In Ha'apai Group of Tonga

Received at 0024MST 30 SEP 2010 from ile de Grace:

we're in the Ha'apai Group of Tonga (Capital of Tonga), lots of deserted islands, no internet of course, we'll update in a week or so...


--Katie

Mother and Calf

The female humpback whale hovered 10 meters below the surface of the sea, motionless except for the nearly imperceptible flicks of her white-splotched, knobby pectoral fins. She looked like a funhouse mirror’s version of a 767 jet – an 40 ton, 15 meter cylindrical body, tapering gently toward the tail; her pectoral fins a set of truncated wings, and a tail fluke with tips that hung horizontally. Her skin was mottled, scraped in places, and the barnacles on her white underbelly and by her mouth were being tended to by several remoras, swimming along her skin and around her mouth. On each side, her eyes were closed; she was resting.

Beneath her, upper body nuzzling the mother’s belly, was her calf – just 10 weeks old, and already a hefty 7 tons. The calf lolled around the underbelly of the mother, then drifted slowly away, and began to ascend, turning as it went to face the five of us, snorkeling in 2000 feet of water, 2 miles from shore, and just 20 meters away from these two wondrous sea mammals. We went to look for whales, here in Vava’u, and now we were snorkeling -- barely remembering to breath -- with a mother-calf pair of humpback whales.

Jennifer in yellow, foreground

Our first encounter with the whales of Vava’u – nearly all humpbacks coming up from the Antarctic to breed and give birth – ended when the solo whale decided to dive deep and thus we missed a chance to swim with it. Jennifer had entered the water first – that’s her in the yellow-banded mask, as the whale continues to swim; and then, with a casual gliding movement, she lifted her fluke to the vertical, and slid down into the sea. When they dive, their flukes leave an flat slick of water on the surface for several minutes; experienced whale watchers can follow the “fluke prints” for a mile or so.

Diving deep -- 15 minutes below water

 Later, we spotted the mother and calf, and this time, they were willing to hang around the surface as we entered the water. We were led by a Tongan guide, and there were only four other swimmers allowed in at any one time. We slid in quietly, just 100 meters from the whales, and then swam gently toward their heads, coming to a collective stop about 50 yards away. The mother lay just below the surface, resting while her calf played around her, turning and twisting its body, getting used to the idea of its size. The calf relies entirely on its mother in the first 9-12 months, with the mother breast feeding the calf, depleting her stores of fat as the calf grows.

Jennifer in the yellow-band, mother on the surface

 These whales spend their summers in the Antarctic, feeding on krill, fattening up, before swimming several thousand miles to these warmer waters to give birth and breed. The calves, lacking sufficient body fat, would die of exposure if born in the cold waters of the Antarctic, and by the time they head back south, the calves are fat, and the mothers are weak and thin.

We spent over an hour in the water with these two whales, watching the calf surface repeatedly, learning how to move its body, practicing its breathing, and, once or twice, coming within 15 meters of us before turning slowly and descending back to the safety of its mother. Toward the end of our water time, we spotted a third whale approaching, and Jennifer watched it as it passed below the mother and calf.

Calf approaching Jennifer, in the yellow

A few minutes later, I was in the water, and the whale returned – a juvenile, perhaps 2 or 3 years old, looking to re-bond with a mother. The juvenile swam in and around the pair, with the mother protecting the calf by coming underneath the calf and lifting it with her mouth, so that the baby sat on top of the mother’s mouth. From time to time, the calf would nuzzle its mouth against its mom’s mouth, and our guide explained that whales have sensitive follicles around their mouths, and this nuzzling was a form of communication. Ignored, if not spurned, the juvenile then “spyhopped,” where it ascended vertically in the water, and, periscope-fashion, lifted its head out to peer around. After a time, unable to leverage its way into the mother-calf relationship, the juvenile swam away, consigned to independent living.

It was a magical trip, and one came away with a sense of profound respect for this community of sea creatures. Their movements transcended grace, with movements the result of the faintest flick of a fluke or fin. Neutrally buoyant, whales can hover at any depth, and have what seems like complete control over every part of their bodies, drifting and twisting in and around each other as if in a fantastic ballet. We never felt threatened, but it was clear our presence was noted; the mother would move imperceptibly to keep between us and her calf.

We expect to see more whales as we make our way south, toward the capital of Tonga; our control unit on the fridge went bust, and we’re having a replacement shipped in from Australia. No worries – we’ve got our freezer, for ice, and for entertainment, well, we’ve got the whales of Vava’u. They’re everywhere down here, and even if we don’t swim with them again, their surface antics will keep us enthralled for weeks.

Self-Sustanance (Mostly)

We’ve been in the Kingdom of Tonga for just a few days now, and it’s clear that these islands are like nothing we’ve experienced to date in the South Pacific. After some discussion and reflection, Jennifer and I realized that these islands – unlike the Marquesas, the Tuomotus, the Societies, the Cooks, and Niue – are, for the most part, self-sustaining. Unlike these others, they do not depend on massive subsidies from their territorial overseers; in the case of the first three sets of islands, the French, and for the latter two, New Zealand. This history of self-reliance seems reflected in the self-assured nature of the locals we’ve visited, and infuses the island with its sense of self-aware dignity.

The Kingdom of Tonga. Even its name reflects its sharp difference from virtually every other South Pacific island group, whether in Polynesia, Micronesia, or Melanesia: the Kingdom of Tonga was never colonized (though the British, through their missionaries, did play a heavy role in its economic and social development during the late 1800s) and Tonga has been able to keep free of what our first President called “entangling alliances.” It’s a mixed blessing. The island is noticeably poorer than any of the others we’ve visited, manifested more by a gap between the well-off and the not-so-well-off, than by any absolute measure. Some of the Marquesan islands clearly had a lower standard of living, but there, the population’s income levels were much more homogenous.

Another difference is the prevalence of US and European shop owners, located along the docks and small plazas that line the harbor of Neiafu, here in the Vava’u Group. The entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well; to the likely dismay of copyright lawyers and Hollywood producers, there are at least two “burn-to-order” DVD shops here in town, each offering the latest in Hollywood movies for just 1 US dollar each. Want a DVD? No problem; it’ll just take a few minutes.

Tonga is made up of four large island groups; we’re in the north central group, and just south of us, where we intend to visit in a week or so, is the Ha’apai Group. We chose to skip the northern group – the Nuias, simply because it was too many miles out of the way of our general westward direction. Vavau’s geography resembles that of Maine or the Pacific Northwest: deep channels bisecting cliff-lined, tree-covered humps of rock that sprinkle the waters.

Tongans give new meaning to the word “friendly;” Captain Cook, years ago, termed these islands the Friendly Islands, and today, the moniker remains apt: quick with a smile, a wave, and an attitude of outgoing engagement, we’re re-thinking our baseline definition of friendliness here. We have spent the last few days wandering the dusty streets of this town, and this morning visited the local market to pick up some kava.

Kava is the evening beverage and social tradition of choice here, and is made by skinning the roots of the kava tree, mashing the roots, and then using a cloth to squeeze the juice into water. The now-adulterated water is poured into a large wooden bowl that sits on the ground, and coconut cups are dipped in and passed around in a ceremonious fashion. Kava is a narcotic, slightly sedative, and numbs the tongue and mouth and leaves a not-unpleasant glow to the evening’s festivities. It’s been a part of social culture for centuries here, and when we leave here to visit some of Tonga’s smaller islands and their villages, we need kava root to give to the local chiefs as a welcoming gift. In return, he will grant us access to his village and island, and assume responsibility for our “protection.”

This is also whale country, and the waters are filled with humpback whales that come north from the waters of the Antarctic to mate, give birth 11 months later, and then fatten up their calves before returning to the colder waters. Somewhat controversially, the Tongans swim with the whales, and we’ve already heard several stories of people’s life-changing experiences of swimming within meters of these huge graceful creatures. Each spoke in mystical terms of being eye-to-eye with a bigger-than-a-fist eyeball of a whale. The objections come from those who (legitimately, in our view) view whales as sentient creatures, and who oppose the intrusive behavior of these excursions. After some discussion, Jennifer and I decided that whales, sentient and aware, have had both the means and opportunity to object to humans’ watery adjacency via a flick of their dorsal fins. Since there have been no instances of aggressive whale behavior, we figure they’re OK with us visiting them in their home, and we’re set for a day-long trip on Saturday.

Tomorrow, we dive the famous corals and caverns of these islands, and if it seems like we’re doing many fewer boat chores than in Tahiti, you’d be right. Ile de Grace is humming along rather smoothly, and apart from normal cleaning and upkeep, we’ve been blessed with a well-functioning vessel.

Next post: reports on our diving and whale swimming adventures. Keep your cards and letters coming; we miss all our friends and family, and would love to hear from you!

[Note: This post was written by Jon, but posted by Jennifer because she's on shore where there's internet and Jon is on the boat reading a book and watching the laundry dry. :) ]

Date Line

We arrived in Neiafu, in the Kingdom of Tonga yesterday afternoon, and managed to watch the end of the Chiefs-Chargers Monday Night Football game, live ... on Tuesday afternoon. 

Crossing the International Date Line as we sailed from Niue to Tonga was unremarkable; we left on Saturday, sailed on Sunday, and arrived on Tuesday.  Monday disappeared. It got me thinking.

Date Line

I wish I had my own International Date Line
To carry around and use whenever I needed,
To lay down and step across and skip tomorrow
Or perhaps step back and replay yesterday;
So that my little speech about taking it one day at a time
Could be changed somehow with what I know today,
And I could be in the apartment I never meant to visit tomorrow
And be here, saying something else in your kitchen,
And you'd understand everything I meant to say the first time
As if I had said it today, yesterday, and tomorrow.

Frontal Boundaries

When we left Beveridge Reef at 1100 on a Friday, the winds were light and out of the southeast. Having burned a lot of fuel motoring from Rarotonga to Beveridge, we were determined to sail as much as possible, so we put out the genaker – a very light, large sail – and drifted toward Niue at a stately pace. The seas were calm – as referenced in my posting below, Stained Glass Bluegrass – and we enjoyed the relaxing pace of the first day. The next morning, at around 0800, as the sun lifted over a glassy sea, we saw a weather front approach us from our south. Stretching from horizon to horizon, a dark line of low clouds crept northeastward. The weather forecasts had predicted this front, a product of a massive high pressure system moving eastward from Australia. In the southern hemisphere, highs rotate counter-clockwise, so the front we were watching that morning represented the boundary between the warm air of the sub-tropics to the north, and the approaching mass of cold air brought up from the higher latitudes down south (remember that it’s winter down here). We dropped the genaker, and put out the smaller headsail, and even reefed it down to 1/3 its intended size, and waited.

By 0830, the front crossed our bow, and in a matter of just a few short minutes, we went from no wind and flat seas to 25-35 knots of wind and seas that quickly built to 6-10 feet. I was again amazed at how quickly wind energy is converted into waves and swells – as if the ocean was an engine just waiting to be plugged in and revved up. We picked up speed quickly, and soon were surfing at 7-8 knots under the small triangle of sail. Had we been in more of a hurry, we could have easily let out more sail and gone much faster, but we‘ve learned to take things easy. It’s not a race.

By midnight, we had made the northern tip of Niue, having elected not to try and make the southern tip, since that would have placed our boat between the wind and the land – the proverbial “lee shore.” A good decision, since for friends who went south things indeed went “south” and they managed just barely to make the point without running aground. Once at the northern tip of this island – an island resembling a oblong layer cake thrust 30 meters up from the ocean, with sheer cliffs and no surrounding reef – the seas abated, as were lying in the lee of the island, and we had a comfortable passage down the western side of the island before picking up a buoy at 0200 Sunday morning. Niue is a raised coral island, and lacks the reef and attendant passes that would otherwise have necessitated a daytime approach. We fell into a deep sleep, and woke the next morning to an island unlike any we’ve visited to date.

Just as the previous day’s frontal passage brought on a dramatic change in weather, so it seems the geology of Niue has created a dramatically different environment. Carrying the analogy a step further, the island itself, a protectorate of New Zealand, declined an affiliation with the Cook Islands we had just visited, choosing instead to be independent. In fact, Niue’s culture also represents a boundary of sorts – between the Polynesian and the Tongan, just to the west. As we explored the nature and culture of the island over the next few days, the passage of the mid-ocean cold front boundary foreshadowed other new experiences, at distinct odds from the islands we’ve left in our wake. It’s a different island. Below, some vignettes capture the differences.

Lady Farmer Piggery

We rented a car to visit the island’s many hiking and swimming spots, and along the way, spotted a sign that got us wondering: what do pigs have to do with hair cutting and ear piercing? After spending a fruitless half hour driving up and down two-track dirt roads, looking for the elusive Piggery, we ended up asking someone in town. It turns out that the local custom is to delay the cutting of the eldest son’s hair until he turns 16, and then to throw a large day-long part of friends and relations. Each attendee brings a gift of cash in an envelope, and at the end of the day, the envelopes are opened, and, in order of contribution, each attendee receives a parting gift, with the gift currency being pigs (for high rollers), chickens, and crops. The island record for cash receipts of this “once-in-a-lifetime” offering is $36,000. Today, the custom extends to all sons, and, in a sign of the times, to girls and their ear piercings as well. Baby pigs cost about $250 each, so many families raise pigs alongside their growing children, and the event becomes a nice way to cash in on one’s crops. The community, in effect, shares its wealth that way, a strategy employed in their restaurant schedules as well.

Schedules and Sharing the Wealth

The island’s supply and tourist chain is served by a single weekly flight (130 seats) from New Zealand (Fridays) and a monthly supply ship. You can go anywhere you want, as long as it’s New Zealand, and anytime you want, as long as it’s Friday. There are only about 1500 permanent residents here (annual GDP = $10 million, NZ$ -- which is about $8M US$), with the population having taken a serious dip after the massive Cyclone Heta (largest in recent world history) hit the island broadside in 2004. Many houses were destroyed and then abandoned, and the island still shows visible signs of this calamitous event. Restaurants are open on a revolving schedule, with a different restaurant open each day – thus assuring sufficient volume of business for each, and permitting each to staff for a reasonable turnout. Another example of collective thinking on a small island.

That’s not to say there aren’t entrepreneurs here; we spotted one sign for a consulting agency; interesting mix of skills, but relevant here to be sure!

They are also big on community gatherings, and each village takes one day a week to come together and weave, sell local produce and trinkets, and gossip, rotating days and opportunities. We got a kick out of this sign.

Night Fishing for Flying Fish

At the new moon, when the tides are high and the sky is dark, the local fishermen take to their boats and, with a light ablaze on their bow, make strafing runs across our little anchorage, running their boats back-and-forth in sweeping circles, holding circular nets on poles atop their gunnels. Under the water, the hahave, or flying fish, that are so very common in these Pacific waters take flight in small schools, propelling themselves out of the water and “flying”across the surface, wings a-flapping, for a 75 meters or so before diving back into the water. The local fishermens’ poled nets collect these fish as they skim across the surface, and the fish become bait for their wahoo fishing. These flying fish are a dietary mainstay of the mahi-mahi we often catch while sailing, and oft is the morning when we have to clean our deck of a few (crash-landed) flying fish who have found their way onto our boat.

Caves, Caverns, and Chasms

By Limu Pools, where the springs empty into the sea

The geology of Niue, referenced above, is unique for the Pacific islands. Like others, it began with a volcano surfacing, and a reef forming. Unlike others, the Niue the volcano and reef then sank en masse, and then, lifted up abruptly in a single geologic moment, creating an island that resembles a round layer cake jutting up sharply from the sea. At the island’s edge, the water falls off to thousands of feet just a few dozen feet from shore, and thus the island lacks the traditional circling reef that would otherwise protect its shores from the relentless pounding of the ocean’s waves. This absence of a protective reef is a major reason Cyclone Heta was so devastating, and is likewise responsible for the amazing coastal geography of Niue.

Jennifer swimming in the Royal Bathing Pool

We spent a few days touring the coastline’s many features, including a chasm formerly reserved for the royal families’ swimming habits, as well as the landing site of the original inhabitants. The shoreline is dotted with caves and chasms, and the limestone rock shows the same kind of weathering behavior as the caves of North America – stalagmites, etc. The coral also weathers in strange ways, and you can see here the hundreds of pinnacles that now jut upward from the underlying lush landscape.

Chasms at water level

Standing on the overhanging ledges

Limestone formations

Canoes are stored in the seaside caves

Pinnacles of eroded coral

The eastern shore, open to the tradewinds

Descending to a
sheltered beach

The sheltered beach

Walking Fish

No pictures here, but there’s a fish that inhabits the tidal pools of the immediate coastline that can walk. They skitter along the sides of the pool, inching themselves along on the rough-textured coral, and then disappear into the tiny nooks and crannies, before dropping again into the water and swimming to the other side of the next pool. Adaptation at the boundary between sea and shore.

Diving Among the Swimming Snakes

We went diving in waters clear enough to see over 75 meters – as if we were diving in air. The dives were other-worldly, and we dove into the cliffs that mark the edge of Niue. Descending onto the very narrow shelf along the island’s edge, and leaving the dark blue depths of the deep ocean just behind us, we would glide into and along narrow chasms, underneath the overhanging rock, and disappear into the island coastline’s vast underwater network of dark tunnels and magical caves. With our underwater flashlights illuminating the coral walls of these tunnels, we would swim for a few dozen meters or so, and surface underneath the island, and find ourselves in a dark dome-like cavern, with stalactites and stalagmites everywhere, bobbing up and down to the rhythmic pulse of the ocean’s swells. We were joined by sea kraits – or sea snakes in the vernacular – extremely poisonous but extremely non-aggressive. They’ve never had a biting attack here, and apparently you’d need to jam your finger into their mouths to get bit. We managed to avoid jamming our fingers into their mouths, but both Jennifer and I were more than a bit apprehensive during our first swim with the snakes. They would slither through the water, shimmying their flattened tails, banded in white and black. The underwater scenery was well-worth the anxiety, and we gained a new appreciation for the remarkable geology of the special island.

In addition, we found Nemo – and its twin, swimming within an 18” diameter sea anemone. These gorgeous and surreal invertebrates lay flat on the ocean floor, with thousands of small undulating flagella, each sifting the water for nutrients. The “Nemos” of the world swim in and among the anemone’s flagella, picking and cleaning them, and nourishing themselves in the process. The one we saw was especially large, allowing several fish to swim in and among the flagella.  Just before surfacing on our last dive, we also swam up to a Hawksbill turtle. We were able to check each other out for a few long, peaceful moments, eyeball to eyeball, not 5 feet apart, before we bored him and he swam on in search of tasty chunks of live coral to nibble on.

The Next Boundary

Now, it’s onward to Tonga, and to get there, we sail across the Tongan Trench. It’s over 35,000 feet deep, one of the deepest parts of the world’s oceans, and it’s where the great tectonic plates are folding underneath one another, allowing the formation new ocean floor, and giving birth to new islands as the new earth rises to the surface. On the north end of the Trench, the plates are moving at 10 inches a year – the fastest plate movement on the planet, and there are many new islands being formed in Tongan waters. The charts can be out of date in a matter of years, as what had been the briny depths turns into a rising bit of land. We’ve got up-to-date charts, as well as cruisers lists of unmarked hazards, but we’ll be keeping an eye out. Over the last few years, boats sailing along in these waters have been the first to see new land. As they sail along, the ocean begins to bubble up and smoke, as the superheated magma began to erupt, and pumice appears. Other boats have found themselves sailing through rafts of pumice, precursors to the actual elevation of the volcano above the surface.   They caught it on video, which you can see here.

Alofi Wharf, Niue

We leave tomorrow, from the tiny anchorage off the village of Alofi. The dinghy dock – notice the crane on the wharf is a final unique feature of this wonderful island: each dinghy is hoisted ashore, and laid on the concrete quay, protected form the relentless surge that ebbs and flows against the shoreline. Our little “Doodlebug” is safe from the chafing, and it’s a nice ritual every time we arrive ashore and return to the boat.

Another island. Another frontal boundary. It can feel like a new world every day out here, and we’re loving it.

There's This Place ...

... in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, where the bottom of the sea rises 17,300 feet, forming a seamount in 17,305 feet of water. Over time, the corals attach to the rim of this seamount, and form a ring, and over more eons, the center of this seamount settles about 50 feet. The net result is a coral atoll without the usual accompanying centerpiece of a volcanic mountain. Here, in the middle of the Ocean, a boat can enter the narrow pass, and anchor in 30 feet of water, surrounded by ... nothing: just a 360 degree view of the broad expanse of the mighty Pacific.

The water is unspeakably clear and the reef abounds with fish, free of the usual muddy runoffs, fishermen, and pollutants of a "normal" reef. Jennifer and I spent a few days here, snorkeling, resting, and enjoying the scenery (!). Highlights included seeing a huge ray on the bottom, some white tip sharks, and amazing collections of reef fish and wondrous corals.

Here's a video taken from the top of the 65 foot mast -- the unexpected increase in brain altitude caused me to reference the "Atlantic" Ocean, but rest assured, dear readers, we are in the Pacific!

Onward to Niue, the smallest independent island-country in the world (about half again as big as Washington, DC), and the largest raised coral island in the world.