Vaka'eitu

Well another day, another anchorage, actually another couple of anchorages. We came back to the west side of Vava'u on Thursday and anchored off Taunga Island, between two reefs that come out from shore. It was quite protected at the time as the wind was from the east. We had a nice walk along the shoreline and explored the reef snorkelling. Unfortunately by 17:00 the wind switched around to the SE and we lost all the protection from the island. Although the winds were not that strong, we were uncomfortable between two reefs, especially when we were getting blown onto one of them. So, up anchor and back to Tapana Island, 30 minutes away. Friday morning, one of the local fishermen came by and offered to sell us some fish. We got two nice snapper for TOG 10.00. When he came by, watching him get the boat alongside was a good show. They do not have a lot of extra money to replace parts when they fail so locals seem to be masters of the jury rig. The tiller arm had broken off the outboard at some time and had been replaced with a piece of wood. Obviously, no throttle control, so, the throttle was a piece of rope that was hooked to the linkage inside and out through the side of the motor. You pulled on it to go faster and I guess he must have rigged a spring to pull it back to idle. The reverse lock was also gone. When he first came by, he went a bit too far so he wrestled the motor into reverse and then by leaning on to hold it from kicking up and working the throttle rope (which was pretty sticky, i.e. either on or off) he managed to get back to Tarun. When he got alongside, there was a 6+ foot lemon shark in the cockpit that they had just caught. He said they actually caught two of them but the second was too big and they couldn't land it. We asked him what he was going to do with it. His response, "someone will eat it". Later, after walking into the village for some bread and getting a few boat chores done, one of the local carvers came over in their boat. He carved beautiful mahagony figures and his wife did the finishing work. We bought a small carved turtle and tiki for TOG 40.00. There was probably a good 20 hours of work in the tiki alone and the turtle probably took 5-10 hours. Nice souvenirs. Saturday we decided to hook back up with friends and had a nice downwind sail from Tapana to Vaka'eitu. Toketie, and Scarlett O'Hara were there and it's nice and sheltered. Toketie hosted a get together for all the us and another small boat Mai(Miti)Vavau, sailed by a young couple (Amber and James) from Hawaii. They are on a 26 foot Contessa and loving it! We had a bit of a walk on shore this morning and explored the deserted resort. Apparently 4 years ago it was a going concern, today, the bush is taking it back. We decided to pull up the hook after lunch as the wind was clocking around more into the anchorage and most of the other boats had problems with their anchors wrapping on coral. We were lucky and the anchor came right back up. We had a great beat to windward with just the mizzen and a bit of the genoa out. We were able to point 40 degrees off the wind and hit 4.5-5 knots which was not bad for the old girl. We anchored in Port Maurelle where we will shelter form the winds for a couple of days. The forecast is for 25 knots tomorrow and then maybe easing a bit later.

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