Woke up after another blissful night of sleep and just managed to get hold of Phoebe for a catch up. She was returning from Wiltshire on a train with Dani, and she couldn’t believe it when she spotted Luke’s girlfriend Milly, then Luke, they were returning from Luke’s bday Sky dive. What an amazing coincidence to bump into each other on the same train! Phoeb’s is sounding very excited and positive about her new business Fit Collective, which has started fund raising and is looking promising. She and her business partner are a formidable team.
We skipped breakfast and got going, as we had to tie onto the dock so the authorities can board the boat. Rowan’s guide warned that the dock is a little tricky as one end has a sunken boat and the other end has a sand bar from a big storm a couple of years ago. The wind was howling so we knew it was going to be testing. We came around the corner and were dismayed to see a Catamaran docked in the middle of the dock wall. We had to squeeze between it and the boat wreck in a good breeze. Rowan reversed in and absolutely nailed it, even when the American lady on the Catamaran started screeching at him as we got close to their boat. We had no alternative! But it was a slick bit of driving by Rowan in tricky conditions. Turned out that the Americans, a young couple with two kids had been waiting an hour already, apparently the port officials were in a Monday morning meeting. We decided to chill and cooked up a delicious breakfast, with a good cup of coffee and marmelade toast. We are still getting through the 7 kgs of coffee I brought from the UK!
Finally the authorities arrived giving us loads of forms to fill out, then the Captain had to take them to the office, where he paid and got the paperwork stamped. Biosecurity arrived and all they wanted to see was the pet hamster the kid had on the American boat! They clearly had never seen a dwarf hamster before and she was asking if it was a rat! That was enough work for Biosecurity, they didn’t even want to board our boat. My aloe vera plants get to live on. Rowan returned and had to go and get money to pay the fishing company that own the dock for the right to use the dock, during which time Health arrived. He was very upset that Rowan was out when we hadn’t got Health clearance. But an ice cold coke and ginger ale, for him and his driver smoothed it all over and he was very jolly when Rowan returned. We were finally free to be at large! Rowan had spotted a fresh produce market so I rushed over to it to stock up on fruit and veg.
Getting off the dock was looking equally tricky. Rowan helped the Americans off and then made a plan for our ropes. We went through the drill a number of times as we didn’t have help on the dock. I was a little anxious as I had to flip the last rope off a rusty bollard and couldn’t mess it up as we would need to be reversing as the wind was blowing us onto the dock. Thankfully at the last minute a local guy came and gave a hand and once again Rowan nailed it, we were off smoothly. It was actually very sweet the American guy came speeding up in his dinghy to help us, just a little too late, but a nice thought.
Leaving our sheltered bay
Making our way to Neiafu town
Swallow cave, a tourist sight
Red cross was where we were anchored and you can see our blue dot in the town anchorage
Neiafu town, you can just see the dock on the left with the American cat (called Bumfuzzle!!!) if you look very carefully
This is the boat wreck just in front of us on the dock wall, we are literally 2m from it
Our port official, handing out the endless forms
We moved closer to town and onto a mooring ball supplied by one of the diving companies. Luckily there were a few balls available as the place seemed quite crowded. We managed to get onto our mooring ball by picking it up at the back, I had stood on our boat hook and broken it, so it was a slightly trickier manoeuvre but we got on ok. It was not the strongest looking mooring ball, so Rowan has put an additional line as we have some big wind predicted to come through in the next couple of days.
Once we were settled we headed into town to a nice looking cafe on the water and had a good lunch, we want to be on board tonight as the winds are predicted to get over 30 knots. We bumped into a sailor we had met in Guadeloupe and then in the airport in Papeete, memorable as he told us about a crew member of his that had called the coast guard 2 days after leaving Galapagos, claiming she was being held against her will! She posted it all over Facebook and eventually he turned around and motored two days into the wind to drop her back in the Galapagos. She claimed he did not have enough food and essentials for the crossing of the Pacific, what a saga! He is remarkable as he said after all the crew hassles he sailed here from Papeete on his own – he has an artificial leg from a farming accident. Amazing to think he is agile enough on the boat to be on his own. We also got chatting to a young couple from Cape Town who are circumnavigating in a boat built by his uncle.
We had a little wander into town after lunch and managed to buy the last boat hook in the chandlery. We also booked ourselves onto a whale watching tour on Saturday, the first day of good weather. The people seem just as friendly as the Samoans. On our way back to the boat we stopped at the cafe to pick up a little dessert treat for supper. The waitress chatted to us while we waited, she has 9 siblings, one boy and 8 girls. The boy has been brought up as a girl, especially with so many girls about. Her parents adopted a 6 month old baby boy who is 2 now, because they wanted a boy in the family! She says their house has two rooms, one for the kids and one for the parents. Her father built a huge custom made bed that all 10 kids sleep on. The naughty little boy is obviously a spoilt cheeky little thing and wakes them up very early in the morning. What a story!
Headed back to PolePole and had a very cool evening with a little drizzle coming and going. Rowan says the water temperature has dropped another degree.
It is another God fearing country with loads of churches
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