TETHYS: Cruising Through the Kingdom of Tonga

(Disclaimer! These tips reflect our experience in the 2000 cruising season. You may find some things have changed by now.)

Getting there: We left Suvarov Atoll on Tuesday, September 5, 2000, for a 720 mile passage to the Kingdom of Tonga. The first thing we did that morning was to advance our clocks one hour to Tonga time. Once in Tonga, the clock stays the same but we will advance the date by one day because Tonga is on the other side of the International Date Line (although we will not yet have passed 180 degrees longitude Tonga chose to be on the same date as New Zealand and Australia.). So today becomes tomorrow and yesterday is two days ago.

The anticipated six day passage from Suvarov turned out to be five days of the most comfortable and fastest sailing to date. The wind was steady 15 and 20 knots from the southeast occasionally piping up to 25 knots, with long one meter sea swell rising to 3 meters in stronger winds. We sailed on a beam reach most of the time, broad reaching as the wind went further to the east and finally running before the wind, wing on wing, for a short time on day 5 before motoring the last 10 hours because the wind died completely. Our average speed was 5.6 knots with 140 miles sailed noon to noon as the best mileage in 24 hours. Vlad got teased by other cruisers for his reports of "perfect sailing" and "this is what cruising is all about!" when describing our progress on the daily nets.

We were fortunate on this passage compared to some of our friends who chose the southern route through the Cook Islands. While in French Polynesia we had watched the weatherfax weather patterns and felt that south of 20 degrees south latitude the weather was too radical. A series of Low (Cyclone) pressure cells kept marching by with winds higher than 30 knots and associated higher seas. In any case, we wanted to see the bird life on Suvarov Atoll. In our opinion, the northern route to Tonga in year 2000 was a better choice.

The Tongan cruising grounds: The Kingdom of Tonga is comprised of four major island groups, stretching from the Niuas at about 15 degrees S, to Tongatapu at 22 degrees S with Vava'u and Ha'apai groups in between. Each island group is quite surprisingly different given their relative proximity. We visited 3 out of the four. Cruising boats coming down from Samoa sometimes stop in the Niuas but most boats start their Tonga cruise in Vava'u as we did.

Vava'u archipelago rises out of the sea, uplifted from the sea floor by tectonic plate movement, as ridges of limestone. There is seismic and volcanic activity along the entire Tongan island chain that sits on the edge of the Pacific 'ring of fire'. Vava'u and surrounding islands are steep to and covered in dense green forest, reminding us of home. As we motored to our first anchorage, chart in hand and counting islands to orient ourselves, a great sense of déjà vu came over us. If it were not for the palm trees one could easily confuse Vava'u with the North Channel of Lake Huron or the Gulf Islands of British Columbia.

We had motored all day in order to arrive before sunset to safely anchor before dark. Friends of ours who arrived at night hove to off the west coast of Vava'u and were set west 10 miles by the current, so had to beat back the next morning. On the other hand, with a good chart, radar and GPS you could come into anchor fairly safely as the waters around the islands are generally very deep.

Some cruisers continue west from Vava'u to Fiji without visiting the rest of Tonga. If you have the time, vist Ha'apai and clear out of Nuku'alofa in Tongatapu. If anything else Nuku'alofa is a better place than Neiafu to restock with food and duty free fuel.

Ha'apai islands, 65 miles south and in dramatic contrast to Vava'u, are low sand covered patches of coral rock. Some have outlying reefs with passes into lagoons, while others, particularly along the eastern edge, are long barrier reef like islands. The islands of the Ha'apai archipelago are similar to the Tuamotus, low sandy covered but on a much smaller scale. The Tuamotus lagoons are several miles in diameter, whereas the Ha'apai islands may only be a mile or two in diameter. The distances between anchorages are shorter but there are just as many dangerous uncharted coral patches.

Tongatapu, another 60 odd miles south of Ha'apai, are different yet again. Tongatapu is the largest of all Tongan islands and where the capital city, Nuku'alofa, is located. Tongatapu is long, about 30 miles, and wide, about 10 miles. It is fairly low and is mainly sand covered porous limestone. The north side has a large harbour with several outlying islands and reefs but with little protection from north and west winds. Most boats enter the small boat harbour, anchor stern to and tie off to the breakwater. On the west side of Tongatapu the porous limestone coast is riddled with blowholes where the sea swell shoots up in spectacular geysers.

All three island groups are worth visiting. With careful planning, all are within a long days sail. Several friends decided to sail between Vava'u and Ha'apai overnight and unfortunately sailed too far too fast and were forced to continue to Tongatapu thereby missing a great cruising area.

Charts and guide books: WARNING You will NOT be able to buy charts in Tonga. There are none for sale in either Neiafu or Nuku'alofa. Buy charts at home.

We arrived in Tonga with 3 DMA charts and wished we had spent the money for more, especially Ha'apai.

There are British Admiralty and New Zealand charts available, including 3 detail charts of Ha'apai, however we just didn't want to spend the money. A mistake.

Moorings Yacht Charters has a privately published Vava'u Group chartlet (marked not to be used for navigation) for their guests suggesting 45 anchorages. Many of these anchorages are fair weather and/or day anchorages only while others are safe in limited wind conditions. And a few don't even look like anchorages at all but apparently are viable. Out of the 45 marked anchorages, I'd say that a dozen are safe and comfortable in all but the most severe weather.

Since we did not have any charts for the Ha'apai group (we didn't even know Ha'apai existed),  we borrowed electronic charts and photocopied a small cruising guide. Otherwise we used plain dumb luck. And we were quite lucky to miss several patches of uncharted coral in channels between islands that appeared clear on our large scale DMA chart. It is prudent to visit either Moorings or Sunsail yacht charters for information about uncharted, or recently found coral patches, keep a sharp look out, and have the sun high overhead when sailing between the islands in the Ha'apai Group. A small cruising guide, Ha'apai Group By Phil Gregeen, with hand drawn chartlets is  available New Zealand published by:

South Pacific Cruising Series
Capt. Teach Press, Boat Books Ltd.
23B Westhaven Drive, Westhaven Marina
Auckland, New Zealand

To recap, get the large scale Tonga chart, Vava'u and Neiafu harbour chart, 3 Ha'apai charts, Tongatapu and Nuku'alofa harbour chart before leaving North America, and safely enjoy all of Tonga.

Weather Information: In Neiafu, the Moorings pins up daily weatherfax charts on the bulletin board at Anna's Café. We receive weatherfax aboard using our HF radio and laptop computer running JVComm32 software. This is an indispensable piece of equipment and a must for all cruisers going into the South Pacific. There are no local VHF weather forecasts and weatherfax is the only way to get accurate weather information. In Tonga we downloaded Metservice New Zealand faxes every day.

   ( For NZ weatherfax schedule and frequencies visit the internet site www.met.co.nz.)

A fellow cruiser lent us a book called Metservice Yacht Pack from New Zealand. We found it very useful, especially since the weather charts and descriptions are all oriented to the Southern Hemisphere and geared to sailors. You can obtain a copy of this book by writing to:

MetService Yacht Pack
Weather Ambassador
PO Box 68429, Newton
Auckland, NZ.

Fax: (64 9) 307 5993 or email to: mcdavitt@met.co.nz (you can pay by Visa).

(This weather book is also available from   Capt. Teach Press, Boat Books Ltd.)

Sailing between island groups: The distances between island groups requires planning, time, speed and a weather watch. Between Vava'u and Ha'apai the nearest anchorages require about 65 miles of open ocean sailing which makes for a long and probably an uncomfortable day. We waited for a reasonable northeasterly weather window for over a week, formally cleared out and officially expected to be out of the Vava'u Group. But the weather just would not cooperate as one strong southeaster blew in after another. Finally a potential window appeared and we moved to the southernmost Vava'u anchorage, and one of the more exposed spots, to have an early morning start. In company with eight other cruisers, we left at 4:00 am. in a moonless, pitch black, drizzly pre-dawn, carefully following our GPS track and keeping a eye on the radar screen. Paula frankly admits that the hour it took to clear all the islands and reefs of Vava'u was one of the worst hours of the entire 18 months up to then.

The weather window was marginal, the wind was easterly at times gusting to 35 knots, the swell also easterly pitching TETHYS uncomfortably. This was the first time in over a year and 10,000 nautical miles of ocean sailing that Vlad got seasick and was sent below by iron belly Paula. TETHYS performed marvelously, going to weather, punching through the seas at better than 6 knots, spray flying over the dodger, Paula tweaking the sheets, autopilot steering, and Vlad conked out below. Eight hours later we got into the lee of Ha'apai Group and as the seas calmed down, Vlad came back on deck just in time to see a humpback whale waving a flipper as if in greeting. Our intended anchorage looked uncomfortable so we continued deeper into the islands and managed to sneak into a quiet spot behind a reef at Foa island as the sun set. Three weeks later we sailed the 70 odd miles from Nomuka, Ha'apai to Nuku'alofa, Tongatapu in daylight hours and more settled weather conditions.

Although the Ha'apai group requires careful navigation, an eye on the weather at all times in all anchorages, and care in making the initial jump from Vava'u, it is absolutely worth it. Watching the weather is most important because anchorages provide protection from one direction only; either from easterly winds on one side of an island or from westerly winds on the opposite side of the same island. Be ready to shift anchorages quickly and plan ahead for a getaway. Set GPS waypoints as you sail into an anchorage to be able to get out at a moments notice. Of all our time in Tonga we enjoyed our time in Ha'apai the most.

Clearance formalities: Clearing into Tonga in Neiafu, the main town of the Vava'u group, is relatively easy although typically bureaucratic. Since Tonga has strict Sunday observance laws, avoid arriving in Neiafu for clearance on a Sunday, you will be stuck aboard your boat for an extra day. We would have arrived on a Saturday evening had Tonga stayed east of the dateline, but because of the date change, it was Sunday evening. Early the next morning, Monday, we motored into Neiafu to clear in. Very convenient!

Arriving yachts MUST fly the yellow Q flag, advise the Harbour Master on VHF of arrival (although they don't always respond), tie up to the commercial dock and wait (patiently) aboard for Agriculture, Customs and Immigration officials. If the wharf is full with commercial traffic, boats sometimes anchor off and dinghy in to ferry the officials.

Clearing into Tonga is a social as well as formal occasion. A cold soft drink and cookies helps ease any tension and brings smiles to otherwise solemn faces. Have all papers ready including passports, exit papers from Cooks or French Polynesia, and crew list. Immigration wants to know why you've come to Tonga and will stamp passports with an initial one month visitor visa; Customs sniffs around and asks how much booze you are carrying then has a drink (soft) and waits for the others to do their thing; meanwhile Agriculture fills out a form and charges T$20 pa'anga in lieu of quarantine. (If you haven't got any Tongan money, you can pay them after you've been to the bank.)

Visa Extension: If you want to stay longer than one month, request a Visa Extension from Immigration before the initial one month visa expires. Neiafu (Vava'u), Lifuka (Ha'apai) and Nuku'alofa (Tongatapu), are the only places where a visa extension can be obtained. Caught in Tonga without a valid visa can turn into a major headache because officials take this as a personal affront and feel obligated to impose a stiff fine or worse. We spent a month in Vava'u and before leaving Neiafu, went to see Immigration to fill out another form and pay T$25 pa'anga per person for a new 3 month visa stamp in our passports. This gave us enough time to legally and leisurely visit the Ha'apai Group and Tongatapu.

Clearing out: Bureaucracy does not stop with clearance into Tonga. Before leaving Vava'u for Ha'apai group, visit Customs and the Harbour Master to clear out and pay harbour dues (a grand total of T$6.42 for TETHYS for the six weeks we spent in Vava'u). In the Ha'apai Group we reported at the Harbour Master and Immigration offices in Pangai on Lifuka Island. No passport stamps or charges but they do note arrivals in their books. Finally in Tongatapu we cleared in again upon arrival with Immigration and Customs and a couple days before leaving for New Zealand cleared out with Immigration, Customs and Harbour Master (T$9.88 harbour dues).

Duty Free and fuel: Duty free booze can be purchased within 24 hour of arriving in Vava'u, but there is hardly anything worth buying at the official duty free store. In Nuku'alofa duty free goods are available at a small store next to the immigration officer, and after clearing out, a convenient way of spending remaining Pa'anga dollars before sailing to New Zealand.

Although fuel is available very conveniently at the Gas Dock in Neiafu, duty free fuel is only available in Nuku'alofa just before departure. A visit to the customs office is required to get a stamped duty free form to be given to the fuel company. This is a complicated and time consuming procedure (reserve a day just for the paperwork) because it is also necessary to visit the fuel company (BP) to arrange for fuel delivery but the difference in price is well worth it.

Propane: Propane is available at the tank farm in Neiafu. We did not need any while in Vava'u and waited until Nuku'alofa where it is very easy to obtain, along with many other services from the friendly and entrepreneurial taxi drivers. Every morning a group of taxis slowly make their way along the breakwater looking for trade, either to take people to town or pick up laundry, or propane bottles or to provide other services. We sent out laundry and propane at a reasonable cost. Some taxi drivers will ask for duty free liquour or, more often, cigarettes as payment. This is illegal of course, so it's up to you how you handle it.

Money matters: There are banks in Vava'u but only one ATM (at the ANZ bank) and it did not work for us (we need Plus, the ATM does Cirrus), however it is easy to get Visa advances. After spending half of our NZ$ travellers cheque stash (originally purchased in Bora Bora from our French Polynesian Bond refund) and losing big time on currency conversion as the NZ$ was going down, we decided to be smarter financially. There is very expensive internet access in Neiafu (T$1.00 PER MINUTE) but it only took us 8 minutes to transfer money from our Canadian checking account into our Visa account. Then we crossed the street to the local bank and withdrew T$ cash on our Visa cards. Because of the date difference between Tonga and Canada we did not have to wait 24 hours between the transfer and withdrawal; the internet transfer was dated one day before the Visa withdrawal! Other than the internet cost, no additional charges, and only one currency exchange at a reasonable rate.

In Vava'u and Ha'apai, we paid for almost everything with cash (although restaurants will take Visa/MC), but in Nuku'alofa we paid for groceries by credit card which was very useful as we didn't want to have leftover Pa'anga so close to the end of our stay in Tonga.

Water: Water is available in Neiafu at the fuel dock for T$4.00 per 1000 litres. It is treated (filtered) rainwater and we jerry jugged several times to fill our tanks. In the drier islands of the Ha'apai Group water is more difficult to get, although it may be available at the harbour in Pangai. At Nuku'alofa water is available at the harbour, again for a small charge. Most water is caught and kept in cisterns as it was in French Polynesia. A watermaker comes in handy here.

Communications: We did not bother getting mail forwarded to us in Tonga although this is possible at a cost. It is best to use a courier service otherwise mail is impossibly slow. It took 6 weeks for postcards sent in Neiafu to arrive in Canada.

Telephone communications in Neiafu is possible but the only call we made, from the Post office, to announce our safe arrival, had a terrible time delay and echo, so we never repeated the attempt. In the Ha'apai Group, outside Lifuka, there might be just one solar powered telephone for an entire island. In Nuku'alofa the Telecomm office is the only place to make an overseas call.

We relied on the Internet for our communications needs in Nuku'alofa, where a local college and the Telecomm office had inexpensive access. Internet at the college cost T$3 per hour, but then the college moved to the naval base and became out of bounds for us. The Telecomm office had one PC with fast Internet access for T$8.00 per hour. One of the travel offices also had one PC but Internet cost was higher at T$12.00 per hour.

We went in one day to buy pork, Vlad rejected the first cut as being too fatty, and the woman got very upset because he didn't like her choice. She took it back into the freezer and all of Vlads charm was not enough to get her to show him another piece. We generally limited our frozen meat purchases to fish, chicken, and sometimes lamb, because the pork was very fatty and the beef too expensive.

Local markets, especially on Saturday mornings, have root vegetables such as potatoes, yams, pumpkins (what North Americans call summer squash), carrots and lots of taro. Tomatoes, green peppers, cabbage and leaf lettuce are also available. We had been warned not to eat leaf lettuce because of a snail that leaves a slime trail on the lettuce that could lead to viral encephalitis. As in Mexico, we washed all fresh food in a chlorine solution. There's lots of fruit available: bananas of different kinds, avocado, papaya, mango, huge watermelons, pamplemousse and coconut. The market tables are covered in little piles of fruits and vegetables, usually four or five pieces per pile costing T$2.00. There are few prices marked, but if you watch how much locals pay and pay the same price you can't go wrong. Cabbages are usually sold by the head and priced depending on size, coconuts by the basketful, huge taro roots by the bunch, sugar cane by the cane. Baskets are woven from biodegradable palm fronds. Vlad usually bought veggies from the same ladies and sometimes got free samples. There are strange foods as well but we were not very experimental. In the smaller islands of the Ha'apai group, we were able to buy fruits directly from the local villagers. Sometimes they wanted to trade, gasoline, fishing line and hooks were good trade items.

Restaurants and Tongan Feasts: We splurged in Neiafu. After almost two months of cruising without seeing a restaurant we went to several and often. In Neiafu cruisers use the dinghy dock at Ana's café and in passing would stop for a beer and sometimes lunch. We did, several times. A short walk up a steep track to a hill overlooking Neiafu leads to the Hilltop pizza restaurant. This is a must if you have a craving for pizza as we did. I think we went three times within two weeks.

In Nuku'alofa we went to several Chinese restaurants, I'm not sure why, but for some reason we and our friends had Chinese food cravings. We also went by taxi to the Good Samaritan Resort on the western tip of Tongatapu, for their Friday evening buffet. Be careful when arranging taxi rides to be sure you have agreed on the fare before getting into the car. The cost, return trip, to the restaurant as advised by the visitors center should only be T$ 10 per couple.

In Vava'u almost every anchorage with a village close by will have an enterprising local hosting a Tongan feast. We did not attend any of these but some cruising friends have had very nice meals at reasonable prices. A Tongan feast is roast pork, fish, sometimes lobster, local vegetables and dessert prepared in Tongan style that may include baking in an earth oven.

Medicines and Drugs: If you can find it you can buy it without a prescription but it may be out of date after sitting on a dusty shelf. The only medicine we wanted was sea sickness pills for Vlad before starting the New Zealand passage but the Nuku'alofa pharmacist did not have any meclazine in stock and never got any before we took off. Fortunately the passage was easy. Bring all the medications and drugs you think you will need with you.

Supplies - Paper Products: All paper products are expensive. To add injury to insult, the quality of toilet paper is coarse and the quantity of sheets per roll low.

Supplies – Boat parts: None! You can get items repaired. We did. A German electronics technician and ex-cruiser who came to Tonga and stayed, fixed our cockpit radio which had stopped transmitting and a handheld ICOM that wasn't re-charging properly for a very reasonable price. Otherwise, we needed Racor fuel filters and managed to get a couple from fellow cruisers, thanks. There are hardware stores but no chandlers.

The last option for replacement parts is either to have a visitor bring parts from home or get parts shipped at great expense, preferably from NZ. One cruising boat had a replacement wire stay shipped, twice! It's faster and easier to ship to Nuku'alofa than to Neiafu although you may be able to arrange to have stuff shipped care of the Moorings in Neiafu.

Finally, a word about Sundays: Tongan society is very religious. Each village will have at least four, sometimes five, churches of the main Christian denominations; Methodist, Anglican, Catholic, Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints (Mormon) and Tongan (Methodist). On Sundays all work stops, including swimming or fishing or gardening and even listening to music. Locals will get very upset if they see cruisers doing chores on their boats or in some cases if cruisers are swimming or snorkeling. Most cruisers head away from villages to uninhabited anchorages so not to upset locals.

Larger towns are almost empty because everything is closed, people stay at home for the most part. The airports are closed and tourists are expected to stay put. Restaurants are closed except those at hotels such as the Red Rooster in Neiafu that has a Tongan feast Sunday evenings which is well worth going to.

In Closing: Take your time in Tonga. Sightsee on Tongatapu, see the flying foxes and the whales. Snorkel clear waters and dive the Neiafu caves. Don't miss the Ha'apai Group. Wait in Nuku'alofa until November and choose a good weather window for the New Zealand passage.