fruits of every type.
Alain
explained that about 700 species of plants are indigenous to these islands,
meaning that they came to grow here naturally as the result of floating from
island to island (like coconuts), being carried in the wind, or by birds.
Another 50 or so were brought by the early Polynesians that emigrated from
Malaysia. These included many of the edible plants and plants used for
other purposes. The balance, about 1000 species, was brought by Europeans
and later visitors.
The
tour was fascinating and we had good views from spots high on the island,
but it was dampened by nearly constant and sometimes heavy rain. The road
over the top of the island was deep with mud and ruts, and at times we all
sat on one side of the truck to help with its traction. The weather
forecast called for clearing in a day, but in the meantime we were below
decks changing the engine oil and filters, reading and updating our
website. There are boats at Bora Bora that have been waiting for a week for
better weather to head west while a slow moving and unusual cold front has
been tracking overhead. We still have a few days to visit Bora Bora and
clear out, so we’re not yet being delayed. Our goal is to leave during a
full moon so we have better light to sail with at night.
The
sail to Bora Bora is only around 25 miles, so after a leisurely departure
from Raiatea we motored all the way due to a lack of wind. The
picture at right shows Bora Bora on the horizon as we go out through the
pass at Tahaa.
We had reconnected via our high seas radio with friends on Savoir Vivre, who were waiting for a weather window to leave from Bora Bora to Suvarov. Savoir Vivre is a Beneteau First 45f5 identical to Encore I, so we felt a lot of kinship with Lucy and Jamie on board.
We
took a mooring off the Bora Bora Yacht Club (really just a restaurant these
days) and went into town to complete our provisioning and arranging our
clearance out of French Polynesia with the local gendarmes. Jamie and Lucy
stopped over at sundown and we had a brief reunion, having not seen them
since Antigua over a year ago. The next day they headed out to Suvarov and
after making some critical repairs to our plumbing system, we left for
Tonga. Bora Bora has a spectacular skyline and lagoon, but is a bit
too commercial and touristy for our tastes.
Suvarov is part of the Northern Cook Islands and is famous for being the home of Tom Neale for many years. Tom is the author of the book “An Island to Oneself”, telling the story of how he came to live all alone on Suvarov for many years between 1952 and 1977. While most would call him a hermit, he actually wasn’t, but just enjoyed the challenge of fending for himself on an island where ships might pass by only every 3 to 14 months. The book is fascinating as it describes how he survived and adapted to his environment. We had a copy on board and gave it to Jamie to read enroute. Today a caretaker and his wife and children live on the island which is a national park. While the island is still pristine, it is frequently visited, with around a dozen boats there right now.
We
left just before the full moon. Our passage to Tonga is about 1300 miles,
and passes by a number of possible places to stop. When we made this
passage with the Expo ‘98 Rally in 1997, we were on a racing leg, so we
didn’t stop even though we passed right by some islands. This time we
planned to make at least a couple of stops. Due to our late afternoon
departure from Bora Bora, the timing wasn’t quite right to stop at either
Maupiti or Maupihaa, two atolls just west of Bora Bora and part of French
Polynesia.
After
a couple of typical sunsets, the next choices were either Aitutaki, the
second most important island after Rarotonga in the Cook Islands, or
Palmerston, a 5 mile in diameter atoll basically in the middle of nowhere
but directly in our path.
We
decided to stop at Palmerston, a 700 mile, 3-1/2 day trip. We had good if
not too good winds for the passage and other than being a little rolly
during a patch of larger swells, it was a good passage. Just the same,
after being out of the habit of long passages, we were glad to drop our
anchor on a narrow shelf just off the main island (motu) in the atoll. The
area to anchor in is completely open to the west, and the bottom goes from
coral reef to over 10,000 feet deep in just a short distance, so you need to
have a local resident come out in their boat and show you the precise spot
where it is possible. Then, if the wind isn’t from the east, you have to be
prepared to pull up anchor and leave on short notice.
The history and people of Palmerston are fascinating. In 1862, William Marsters, an Englishman, settled on one of the islands in the atoll with his three Polynesian wives from Penryhn, another atoll in what are now the Cook Islands. His 26 children grew up in the atoll, and he divided the islands and land in the atoll into three sections (for the families of each wife), and set down strict rules on intermarriage. Today most of his descendents live in New Zealand, which grants citizenship to Cook Islanders, but around 60 still live at Palmerston. There are two men who focus on greeting and hosting yachties, Bob and Ed Marsters. There is apparently a bit of competition and rivalry between them as well as between the three “clans” who still question who got the most or better land. Bob and his daughter Taya came out in their motor boat to greet us while we were still miles at sea, and then helped us anchor. We got a great nights sleep off this nearly uninhabited paradise.
The
next morning, Bob brought three government “officials”, customs, immigration
and quarantine. Filling out the forms took a short while and we got to meet
these people. Other than a handful of government jobs such as these, there
are no “paid” jobs on the island, and these jobs are clearly only part time
and for a short part of the year when boats visit. Bob then took us in
through the reef to the “main” island where everyone lives.
There
were about 6 boats visiting at the time, and Bob was hosting 4 of them. As
a host, he provided all of our transportation back and forth to the boat
from the island, arranged a walking tour of the island by his 7 year old son
(Bury), and invited all of his “guests” for a huge lunch at his house.
Bury took us around to see the various small family compounds on the island which are connected by neatly maintained walkways.
Here we are next to an old mahogany tree. The island suffered from a cyclone just last year, and while you could see some affects, it was amazing that everyone seems to have taken it in stride. During the peak winds of over 100 knots, everyone went to the center of the island where the elevation is maybe 50 feet.
Our
visit was one of the most memorable stops in our cruising experience.
Everyone we met was very friendly, and especially the kids who start calling
you by name immediately and tag along everywhere you go. Our first stop was
the Palmerston Island Lucky School a one-room schoolhouse for the 20 school
age kids from about 6 to 15 years old. On the wall of the school is a list
of all the teachers over the years, including our host Bob.
The
current teacher is a woman from New Zealand who knew the Marsters family in
New Zealand, and married into the family and came to Palmerston where her
husband is the island “administrator.” She does double duty as the
“financial” manager for the island, but doesn’t get paid twice, so that
someone else on the island can get paid out of the budget granted by the
Cook Islands government. The classroom was pretty well stocked with
supplies, books and a computer, and the teacher said that more computers
were on the way. Sadly, she said that the parents all think they could do a
better job than she, even though they generally don’t help.
Our
next stop was the island clinic, a two room building. A nurse visiting on a
sailboat had been working there for three weeks, trying to build medical
histories on the residents and helping the local “nurse” who was also the
quarantine officer that came to our boat. The local nurse had only received
3 months of training in the capital (Rarotonga), and while she might be able
to handle small problems, any major illness or injury can have grave
consequences since the island is too far for helicopter evacuations, has no
airstrip, and no regularly scheduled boat service. We were told that the
local residents accept these health risks as part of their lifestyle.
There
is electricity and phone service on the island. The “electric company” is a
small diesel generator in a shed, and we noticed path lighting along the
walkways between the various family communities. The phone service is a
single phone booth next to a satellite dish in the village, with a building
next door where a computer provides internet service.
It
doesn't take much power for 60 or so residents, and in contrast to some of
the remote islands we saw in San Blas Islands of Panama, the standard of
living is quite high spite of their isolation. The island phone
network really just consists of marine VHF radios that everyone has in their
home to call one another if needed. The customs officer had learned that
Paul had some experience with an electric company, and asked for help
troubleshooting the solar panel he uses to charge the car battery that
powers his radio. With lots of help from the local kids, climbing on his
roof to bring the panels down, fetching tools, and holding the panel in the
sun, we were able to repair his panel and put it back in service.
Meanwhile, Nancy was collecting items from our boat to donate to the school,
medical clinic and Bob’s family.
Given
a waning moon, and wanting to take advantage of the moon for our night
passages, we only spent one full day at Palmerston, and left the next
morning for Niue, our next destination. A relatively short 400 mile trip
that had mostly sunny skies and fair winds, we arrived again just as the sun
set. Niue is one the worlds smallest independent nations, consisting of a
single island about 12 miles long and 7 miles wide, with around 1500
inhabitants. Similar to the Cook Islands, Niue is associated with New
Zealand, which allows citizens from Niue to live and work in New Zealand,
and in fact more live in New Zealand than on Niue itself. Described as the
world’s largest block of coral, Niue is literally a big coral island that
was pushed up 300 feet out of the water by tectonic action. The ocean is
two miles deep all around, except for other seamounts (underwater mountains)
that come near the surface. The island is almost perfectly flat, with a
lower, narrow shelf around the coast line. It reminded us of the Niagara
Escarpment near Tobemory in Canada.
Niue is a popular stop for boats as it is directly in the way of boats going to Tonga. Similar to Palmerston with deep water all around and no protected harbor, boats have to stay on the west coast and hope the wind doesn’t come from that direction. The good news is that the local yacht club has put down heavy moorings that the boats can use during their stay. The yacht club building was destroyed during a hurricane several years ago, so their only presence is some washrooms on the dock, a few local members, and a website. Surprisingly, they have over 1000 cruising members based on folks like us that have contributed $20 to join and help support the clubs efforts. The commodore, Keith, is a retired school principal from New Zealand. He was very welcoming and took us around the town of Alofi to find the laundry, market, and best restaurants (snack bars).
The town was about a block long, featuring a couple banks, the government offices, and a little strip mall with some small markets, a hairdresser, stationary store, and Internet café. Niue is known for being perhaps the first country in the world to provide free wi-fi internet service to all of the residents (assuming they are in range). The coverage extends out to the anchorage area for the boats, although the signal is a little weak. Unfortunately, some local residents were abusing the network and now, all the computers have to be registered before getting online, and they charge about $20 for this.
One
of the more interesting features of the wharf is a crane provided by the
yacht club to hoist dinghies out of the water while their owners are on
land. There isn’t any spot to tie up your dinghy and with the swell and
surge and absence of beaches, without the crane it would be hard to go
ashore.
The crane is self serve, so you hook on to the cable, lift the dinghy out of the water, drop it on a small flat cart, move it to a parking area, and slide the dinghy off. After a while you get reasonably proficient at this even after a night on the town.
Other
than a single upscale resort on the island, there isn’t much in the way of
dining or entertainment. A small snack bar overlooking the shore, called
Crazy Uga’s (means crab) was recommended as the best, and was our favorite
spot for lunch. It has four picnic tables, some under cover or an
umbrella. The owner also has a beach bar called the Washaway, that is at
the southern end of the island. Once or twice a week, the Washaway is open
and has a small band, and we were told it was a “must see”. Keith arranged
for a minibus and a dozen people from the boats anchored around us went on
one of these nights. It wasn’t much more than Crazy Uga’s, with a round
building with a thatch roof, housing a bar, cooking area and four or five
small tables, and then a few picnic tables outside. When we arrived, our
group had the place to ourselves. We had been told we could eat dinner
there, but that there was a power outage and we had to wait for the owner to
bring a generator set.
The islands generating plant had a fire some weeks ago and since then they have been struggling to provide power. When we first arrived the power was out and at least they had brought a generator to the docks to power the hoist. Since then the power has been off and on all the time.
Eventually
the generator arrived for the Washaway, and by then the crowd had swelled to
perhaps thirty people, mostly from boats, but a few locals and tourists from
New Zealand. The band was pretty entertaining, three older local men
playing songs from the 60’s which were popular given the age of most of our
fellow sailors. The quality of music was marginal, but they made it up in
volume and after enough New Zealand beer most of the crowd was having a
great time.
The next day, we planned on using the minibus to tour the island, stopping to snorkel (the water clarity is phenomenal) and seeing the caves and caverns in the coral structure of the island. Murphy’s Law worked against us. First, a cold front passed through; bring rain, clouds and the west winds and waves that work against the exposed anchorage. One boat had already left for Tonga being afraid of being at anchor in these conditions. So far, the wind has been light, but from due west, making the boat roll and uncomfortable for sleeping. Under these conditions it is difficult to take a dinghy to the wharf, and we need to stay aboard in case the wind picks up and we need to sail around to the other side of the island for a while. To top it off, the island is without power again, which means that without a generator on the dock, we might not be able to put our dinghies back in the water when we returned. We hope to rebook the minibuses for tomorrow and try again, and keep our fingers crossed that the wind doesn’t get too strong before shifting around to the south or east.
The moorings are almost all taken, a rare condition, but possibly due to the wave of boats that had waited in Bora Bora for weather, now all reaching the same spot together further west. Instead of needing a 15 seat minibus for our tour we may need two. It is interesting to meet all the boaters and comparing plans for the future cruising. At this time, next to Encore II at Niue are: Shiraz, with folks from Indianapolis; La Boheme, a sailboat from Annapolis; Sandpiper a smaller boat with a younger couple from San Francisco; Towanda, with a couple from Denmark; two boats from Norway, a boat from France; and then just this morning another 4 boats arrived, with several on their way. We are surprised at the number of American flagged boats as we have rarely seen other Americans so far on our voyage.
Well,
we finally took our tour, celebrating our 34th wedding
anniversary. The minibus was full, with an interesting group of boaters to
spend time with. The tour followed the road that circles the island. Our
first stop was at the cave at Avaiki. The island's coral structure consists
of a plateau about 300 feet above sea level, and then trails down to the
shore, including at this point, a cave to pass through.
The
coast has dozens of these large caves carved by the seas over perhaps
thousands of years. There were the usual stalactites and stalagmites, in a
cave with a ceiling dozens of feet high in places.
Once
on the shore, the small pools of water were crystal clear with small fish,
and an iridescent blue color.
The
colors in the cave were also very vivid. It would take dozens of
pictures to show all the views from this first stop on our tour.
A
short way further up the coast we stopped at Limu, a favorite spot for
snorkeling. The coves are fed by fresh water draining from underground
streams and the mixture of fresh and salt water made the visibility weird,
like looking through rippled glass. The visibility was good enough to see
lots of fish and eels, plus a couple of sea snakes. These snakes are
poisonous, but everyone says their mouths can’t open enough to bite people.
We left them alone in any event.
Because the island is entirely coral, and there are no above ground rivers, the water has extremely good clarity. Anchored in about 40 feet of water, we could easily see the bottom. Divers come from around the world to scuba dive here.
Our
next stop was at the Tavala Arches. While the first two stops had us
climbing up and down the several hundred feet from the plateau, which was a
bit strenuous in itself, to get to the Tavala Arches, we had to hike up the
coast for what was billed as a 15 minute, 1 kilometer walk. It was more
like twice that, climbing over and down a very rocky trail.
At
the end, everyone’s jaw dropped when we climbed through a final cave and saw
the arches.
These
were huge free standing structures on the shore, backed by several large
caves.
They
reminded us of our visit to Arches National Park in the USA, but instead of
desert, we were on the sea shore and had passed through lush tropical rock
gardens.
After a snack and chatting with other boaters who had rented motorcycles for their tour, we continued around to a place called Togo. The island isn’t very big, but the roads are narrow and in places only dirt. One of the most unusual sights on the island is the practice of having graves located on the property where a person lived instead of in traditional cemeteries. We saw hundreds of grave stones and monuments on the side of the road, not only in the town, but out in the country. The area around them was always neatly cropped and many had flowers left on them. Some of the markers were very old, dating back more than one hundred years, while others were shiny marble. At one point we passed a funeral being held at a home alongside the road. There were hundreds of people gathering in seats facing the front porch of the house, and an open grave just to the side of the road.
When
we reached Togo, we had another walk to get to the windward coast of the
island. This time, the first 20 minutes were through a tropical rain forest
with the scent of herbs and the path covered by damp leaves. When we
reached the edge of the cliffs and started down to the shore we were going
through a rugged coral moonscape unlike anything we had ever seen.
The
razor sharp coral spikes were 5 to 15 feet high, and it would have been
impossible to cross this area if there wasn’t a path that had been cut and a
narrow strip of concrete walkway.
We
were very impressed by the effort the tourist commission had made to set up
rope handrails, steps and ladders at this spot as well as the others we
visited.
The
weather the past few days had been a nightmare for boats coming to Niue,
with high winds and seas, including 12-15 foot swells that occasionally
combined to reach 20-30 feet. These conditions made the view at Togo
spectacular, with huge waves crashing on the coral coast. The colors were
fantastic, and the spray shot high in the air and hundreds of feet onto the
shore at times. A short video of the waves is
here.
Following
a path through small chasms near the shore, led to a completely isolated
sandy cove at the bottom of the cliffs.
In
order to get down, you had to climb down a nearly vertical ladder about 60
feet and then wade through a pond. It was definitely a Kodak moment, with
pictures of this cove featured on the tourist guides for Niue.
We completed the loop after a refreshment stop at the Pacific Way Bar. This place is where the locals spend their time playing darts and pool. While we were there, we watched two teams of women competing in a tournament. They had on uniforms and we could tell that they were serious players. They were also very impressive.
We’re now getting ready to leave for Tonga in the morning (only a day later than our original schedule). The seas should be less than 12 feet and the winds should be dying down in advance of the next cold front. At about 240 miles, if we leave at first light, we’ll hope to arrive before dark the next day. We’ve really enjoyed Niue and especially liked getting to know a lot of new boats while we’ve been here. We’ll see many of these boats off and on for the next few months as everyone heads for either Australia or New Zealand.
P.S. We weren't able to post this until after we reached Tonga. Our passage was pretty uneventful. We were told that we would have winds from the east or northeast for the two days of the trip, but ended up having a wind shift in the middle of the night accompanied by some sheet lightning and rain. The front passed in a matter of only an hour and then we had south winds the rest of the way. We arrived an hour before sunset and saw several whales as we entered the channels around Vava'u.
There are a couple of Internet cafes here in Neiafu, the main town in the island group of Vava'u, in northern Tonga, and they are filled with boaters checking email, updating websites, and talking on the phone over the Internet. We'll post a lot more information and pictures about Tonga before we leave. The main change we've noticed in the nine years since we've been here, is that there are many times more boats, perhaps one hundred anchored and moored along the main waterfront.
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