Silver_Light's blog

Captain Cook must have been an amazing man. I can't imagine what it would be like for Captain Cook or the Tongans to meet each other 250 years ago. Tonga has me really confused: the towns and villages are basic; Nuku'alofa has a main street that resembles a town. Everything is betwixt and between. One or two shops for the tourists are emblazoned with western paraphernalia such as window dressing displaying items that tourists may like; namely sarongs and shirts, handicrafts made of tapa cloth or wood, some are very intricate, and don't forget the freshwater pearls. The Tongans know where to go for their every day needs and if it's not found at the market this may be up a flight of stairs with completely irrelevant signage for the service provided. Government Departments, such as Customs and Immigration, observe all public holidays and may make up some for themselves and they are stringent about taking their breaks, which means that everything closes down during those times. In Pangai, the main town of the Ha'apai Island Group, we anchored offshore and took the dinghy into town.

Ten days at sea with a 30-hour stop at Minerva Reef (North Minerva). The trip of a lifetime with a couple of lovely cruising days, one which we had to motor most of the day but the others saw us pretty much in survival mode. The boisterous seas, like a huge agitator washing machine tossed and pummeled us as we tried to negotiate our way between the cockpit, cabin and head. Imagine this, you're standing on a 45 degree angle in the head, watching the toilet heave one way then the other, trying to get out of your wet weather gear and wishing you hadn't left it so long before starting this task, holding on with one hand co-ordinated with knee pressure while unzipping clothing, and, finally, you're seated. Then the very same process has to be repeated in reverse. Everything is an effort but you know it's going to end eventually. Showers; what showers? Wet wipes were wonderful for everything from top to toe; also, you could wash/wipe in any position. Don't think about that for too long!! On our first day with a flat sea, we had a shower - you know what they say about the simple things in life? It was bliss!

Four weeks and we're still not quite on top of our comms and downloads. Nearly there. IridiumGo and PredictWind are great but the setup is something you wouldn't believe. Ian has been working on this almost non-stop. These apps will enable us to download weather forecasts from satellites when on passage or from anywhere in the world. Very slowly, of course. Apparently you start the download, prepare and eat breakfast, then, voila, you have the latest forecast for your specific area in the Pacific Ocean. Two of the Apps work better on an iPad, so off we went to buy an iPad Pro - just another purchase of $1 boat dollar. ($1 boat dollar = $NZ1,000.) Back to the iPad, nothing would download. Even though Noel Leemings salesperson had told us all iPads had GPS, we should have bought a GPS assist and cellular iPad. They were going to swap it for us but there were no cellular iPads in the country according to their system (all the cruisers to the Pacific had bought them) and it would take two weeks to get one from the US. Twelve days before we leave NZ shores. Just order one and we'll let the universe take care of it - what will be, will be.

List after list after list. Then lists of lists. Rationalising lists. Striking items off lists then adding three items for every one struck off. Tetchy with the system, with partners, with workload, with weather. Just under 100 pages with 5-10 tasks to be completed on each page of the Safety Regulations of Sailing 2017-2020 as prepared by Yachting New Zealand. Other sailors saying to us: Oooohhhh, Cat 1, we know what that's like! The first time is the worst. Well, this is the first time! Are you feeling stressed yet? So much funnier when writing this in hindsight and reflecting on how we felt and knowing how we feel now that we have passed and got our certificate tightly in our grasp. Sadly, it's only valid until our first port of call. First port of call, you might say! Absolutely. And all those boat dollars; fyi, 1 boat dollar is equivalent to $1,000.