After spending a few blissful, sunny days in the protected anchorages near the race’s end, and saying goodbye to our buddy boats that are headed on to Fiji this season, Dominic and I made our way to Kenutu, the eastern most island in Vava’u.
Read MoreDominic and I had our first racing experience on Wednesday, and it was absolutely thrilling. We were hesitant to get involved at first—38 feet long and 14 feet wide, with a full keel and weighing 14 tons, Helios is built for comfort and not for speed. We considered crewing aboard our friends Greg and Kaycee’s 41 foot catamaran, Oceanna; we considered leaving early and designating ourselves finish line photographers;
Read MoreSo much fun and so little time to blog! The weather remains dismal: we’re going on our third week of clouds and rain; I think I’ve seen the sun for a total of 45 minutes in the last 16 days. But the good news is an informal flotilla of boats filled with cruisers under 40 pulled into Vava’u, so there has been a serious party vibe going on.
Read MoreOne morning last week we woke to a knocking sound on our hull. Two kiddos from the village on Nuapapu were out peddling bananas and coconuts from their outrigger canoe. Dominic was thrilled as our fruit supplies were depleted; I don’t eat bananas, but I enjoyed the opportunity for an early morning photo shoot, as did they—these two were much more adept at posing for pictures than they were at bartering. Dominic asked how much the bananas cost, one kiddo said $10, the other said $2, and we settled on $4 for half their bushel (the exchange rate is roughly 50 cents Tongan to the US dollar; a steal for organic bananas of ample size!).
Read MoreTwo of our absolute favorite people from home are getting married today, our dear friends Bob and Vanessa. When I think of our favorite memories from the last ten years, these two are usually at the center of the fun: football tailgates, ski trips, weekends in wine country and Seattle, happy hours in San Francisco and Berkeley—I can’t imagine what my twenties would have been like without Vanessa’s mad party planning skills and Bob’s dry, wry sense of humor.
Read MoreIt's hard to imagine that this weekend will already mark three weeks in Tonga. We've spent most of our time soaking in the lazy island pace, enjoying the bountiful fresh vegetables (arugula!), and trying to stay dry as a finger of the South Pacific Convergence Zone has been hovering over the region, keeping us covered in clouds and providing one brilliant lightning storm and over five inches of rain in one night.
Read MoreAnother spectacular snorkel report from Vava’u: just beyond the point northwest of Port Maurelle, two caves are carved into the low limestone cliffs lining the shore. The northerly cave is more open, with a skylight shadowed by tree branches and a pool lined with boulders. The rocks are covered with neon blue and pink flora, and the mouth of the cave is guarded by a five foot tall mass of brain coral with a school of bait fish circling it like a halo.
Read MoreYesterday was full of sunshine, so we started the day with an easy hike from Port Maurelle, our anchorage, to the neighboring beach. Everything was birdsongs and piglets until Dominic came to a dead halt, seeing a four inch spider skitter across his field of vision, just inches from his face. Its web, woven with electric orange thread the thickness of high-test fishing line, stretched across the path in front of our noses.
Read MoreWhales have been tantalizing us since we left San Francisco. We spotted a few whale tales and a little barrel rolling in Monterey—enough to appreciate how they epitomize awesome—but they were always at least a football field away, and we just saw enough to know we would love more. The calm, protected, warm waters of Vava’u, Tonga, are a nursery and breeding ground for humpback whales that spend much of the year feeding in Antarctica, and on Monday we took a whale watching tour in the hopes of joining them for a swim.
Read MoreWe got up at 6:30 am (!!!) this Monday morning for a majestic day in the water with humpback whales. More to come, but now it’s time for dinner and a long night’s nap.
Read MoreI’m sure it’s a surprise to no one that Tonga is amazing. Tonga is a geographically large, sparsely populated kingdom comprised of four island groups running along a north-south axis between Samoa and New Zealand. We’re currently in Vava’u, the cluster of 20-plus, beach-lined, wooded islands second from the equator. Vava’u is a cruiser’s paradise: in addition to having 41 anchorages and many Eden-like islets to explore, there’s a lively town with restaurants, friends, and yacht services never more than a day’s sail away.
Read MoreToday is my mom’s birthday! We’re on different sides of the Dateline, so I get two days to celebrate (yesterday was the ninth here) and I could be the first one to wish her a happy birthday. We’re out of internet range, so I called her on the sat phone. It was so good to hear her voice, and stories of her recent adventures in Burning Man, and what she wants for her birthday: a picture of my smiling face on the blog.
Read MoreWe left Thursday evening for the 320 mile sail to Tonga. Just under two weeks after our arrival in Samoa, we found ourselves in and out immigration offices and bustling to and from the grocery store, yet again.Our efforts were rewarded with our most pleasant voyage to date. The winds were stronger and lasted longer than predicted, and our sails were full with 20 knots behind us until the last six hours of the sail.
Read MoreSalamumu was the other sliver of paradise we found on the southern coast of Samoa. It was a deserted white sand beach with inky black lava rock formations lining the shore. We were there during low tide, so the lava rocks formed beach coves perfect for swimming, napping, and sunbathing.
Read MoreThe Teuila Festival began on our last night in Samoa. The festival is a celebration of Samoan cultural dance that coincided with the 2015 Commonwealth Youth Games also being held in Samoa this week. The highlight of the evening was the fire knife competition. We watched the preliminary rounds, so we saw former champions and novice dancers alike (and saw a surprising number of flaming fire knives slip from their hands and fly across the stage). All of the dancers performed to the same throbbing drum beat, and entered the stage with only one end of their fire knife lit (knife is a bit of a misnomer though, they were more batons than anything). Their first task was to light the second end: some dancers were able to hold the flame in their mouth, others set the floor of the stage on fire, and as a last resort, some dancers went ahead and lit their lavalava on fire.
Read MoreAfter spending the day at the beach, we needed a fresh water rinse to wash the salt off before our drive home. We stopped at Togitogiga Falls, a series of smaller cascades that fall into an idyllic jungle swimming pool.
Read MoreWe spent Sunday at Lalomanu Beach, the best stretch of sand we’ve found thus far in the South Pacific. Unlike any of the islands we visited in French Polynesia, the reef here abuts the shore directly, creating an easily swimmable lagoon and languorous expanses of peach-perfect sand.
Read MoreOn Saturday, we visited another modest Samoan backyard. Walking along a jungle glade to the seashore, we found a place where the earth opens to a tranquil swimming hole carved within the lava rock and ferns.
Read MoreWe spent the last three days in a rental car touring the island, and Samoa proves to be a place of superlatives: the most luscious waterfalls, the most glorious beaches, the most magnificent flora, the most secretive swimming holes, the best landscaped roads, the cleanest, most colorful villages, the most scrumptious restaurants, and the fewest tourists of any island we have visited. While exploring, we ran into one other yachtie, a few Kiwis staying at the smattering of modest bungalows around the island, and two backpackers paying about $20 per night to stay in open-air fales on the beach (fales are the ubiquitous form of Samoan abode: a raised paved or wooden platform with pillars supporting a domed roof).
Read MoreI grew up watching the films, but didn’t actually read Treasure Island until last April when Dominic and I were a few hundred miles out in the Pacific. It was thrill. It shivered me timbers, and my daydreams were filled with peg legs, marauders, maroonees, and mutineers.
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