Following our normal night watch routine, I set our kitchen timer for every 15 minutes and at that time did a 360-degree horizon check. I also checked the knot-meter, compass, and trim of the sails, to make sure everything was okay. Because the seas were so rough, I sat tucked up under the dodger. By the sixteenth time I stood up on the rocking boat, I knew that nothing vital was broken. But I also knew that I was really hurting and that once I lay down, I’d probably not get up again until we arrived in Tonga.
At the end of my watch Bruce got me settled onto the bunk and that was it for me for the next day and a half, other than brief trips to the head. Keeping our regular ham net schedule, Bruce called Pago Pago and talked to our doctor friend George on Winddancer. I had already taken aspirin—lots of it. We had stronger pain medication on board, but I was hesitant to take it and be totally “out of it.” I knew if I had to I could get up and help Bruce. While George and Bruce talked, another person in Tonga chimed in, introduced himself and said he was a doctor, a fellow yachtie, and was in Neiafu Harbor, Tonga. He’d meet our boat there.
As we approached Tonga, the seas calmed allowing me to gingerly walk around, even prepare meals. Bruce was weary, having run the boat by himself and taken care of me.
We’d carried a boat part from Samoa for another boater and he met us a couple of hours away from Neiafu in his dinghy. He thanked us profusely; he couldn’t run his boat without replacing that part. He inquired about my injury. Word spreads quickly, especially with radio conversations and the small sailing community.
We pulled into Neiafu Harbor midday and a customs man came aboard first, inquiring about me. He’d heard about my injury on the radio. I was again lying on the bunk, not able to stand comfortably while the boat jostled into place at the wharf for the customs inspection. Then the doctor, the yachtie, came aboard and verified it was likely a broken rib, or a badly bruised one. In any event, the treatment was the same. He gave me ibuprofen, a pain medication I’d never used before, which was more effective than aspirin for me. He offered to tape my torso, but I declined. It was just too hot. He suggested that I could swim, very gently, but no diving off the boat.
As we headed out to find a place to anchor, Bruce put out a fishing line. When in Samoa, he had inquired about fishing gear for tropical waters. The salmon gear we had brought was too light. Now, equipped with 1/8-inch diameter monofilament, 200-pound test line and 2-inch hooks, we were in business. From orange plastic tubing we had on hand, Bruce fashioned a lure that resembled a squid. Within minutes we had a nice fish on the line, a small tuna.
Approaching one of the many islands in Vava’u Tonga
Mary rowing ashore to meet neighbors
It felt so good not to be crashing around at sea. Once we were anchored, I carefully climbed down our boarding ladder to enjoy a cooling swim. Now this was the life—a just-caught dinner waiting to be cooked, and me swimming in pristine, clear water. Tonga was blissfully quiet and unbelievably beautiful.
Tonga is an archipelago of one hundred fifty islands, thirty-six of which are inhabited. Four major groups of islands form the Kingdom: the Tongatapu, Ha'apai, Vava'u, and Niua groups. We were anchored near Neiafu, which is part of Vava’u. Tongatapu is the main island and the location of its capital, Nuku’alofa.
The only Pacific Island nation never colonized by a foreign power, the Kingdom of Tonga has also never lost its indigenous governance and remains a constitutional monarchy. Known as “The Friendly Isles,” the people are strongly Christian, and are hospitable and helpful.
Tonga is geologically old and has a barrier reef that blocks the ocean’s waves, resulting in calm waters within the island groups. An almost constant, gentle breeze keeps the otherwise high temperatures pleasant.
After a good night’s rest, we took the dinghy ashore the next morning and explored Neiafu. It’s small, but is actually the second-largest town in Tonga. We were impressed with the cleanliness, so different from Pago Pago. The Tongans seemed calm and friendly and were constantly sweeping the wooden sidewalks and packed-earthen streets. Pigs wandered around at will. I wasn’t sure where they did their business, but we didn’t see any pig-doo along the streets. We saw pigs, all different colors and sizes, on church steps, sidewalks, streets, in yards, never fenced in. They were apparently a part of the community.
Pigs had their useful purpose. People didn’t mow lawns; pigs kept them neat and trim. They ate much of the soft garbage, like fallen fruit. And, of course, pigs provided meat.
Neiafu looked like how we imagined an American frontier town would have looked 150 years ago. Little shops stood side by side with wide open doorways leading to dark interiors with high ceilings. Stocked shelves stood behind the counters. Customers told the clerk at the counter what they wanted and the clerk took items off the shelf. Merchants spoke little English. Prices weren’t too bad, but we were glad we had such a good supply of staples.
We stopped to have a hamburger at a little restaurant run by an American. No doubt, the majority of his business was yachties. There were about 20 boats anchored in the harbor, but only about half of them had people living aboard. We ate at a tiny outdoor table and watched the townspeople go about their day.
Saturday would be market day, so we planned to stay anchored off Neiafu until then. Soon we would be joined in Tonga by Jack and Donna, Vern and Connie and others we’d met along the way.
Being able to move around on solid ground or non-rocking boat helped my tender rib. We were relieved to be there, allowing time for me to heal.
While out and about the tiny town, we ran into a family we’d briefly met in Samoa. Hal, Kim and their teenage son, Don, were on a whirlwind trip aboard their beautiful 48-foot sailboat, Kim Thu. Hal was a doctor from the Seattle area. Kim was a Vietnamese he met in Vietnam, where he had been a flight surgeon and she a nurse. They had a house near Seattle and would return there after this trip. Their boat was one of the nicest I’d seen, with conveniences not usually found on sailboats.
We heard there would be a parade through town on Saturday and several of us yachties gathered to watch it. It consisted of two small pickup trucks, one carrying Boy Scouts and the other an award-winning weaver. The weaver excited me because it was the very one that Fanny, my weaving instructor in Samoa, had talked about. Her truck was a sight, with woven items swinging from every conceivable place: mats, bowls, trays, and baskets of all sizes.
The weaver’s truck didn’t stop, but I inquired and found her little shop a couple of days later. We talked about our mutual friend in Samoa and I showed her a little of my work. She appeared to be impressed, much to my gratification, although to her it probably looked like the work of a nine-year-old. She said she’d never before known a yachtie to take weaving seriously. She gave me some dyed dark brown and black pandanus leaves and I bought several leaves of white from her. In Samoa the only color I ever saw was the natural light tan. I would never achieve the skill level of this weaver. For one thing, her weaving was so tiny, her vases could hold water. Her designs were intricate and perfectly symmetrical. When I wove in a different color, it was all I could manage to keep a stripe evenly spaced. This woman had been weaving all her life and came from a long line of weavers. It was fascinating to see her work and talk with her.
We left Vava’u to explore the outer islands. Neiafu on Vava’u would be a sort of headquarters for us, where we would shop or sometimes meet other boaters, but we wanted to spend most of our time enjoying the solitude and beauty that surrounded us.
Once we anchored off an island with a long protected point with only two houses on it. From our boat we could see a woman walking to a well and home again. I rowed ashore in the dinghy to meet this older woman whose name was Marie. Rather than talking, our exchange was really more of a mime since she knew very little English and I knew no Tongan. Much of the week she lived a simple, quiet life alone on the island, but on weekends others came to gather coconuts and to dig clams. I gave Marie gifts of a packet of sewing needles and a card
of pretty buttons, and from her broad smile I could tell she was pleased. These items were not readily available in Tonga.
Marie signaled for me to wait and she stepped into her square hut made of palm fronds. The woman emerged with a string of reddish-black beads. Showing me the tree from which the berries came, she picked up a fallen one from the ground and a rock. Rubbing the berry against the rock, she showed me how she polished the dried berry to make the beads. The necklace was threaded on a strong, thin vine.
The old woman asked if I liked oranges and we walked to a small orange grove. Oranges indigenous to that area are green when they are ripe, have tough skins and many seeds. Reaching for a knife from a holder around her waist, she whittled away the skin and handed me the orange to eat while she fixed one for herself. She wanted me to call on her niece, a public health nurse, who lived in Neiafu. I promised her I would.
I stood to leave and Marie walked me back to my dinghy. I had in the boat an empty green, four-liter wine bottle. In this strongly Christian community, I wasn’t sure that an empty wine bottle would be an appropriate gift, but I hated to throw it away and had left it in the dinghy. When I asked her if she would like to have it, her eyes lit up. “Oh, yes. Wonderful!” For the next several days, from the boat we saw Marie walk back and forth to the well with her green bottle.
The next morning I rowed the dinghy to Neiafu and found the public health nurse’s home. Marie’s niece answered the door, expecting me. I was surprised when I saw two shiny needles pinned to her collar. Ruth spoke English and told me her aunt had shared my gift with her. She also mentioned how pleased she was that I had called on her aunt and thanked me for my kindness in taking the time. I knew Ruth had children and I’d brought gifts of an inflatable world globe and a few packages of dried fruit. The children squealed with delight when they saw the globe. The nurse, too, was excited. Her husband was a teacher and he’d be able to show it to his students.
The next evening, we heard a loud knocking on our hull. The nurse’s husband, Nuku, stopped by in his skiff to invite Bruce to go fishing with him the next day. We invited him aboard. Nuku had never been aboard a large sailboat and was curious about everything—how we cooked, navigated, the engine, the sails. He was a handsome man, tall and strong with sparkling eyes and good humor. Nuku taught school on a neighboring island and fished on his way home from work. The next day he swung by to pick up Bruce and they trolled in his skiff for about an hour and caught four fish, two barracuda and two tuna. The teacher tried to give all four to Bruce, but Bruce declined saying we had no refrigeration, but that we would enjoy one of the tuna.
As it turned out, my little trip to see Marie developed into three friendships and enriched our stay in Tonga. I was so glad I’d made the effort.
We soaked up the peaceful, quiet atmosphere in Tonga, such a contrast from Samoa. The only sounds we heard were waves lapping against the boat and an occasional bird’s screech. Even in town, it was quiet and peaceful. Once we lingered by a church and listened to the choir rehearse. They sang a cappella in strong, rich harmony.
Tongans were handsome people and friendly toward us. The women wore long wrap-around skirts and a sleeveless or short sleeve top, then usually another cloth around their waist that covered their hips. The men wore long wrap-arounds too, and usually something around their mid-section that was made of tapa cloth.
A Tongan in a large canoe stopped by to invite us to a feast. For a small fee we enjoyed several kinds of fish and a pig stuffed with fruit, then wrapped in pandanus leaves and baked in an umu, a large pit. We were the only people there from a private yacht, the others were from chartered yachts.
As they arrived on their boats from Samoa, we were reunited with our friends Vern and Connie, Jack and Donna, and within a few more days three more boats came in, people we knew from Samoa. We celebrated our reunion by motoring in our dinghies to a German restaurant that the doctor who had looked at my rib had told us about. We also invited the doctor and his wife. The restaurant, though a bit expensive, was a real treat. The owner was a German, married to a Tongan woman. They lived upstairs in the same building, with their two daughters.
Jack and Donna anchored near Impunity and the next day we snorkeled with them in the clear water. I added several nice shells to my collection, hanging them off the back of the boat in a mesh bag until they were cleaned out. While snorkeling, we never tired of watching fish darting around the multi-colored coral. I finally got my prized cowrie that I’d been hoping for, a three-plus-inch tiger, so my shell collection was complete. Tonga is a treasure-trove for shell collectors.
Every few days we moved the boat to a new island and anchorage, sometimes near other people, sometimes alone. We kept in touch with the others on VHF radio. Without doubt, Tonga was the prize landfall, with the south, quiet side of Tahiti a close second. Our days passed pleasantly with lots of snorkeling, reading, weaving, and simply being in a heavenly location.
Off one of the uninhabited islands where we regularly anchored, we often rowed ashore to feed a couple of piglets. Because of their coloration, we called one of the piglets Stars and the other Stripes. The mother stayed clear of us, hovering in nearby bushes, ready to protect her babies. We enjoyed the little pigs and saved our kitchen scraps for them.
One late afternoon while we were anchored on the eastern edge of the Vava’u group, a strong wind picked up, pushing the boat toward the lee shore. Bruce put out a second anchor, placing the two anchors about 60-degrees apart. Even with two anchors, we worried that the boat could run aground in this exposed anchorage. We stood anchor watch all night, using our normal watch system of four hours on, four hours off, to make sure Impunity was safe.
Bruce berated himself for not moving the boat earlier to a more protected anchorage. We were alone, but were sure that Jack and Donna would have known better and were in a safer situation. The next morning after the weather calmed down, Bruce talked to Jack on VHF radio. Much to our amusement, Jack said they’d been up all night, too, making sure Zingara’s anchors held. He admitted saying to Donna, “I know Bruce wouldn’t have put their boat in jeopardy like this!”
Once or twice a week we motored our dinghy over to Neiafu to pick up and send mail, then if Saturday, go to the market. We marveled at the fresh produce: tomatoes, green peppers, carrots, bananas, papaya, pineapple, mango, avocado, watermelon, cantaloupe, onions, potatoes and eggs. The fresh produce, plus our freshly-caught fish and the staples we had on hand, kept us eating like royalty.
One day, with Jack and Donna, we took our dinghies to a tiny uninhabited island that looked like a postcard. We were certain that it had been used as a movie set, it was so perfect. Bruce had caught a nice tuna and we built a fire on the beach and grilled the tuna over coals. Donna had made a salad and we had fresh bakery bread. Jack cracked open a bottle of wine and we feasted to our hearts’ content.
Our original plan was to stay in the Kingdom of Tonga for four weeks, but it was such a paradise, we decided to make it six weeks and forego some of the smaller islands we’d originally planned to visit. We definitely wanted to be in Hawaii by late June, giving us a month for the final leg of the journey. We still had 6,000 nautical miles of ocean to sail.
Bruce readied the boat for the long slog home, checking the engine, the electronics, the propane fuel lines, and etcetera. He examined each sail and, by hand, re-stitched a few spots. Two of the jibs had badly worn bronze hanks, which he replaced from our stock of spare parts. One of our galley water pumps had been requiring many more strokes to deliver water, so he disassembled it and replaced seals, using extras we had brought.
In the meantime I rearranged our food supplies, getting our stores handy for when we sailed in rough seas. Our supplies were in good shape and all we had to provision was fresh produce and bread.
Jack and Donna came over for breakfast, then, armed with scrapers, we four cleaned Impunity’s hull of the many critters clinging to it. We wore our snorkel gear so we could get to the bottom of the
hull. This would help us make faster time. We were anchored over a sandy bottom in about 30 feet of water. As we scraped, the barnacles and worm tubes slowly sank. It was a surreal sight, hovering weightless in the warm, extremely clear water, watching the small whitish bits slowly drift down. We offered to help clean Jack and Donna’s hull, but they’d met and made friends with a local professional diver and preferred to hire him to do it.
Finally, it was time to say farewell to Tonga and our friends there. Jack would be a couple of days behind us. Although they sailed from their home in Hawaii to the South Pacific together, Donna was prone to severe seasickness, so much so that at sea she could rarely leave her bunk. They decided that Donna would fly home and Jack would single-hand back. It wasn’t ideal, but for them the most practical.
Vern and Connie aboard Tainui would be sailing on to Indonesia where he had been Peace Corps staff.
Bruce paid special attention to the high seas weather forecasts from Arnold each day. Though the region was still transitioning out of hurricane season, conditions sounded reasonably good for the next several days.
A final farewell dinner at the German restaurant, and we were off the next morning. We cleared customs and were on our way. Almost right away Bruce put out the fishing line and we caught a six-pound tuna. Nice!
The four days from Tonga to Samoa were dicey either with flaky winds, no winds, or strong squalls. We alternated sailing and motoring, finally reaching Pago Pago on Saturday morning. We refueled, took on water and some fresh produce, bread and pilot crackers, and departed American Samoa for Hawaii on Tuesday, May 22, 1990.
This leg of the journey would likely be the hardest sailing and we would be beating, going against the wind. Neither of us looked forward to it.
Feeding “Stars & Stripes”
Sailing with Impunity Page 13
