Category Archives: Passage

Time spent between destinations travelling on the water.

Yacht Club Dinner and Suva Check Out

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Last night, after running our errands, we headed back to Kosmos to get ready for the Royal Suva Yacht Club’s 75th anniversary celebration, which was taking place all week. This night they were having a dinner and jazzmusic. We arrived at the yacht club shortly after 1800 (6:00 pm). We wandered around, in hopes of mingling.

Sadly no one spoke to us, beyond to tell us “those seats are probably taken”. In fact we felt quite awkward at the whole event. Interesting how everyone on the streets of Suva were so friendly, but in the yacht club, no one was. We thought there might be some other visiting cruisers around, but everyone appeared to be part of the yacht club. Too bad we did not ask about this when we got our tickets, and we wonder why they even sold us tickets without checking our membership. Continue reading →

Passage From Tonga to Fiji

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On Friday morning we announced we were leaving for Fiji on the morning radio net. A few minutes later, a fellow boater came by in his dinghy and told us that the top headline of the morning was that Fiji had just declared martial law and warned that maybe going to Fiji wasn’t such a good idea. Fiji has had ongoing bouts of political unrest since 1987. We read the news and decided that the situation wasn’t really that bad and decided to go as planned. Continue reading →

Welcome to Vava’u, Kingdom of Tonga

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18-39 S by 174-00 W The independent nation of Tonga is a Kingdom that consists of 171 islands over an area of 700,000 square kilometers. Tonga is one of the few places in the South Pacific that was never colonialized by Europe, so the locals tend to live a more traditional lifestyle than the islands infiltrated by the Europeans. Tonga is a monarchy, but they have a judicial and legislative process modeled after the west. While colonial powers were rejected, the missionaries were readily accepted. Tonga is a very Christian nation, with all the major sects represented. The local laws require all businesses to close on Sundays and modest dress. Wearing immodest clothing will get you a hefty fine. Continue reading →

Chimney Dive and Niue Departure

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On Sunday we had Keith from the yacht club and his wife, Sue, over for lunch. We had a nice visit with them. They brought us a batch of pineapple muffins, which we were excited about. Muffins make good passage food.

After lunch we went SCUBA diving with Eric and Gisela at a spot Keith told us about. When he first told us about it, we knew we couldn’t go. It is a more advanced dive to 100 feet, through a cave, and totally out of our league. However, Eric and Gisela are certified rescue divers, so when they arrived in port, we asked them to go with us. They also have a nice underwater diver camera. The dive is called “the chimney”. There is a sheer cliff that drops from 30 to 100 feet. Inside the cliff is a vertical cave, which opens up at the bottom. As you go in the cave, you look up a narrow opening 70 feet tall. From the surface, the opening looks like nothing more than a crack in the surface. The mouth of the cave isn’t visible from the surface, but just outside the mouth of the cave is an old jeep that was washed into the water during Heta. Continue reading →

Suwarrow to Niue

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Day 2 at sea — After a miserable 45 hours, conditions began to ease some. Not a lot, but some. The waves dropped to 4 to 8 feet. The frequency and forcefulness of the nasty beam rolls lessened a little. The ride went from being super miserable to uncomfortable. Most of our days at sea have been uncomfortable, so we have learned to live with uncomfortable.

One of the things about Niue is  that it is difficult to anchor. Continue reading →