We chose to leave Estrellita in Blackwattle Bay and watch the 2015 Rolex Sydney to Hobart Race start from South Head which, as it sounds, is the southern land mass at the entrance to Sydney Harbour. Leaving the dinghy at the rowing club, we walked a short walk to Darling Harbour and boarded a ferry, transferred once to a different ferry a the main downtown wharf and road that all of the way to Watson’s Bay. With Sydney’s new OPAL transit system making the transfers automatically for us, it cost us $8 pp each way, and included quite a harbour tour in the process.

We went to the lighthouse arriving at around 11am and found a prime spot to watch the boats round the first mark, and to watch them pop their spinnakers (in the North wind conditions of the this year’s start), although you miss the actual start across the line.

There were a few other early birds enjoying picnics as well but even as the race start closed and the area became more full, it was never a real madhouse. The harbour, on the other hand, was absolutely crazy. The anchorages filled, boats were milling about, and as the race went on their was a stream of boats heading out and then back in the harbour. It looked really fun but although it would have been fun to be on someone else’s boat, we were glad that we could enjoy without the stress of navigating our home in the pack.

We had brought a tablet with cellular internet and as the race start approached we watched the livestream (which apparently was down outside of Australia this year, but worked inside the country). We started passing news to our neighbors as the race horn went off. With supermaxis in the mix it only took about 5 minutes before the first boats came into our view. As non-race afficianados, it also gave us a chance to read more about the background of the boats.

I will let you read the official race reporting if you want a good overview; I enjoyed the way their writer laid things out over the course of the event. The start was a crazy series of upsets and we got to watch several of the main dramas unfold by the first mark -- when the Australian sweetheart and regular line honors winner Wild Oats tacked inches behind Commanche, when Commanche took the lead, and when Perpetual couldn’t get their chute up.

The supermaxis and maxis were followed by the “normal sized boats” of which there were many. This was all unfolding to our left.

Simultaneously, on our right we watched a series of blows spinnakers as people attempted to hoist them in peppy winds as they turned out of the harbour and headed South.

One things I really enjoyed about watching from South Head was how into the race the crowd was. There were gasps, commentary, cheers and a great vibe on the way to the area and away from it, even though the crowds were all trying to funnel into small paths and staircases on the park trails.

It was an exciting year for American yachting as an American supermaxi, Comanche, took line honors. The actual winner of the race however, was Balance, an Australian Farr TP52.

Overall, this was a memory for a lifetime. So delighted we were able to be in a position to attend. When we made landfall in Coff’s it wasn’t at all clear that we would make our way all of the way down to Sydney and I am really glad conditions were favorable to do so.

What an odd time we had at this place.

Ono is inside Astrolabe Reef – a big dive area. We anchored in Naqara Bay to present our kava root so we could snorkel at the nearby manta spot and perhaps do some diving. When we sailed into Ono, after having left Savusavu hoping to make it Fulaga, we saw a handful of lovely little islands, the kind that spark our imagination as cruisers and we foresaw ourselves staying for a while. It turns out we only stayed a handful of days, and didn’t do the diving we wanted because we saw what we thought (for the third time) was a good weather window to head to Fulaga.

This was our first experience giving the village kava in what is called a sevusevu ceremony. Historical information from cruisers waxes on about how to appropriately dress and behave in a sevusevu, and how to clap, and how to drink the kava.

Our sevusevu experience is very, very limited but even in moderately remote places like Ono and Fulaga the ceremony we experienced was low key, no one was uptight about how we dressed or whether we knew when to clap, and in neither ceremony did they prepare and drink the kava with us.

What made the experience odd in Naqara was not the sevusevu experience, but it was the very first time we had multiple villagers coming to us, ashore and on the boat, asking for things from our stores. Not asking to trade, just asking to have. This is something we had expected to happen before we sailed to the South Pacific, that really hasn’t happened until now. A difference from the Eastern and Western Pacific perhaps? Who knows- we don’t.

We were asked for snorkel masks, floating rope, super glue (twice, this is a hot item apparently), gasoline (they offered to pay for the gas but we couldn’t spare any because we were heading to an even more remote location), fishing hooks and whether we would trade our personal snorkel fins with a local (his were child’s fins).

The snorkel and mask was asked for by the village elder to support their pearl farming project and we had an old snorkel aboard that we happily donated. The rest we politely said no to except the fishing hooks which we had aboard as a good giveaway item because helping people feed themselves is always a warm fuzzy feeling. We also had planned to give away some old charts to the school (which we did) and some frisbees we’ve carried across the South Pacific without using.

TIP: We didn’t have much time to explore the area before we headed to Fulaga but we did swim with mantas again (approx S18°51'53.70" E178°30'50.19"). This is always amazing to me and even though we have swam with mantas a dozen or so times, every time is otherworldly.  We showed up during a sun break in the middle of an otherwise cloudy day and immediately saw mantas including one huge, all black (even on the belly) giant. Then, we went for a surprisingly amazing snorkel (approx S18°51'53.99" E178°30'49.84") through scattered coral heads some not so great, but many loaded with soft and hard corals and swarming with fish. We were very surprised at the liveliness and even more bummed that we didn’t dive outside the lagoon. All thwarted by our desire to make it to Fulaga.

Cruiser Kiter Beta:

Pump up and launch within 3 hours either side of low tide (otherwise the bar is underwater) from approximately S17°46'47.76" E177°10'32.35".

Mostly sand with some coral reefs and some small bits of coral rubble near the bar.

The power of a name is not unknown to the tourism industry. Certain names suggest landmarks and landmarks are things that tourists want to see. Simply by giving a place an exotic name you can increase the number of tourists who want to go. This applies to cruising tourists like us as well of course.

Here are three names we’ve seen a number of times and our decoding of what the names actually mean.

Bird Motu/Island/Rock – Ile Oiseaux: This will be somewhere with nesting birds and will give you a good chance to see baby birds and their parents up close. Quite often, the anchorage will reek of bird poop and be filled with the sound of screeching birds particularly at sunset and sunrise. If somewhere is called Bird Rock it will probably be a white (guana coated) rock that is picturesque… from a distance.

Blue Lagoon – This will be somewhere that is shallow enough to really showcase the natural colors of the lagoon. Often it will have a variety of shallow depths so you can see the beauty of the colors in contrast. Sometimes it will be enclosed, perhaps with a navigable entrance, or you may have to anchor outside. You can often locate it from a distance by the number of pasty fly-in tourists walking around on the beaches and the launches they came in will be moored nearby. Don’t worry if you are planning to anchor there, the tourist boats won’t stay long. There will often be somewhere else in the atoll/island just as pretty (or prettier) without a daily visit by tourist boats.

Pink Sands – Self explanatory, right? Except, sometimes the sand isn’t particularly pink (to my eye). And yep, again, sometimes there is pinker sand somewhere else in the atoll. The two pictures above are both at Fakarava but the sand was pinker at the place with no name.

We left Mounu for Taunga for a  few days of idyllic bliss on the windward side of the island. Anchored in a gorgeous sand half moon bay. We spent the first day walking around the uninhabited sections of the island.

Soft white sand beaches are going to feature prominently in my memories of Vava’u Tonga.

One day we walked across to the other side of the island and up to the village, for fun, and in search of anyone who might sell us some fruit and vegetables.

Tip: Our friends who live in Vava’u told us that this time of year is vegetable heavy for the local produce (when most cruisers are here) but in the summer (hurricane season) the local market is fruit heavy.

We found a woman who sold us some tasty veg from her own garden and made friends with the gang of children playing on the reef in front of the village. They saw that we were interested in shells and began running around finding anything shiny (or not) and bringing it to us to view.

We stopped paying obvious attention to anything living when we noticed that the children would variously crush or rip apart any invertebrates we were paying attention to, as children of that age are prone to do.

When the trade winds came up we kited at Taunga, and the windward anchorage became lumpy and uncomfortable. The anchorage is all sand, great holding, and relatively shallow and so it wasn’t a dangerous spot to hang out but it made our “apres kite” less fun. After two nights of that, after the third day of kiting, we moved on to Tapana for a quiet night and a group dinner on our friends huge Oyster 66.

In a stroke of luck we arrived in Vava'u with two weeks of on and off good kiting wind so we were able to kite at all three locations.

Background: We kited in August-September 2014 and were using 3mm wetsuits. On grey days when the wind was up we even brought a thermos of hot tea to the beach. Of course, we’ve been living in the tropics for years and are acclimated to more heat than when we left Canada! While we usually use Google’s cache of satellite imagery to pull from for offline use with SAS Planet, but we used SAS to pull from BIng here because the pictures were better and so that is where the following links will take you. All locations are the launch spot not the anchorage.

Sandbar near Kenutu (S18°42'35.04" W173°56'32.36"). This was by far our favorite kite spot in Vava’u for a number of reasons. A small sand island and bar covered at high tide but otherwise usable with a great, relatively obstacle free line in almost any wind directions and plenty of room to get blown downwind for learners. A little choppier near high tide if the winds are honking and if the ocean swell is up it can add a bit to the chop only at high tide. The sand bar is a mile from land and so has unobstructed wind from almost any direction. Plus, the anchorage at nearby Kenutu Island is excellent in strong trade conditions. It can be a little gusty but it stays fairly flat, no fetch can build, and the island has a great beach and a great hike to the ocean side views.

The only downside is that the kite island is about 1nm from the anchorage. Depending on your dinghy/outboard combination this could be a deal breaker. We found it wet but doable and well worth it. One day we saw a resort boat bring a kiter to this island for a downwinder somewhere so that might be an option for fly in visitors.

Taunga sandbar (S18°45'12.89" W174°00'37.19"). Taunga’s sandbar connects to the island south of it. If the wind is too far South there is a wind shadow at the launch spot which you have to fight out of but it is short and then you are in unobstructed wind even in SSE winds. In ESE conditions the upwind side of the bar is excellent – no shadow, no coral, good wind and a huge section of water to play in. It can be a bit lumpy here but wasn’t as lumpy as what we experienced at Mounu (below). We haven’t kited in solid E or ENE conditions which are what you would need for unobstructed wind on the flat water side. Looking forward to trying that because that side of the bar looks excellent.

The most beautiful anchorage in Taunga is on the windy side which is unfortunate because in non windy conditions it is idyllic. Great sand, great holding and nice depths for anchoring. During strong trades the fetch becomes quite uncomfortable (we can vouch for that) and if we go again for kiting wind we’ll try anchoring on the marked anchorage on the W side of the island.

Mounu Island  (S18°45'07.05" W174°04'06.69"). This is a resort so if you were flying into Tonga this would be an attractive option. It looked fancy, so pocket book dependent. The daughter of the owners is a kiteboarder but wasn’t at home when we were there. We introduced ourselves to the owners and asked permission to launch from the southwest side of their beach which they granted right away. There is some reef downwind of the launch spot but after that it is obstacle free and a good spot for learners as it starts shallow enough to stand in but eventually becomes deep and clear downwind of the main kite area.

Lots of good reasons to come here and we will probably stop by again if nearby but we found the spot to be quite choppy and the anchorage to also be in the line of the fetch and so can’t say that it is our favorite. The anchorage around the corner at Avalau (sometimes Ovalau depending on the chart) was gorgeous so you could move back around there for the evening and have a small beach fire below the high tide line (so they sea can wash away the traces of it).

We were first tipped off to these three kite spots by SV Starship.  Thanks guys!

The area between French Polynesia and Tonga has been called “The Dangerous Middle” by one of the freely available online guidebooks (Mr. John's). This is, in large part, because of the unsettled weather in the region. We call it the complicated middle because there are a bunch of different weather phenomena at play in the region, each of which can occur without advance notice: fronts, the official South Pacific Convergence Zone, other convergence zones, etc. 

If a new system suddenly appears, it changes the forecasted movement and strength of the other systems. It’s a place to keep a weather eye, and to take seriously. A week after we made landfall in Niue, when we wanted to leave, there was 5m swell and 35+ knot winds in the region. We waited. Another boat stuck on passage during that system took damage to sails, solar panels, bimini etc. in squalls and oversized waves. Later that same week a small depression showed up suddenly on the weather charts. Within a few days it was over Suwarrow and they had 40 knot westerly winds in an anchorage exposed to that direction. Sadly, a boat was lost that night when their anchor tackle failed somehow*.

With this in mind, although we wanted to sail directly from French Polynesia to Niue, we set off from Maupiti with our bow pointed much further north than the direct line, at Suwarrow. Suwarrow was about 5 days sail from Maupiti which is about as long as you can trust a weather window. Further, there was a front passing south of Suwarrow when we left and so sailing north of the rhumb line would both allow us the option of stopping in Suwarrow if the weather went wonky and keep us above the squalls, wind strength and wind directional shifts associated with the front.

As we were closing on Suwarrow, we saw another front passing Niue and knew if we took a direct line we would pass through the front. Having experienced rough weather in an atoll before, we thought we would rather be at sea sailing to Niue than inside an atoll (e.g., Suwarrow) during the front (in hindsight, this particular front missed Suwarrow, staying south and so things were fine there). We sailed directly for Niue, experiencing strong NW winds, a squally night with unsettled wind, 6 hours of being hove to waiting for the front to pass overhead, and then “frisky” SW-then S-then SE winds. All of that was as expected and we flew the last few days into Niue, running fast and wet ahead of a decent swell.

All of this tactical maneuvering took a 1050nm passage**, added a bunch of miles sailed extending the passage to almost 10 days – but we we very happy with our 10 carefully chosen days of within limits sailing,. Another passage with nothing broken on our bodies or our boat – cheers to that!

*So far  this year we know two boats that have lost rudders, one that went aground, one that took shaft damage when a pearl farm line wrapped their prop, and the two boats described above. Oh, and the French Polynesian customs boat which ran aground on an atoll!

**This is our second longest passage sailed with only the Mexico to Marquesas run being longer.