Tonga. A very special place in my heart. Land of beautiful white beaches, sparkling and crystal clear blue water, unbelievable scuba diving and snorkeling, fascinating caves with the occasional ancient gin or wine bottle peeking out of the sand that some pirate had thrown overboard after a night of revelry. Humpback whales breaching near by, or if you were some of the lucky ones (that would be us), they would swim right up under your sailboat and show you their newborn calves. You were not allowed to chase after them with your boat, but there was no objection or stopping them if they wanted to come and visit you. We hopped in the water with our snorkel gear to see a leviathan (mom) laying under us on her side, about 30 feet down, one large eye following our every move. As she closely watched her new baby, he came up to the surface to breathe and then swam over to us and looked right in each of our faces before heading back down to greet mom…a moment frozen in time that I will treasure forever!
One stunning deserted anchorage after another…gentle breezes…sunny and hot days…swaying palm trees…it was so unbelievably like a movie set that you had to pinch yourself. A sundowner cocktail on the boat with whales cavorting, breaching and playing with their calves just 75 meters away…breathtaking! Quite the backdrop to watch the sunset.
But we needed to move on……and we could hardly wait to see New Zealand!
We planned on leaving Tonga a few days ahead of the other boats in our group. We were smaller and slower so we hoped to get a jump on a possible blow that was coming. As fate would have it, the storm turned direction and turned vicious, it was much stronger and came earlier and faster than had been predicted. We were caught right in the middle of it and then it stalled instead of moving quickly by… For 3 days we sat at sea anchor (like a giant parachute in the water), on the first night Never Monday was knocked down, everything in the boat was on the floor, John checking the sea anchor every few hours attached to a tether and harness, 10 meter waves crashing and slamming into Never Monday! The most terrified I have ever been in my life. Right after the knockdown, we discovered that it had broken our rudder. The rudder shaft was bent at about a 60 degree angle. For any un-nautical people, the rudder is what steers the boat! Big problem! John had to crawl down under the cockpit in the engine room and try to cut the twisted rudder shaft so we could attach the emergency tiller. Not an easy thing in the tossing, churning, chaotic ocean. We talked to the weather station in New Zealand daily by SSB (single side-band) radio. Each day the news was horrible, the storm was stalled right on top of us. It wouldn’t move on for another day or two. Trying to catch a few minutes of sleep now and then. Trying to drink a bit of water. Food…not so much.
We had a friend with us, Gary, the same friend who did the idyllic crossing from Panama to the Marquesas with us. He became horribly seasick, couldn’t eat or drink and we were very afraid for him. I sat on the floor of the cabin in Never Monday (the most stable place) listening to Jimmy Buffet songs….I still remember them all word for word. It was calming down enough that we thought that we could pull in the sea anchor and head for New Zealand. We were giving many thanks to the fact that we had installed our Cape Horn self steering vane. (like having another rudder, but it is run by the wind) As we were getting ready to go topside and start bringing in the sea anchor, we both stopped and looked at each other as everything got very still. The boat quit tossing, we were moving with the waves and the wind….. the sea anchor had broken loose. Five thousand dollars worth of sea anchor and chain heading for the bottom of the ocean. We all started laughing hysterically…..not much money when you consider that it just saved your life and the big bonus was… we didn’t have to struggle to try and bring it all back on board, which probably would have taken several hours. We put out a little bit of sail, set the Cape Horn steering vane on course for New Zealand and we were off! The most fantastic feeling in the world was to be moving rapidly towards land. It was still very rough and windy but we were moving in the right direction!
The sun was shining in a bright blue sky, the waves were still towering and dark blue, the wind was still blowing, but we were almost to New Zealand! A pair of Albatross with 9 foot wing spans had joined us, gliding around the boat and checking us out. We took this as a good omen and hoped that it wouldn’t be long now until we sighted land. It was a very emotional landfall in Opua, as several boats had been following our plight along with many other boats on the SSB. They were there to cheer us in…..a bittersweet moment as there had been several boats that had sunk and or reported loss of life during this freak storm. The storm of 1999, four people dead, boats capsized, rolled, lost…We were very lucky and thankful to be tying up to the dock with only a broken rudder, a very wet boat and a missing sea anchor. Our friends on Isis also arrived in good shape a few hours after we did and there were a lot of tears and many hugs. An absolutely wonderful woman that owned the local bar in Opua, closed it down early that evening and lined the bar with bottles of wine and food. The only people allowed in were John, myself and Gary along with our friends from Isis. We sang, danced, cried, partied and cried some more until the wee hours of the morning when exhaustion took over. There are certainly some very special people in this world.
When we finally woke to a bright new day our outlook on life was much better but we needed some time to heal. We put the boat on a mooring, explored Opua, Paihia, Russell, Whangaru and Waitangi before buying an old white van and venturing farther afield. We equipped it with a mattress in the back, camp stove, lanterns, food, water and off we went. We had the most wonderful time exploring New Zealand.
Boys will be boys….always!
Snow capped mountains and penquins on the beach in the South Island, gorgeous bays and spectacular vineyards and olive groves. At the end of the day a big pot on the camp stove filled with giant Green-Lipped Mussels that we just collected from the market down the road in Havelock, fragrantly steaming with white wine and garlic.
It is a special, inviting country with jaw-dropping beauty! We even worked at the local dive shop in Paihia for about 6 months as divemasters. I must say… the water was so much colder than we were used to!
We hauled the boat out in Bayswater Marina near Auckland and went back to the States for some work that John had lined up and a much needed break for us. The six months of work turned into almost two years but it was good to top up the bank account a bit. When we returned to Never Monday she was waiting patiently and we got busy and had a new rudder built out of solid kauri wood and then had it fiberglassed. Also a new mainsail, batteries, solar panels, stainless steel arch with new canvas, zip in windows and new bottom job on the hull. When we put her back in the water at the marina we had fun sighting all the blue (fairy) penguins swimming around the boat.
A bit more exploring around some of the smaller islands and bays, taking in as much of New Zealand as possible, enjoying the newly fixed up Never Monday, topping off the cupboards with all the wonderful foods we had found and loving the comfortable feeling of safety. We didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want to leave. It was going to be very hard sailing out of that harbor for open sea again.
