Back to Neiafu

 I returned to Neiafu to pickup my next crew member Guy who was arriving from Pittwater NSW, Australia.  The harbour had filled up with yachts since I left with the arrival of the World ARC and the first few of the Island Cruising Rally boats.  All the moorings were occupied, luckily I had reserved a mooring by leaving my standup paddle board attached to it when I left previously.  The forest of anchor lights on all the boats lit up the anchorage at night.

The lights are the masthead anchor lights on the moored yachts.

Some of the Mini Globe single handed round the world race boats had arrived in the harbour as well.  See  https://youtu.be/-NROHpp4KV4 for an overview of the race.

Mini Globe yacht close-up

The tiny 5.8 metre Mini Global one design yacht

We had a nice chat with three of the racers one evening when we met them at the Hideaway floating bar in the harbour.  One of the racers, Dan is a Canadian and the other two were Spanish and Irish.  Their next leg took them from Tonga to Fiji.

After spending the afternoon at the Hideaway, we headed to the Oceanview restaurant at the south end of the harbour with a few other yachties.
The Oceanview restaurant 

The view to the north from the restaurant. Neiafu is at the top right and the yachts are moored off town and down the eastern shore to the right in the photo.

I had an excellent but very expensive rib-eye steak for dinner.  It cost $80 Tongan Panga or about $47 Canadian dollars.  The company was good and we arranged to take a crew member George who is crewing on another yacht out with us for a few days to visit the islands.  The owners of the yacht he was crewing on were going home to New Zealand for a couple weeks and George was staying aboard in Tonga.

The following day Guy, George and I took a short hike out of town to the lookout on Mount Talau.  This is the highest point in Vava’u.

The mythology of Mt. Talau

There was a short set of stairs to climb to the top of the “mountain”.  Two of the original five lookouts still remained and we did a circuit through the bush round the mountain to ensure the other three lookouts showing on the map were not still there 😊.

The view from the lookout south to Neiafu and the Port of Refuge anchorage.

Two days after our hike we met George at Mangos restaurant for dinner and also the next evening dinner at The Bellavista Cafe.

Mangoes restaurant on the waterfront

Bellavista Cafe on the Neiafu Main Street 

After all our socialising and restaurant visits it was time to get out and explore more of the islands.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Minerva Reef

Image
 After a week of hard sailing we arrived at North Minerva Reef.   Minerva Reef is a coral atol forming an almost complete circle of reef enclosing an approximately 2 mile wide lagoon.  The reef is just above water at low tide and is about 1 metre below water at high tide.  The reef provides good protection from the ocean swells but does not provide any wind protection. During our 5 day stay winds ranged from a low of 20+ knots to 49.5 knots.  The wind pushed large water flows over the windward side of the reef causing strong currents at the entrance passage on the leeward side. We were glad to get out of the large waves and take a rest for a while however the overcast and windy weather threatened to make the stay uneventful and boring.  This turned out not to be the case as we got together with several other yachties to participate in lots of activities and social events. On our first day we went snorkeling on the bow section of an old wreck.  The curr...
Read more

Avalau Island

Image
 Avalau Island portrays the quintessential South Pacific island feeling.  It has an extensive coral reef providing shelter from the ocean waves, a beautiful white sand beach with palm trees leaning out over the sand and striking turquoise crystal clear blue water. Avalau Island - a little bit of paradise! We anchored off the beach a little further out than planned because unfortunately a very large catamaran was anchored in the location I had set as the destination on our course map.  Not to worry, it was a short dinghy ride to shore.  The catamaran named Big Picture departed within an hour of our arrival but we did not bother to move and re-anchor.   We took the dinghy ashore and had a nice walk all the way around the island on the beach.  After the walk we did some snorkeling before returning to True North for sundowners and dinner.  After a calm overnight we departed just after sunrise to catch high tide through a shallow pass between us and our nex...
Read more

Carnarvon, Crew and Repairs

Image
 I’m still anchored at Carnarvon but a lot has happened since the last post.  When I was unable to get the autopilot repaired locally, I ordered a new unit which would take 3 weeks to a month to arrive.  My crew John and Fran decided they did not want to wait and so left to return home.  I arranged for a sports store in Carnarvon to allow me to have the autopilot shipped to their address so I could wait at Carnarvon and search for new crew. I placed advertisements for crew on several crew wanted web sites.  Another yachtie friend Marcel also spread the news and he was able to quickly send me some potential candidates.  My ads turned up several additional good crew prospects.  After several interviews, I offered positions to two people, Glen and Paul.  Both are Australian, experienced sailors and retired.  Glen will arrive tomorrow and Paul should arrive next Monday. Just after John and Fran left, one of the motors in my dinghy davits failed....
Read more