For this time around, I will spare you from notes on our progress on landscaping our side yard, our medical procedures or our family reunions, but in keeping with the spirit of adventure, here is a trip report from our recent 5 day private wilderness rafting/camping trip down the Lower Salmon River in Idaho.

The Lower Salmon River, Idaho. September 15-19, 2023

This 72-mile run has fun, big waves in multiple Class III rapids, interspersed amongst mostly gentle-moving water. The flow this time made only two to three rapids worth scouting; the rest were read-and-run. The segment we floated runs through four separate, beautiful canyons, adorned with big horn sheep, pictographs, white sand beaches and dramatic basalt cliffs. Overall it is a fun, relaxing float with just enough whitewater and wilderness to make it interesting.

I should mention, however, that if you can find a way to make the final 20 mile slog out on the Snake more pleasant, either by shortening the river hours each day, bringing a motor to mount on a transom or contracting with a jet boat to haul your gear out, it would save you that seemingly endless row without missing many rapids. (I only mildly complained when I first did it three years ago but the arthritis in my hands really protested this time.)

The drive from our home in Coloma, California to White Bird, Idaho, near the put-in, is a little over 11 hours, largely through desert terrain until you get to the mountain valleys of Idaho. We actually left directly from downtown Sacramento after an early morning doctor’s appointment, and decided to stop for the night at an hotel in Ontario, Oregon, about three hours short of our destination. That way we arrived refreshed the next morning at the campground and were able to take the whole afternoon to set up our rigs and our campsite at a leisurely pace. We also had to drop off a set of keys in White Bird at All River Shuttles, with whom we had contracted for $250 to shuttle our truck to the takeout in Washington state. While stopping for a snack in the General Store in Riggins, Idaho, I was surprised to see a slight young man working behind the counter with a long, unkempt beard as if he were a Quaker or something, until I saw the pistol in a holster strapped to his hip! I was reminded I wasn’t “in Kansas” anymore!

Our group consisted of Laura Zulliger on her 14 foot purple and yellow Sotar cat, Mark Johnson, Laura’s husband, on his 14 foot sky blue and yellow Sotar raft, Rick on his 13 foot, small tubed blue Aire cat, and me on my little 11 foot yellow Sotar cat. Laura and Mark carried the kitchen and wash buckets, a table, a large Engel cooler, a garbage dry bag and the “groover,” which is a toilet with a watertight container to haul out our human waste, while Rick and I carried another table, a small YETI cooler, the stove and a small propane fuel tank. Each couple carried our own drinking water, repair kit, first aid kit, camp chairs, tents, sleeping bags and pads, clothing, food, and beverages. We each made our own breakfasts and lunches, and then each couple made two dinners to share. Laura previously professionally guided this river back in the day, and Mark is a highly seasoned, class V boater who has also run this section of river multiple times, so we were in good company.

The Bureau of Land Management publishes a Boater Guide for the section of river from Vinegar Creek on the Salmon down to Heller Bar on the Snake River. The guide is inadequate for descriptions of rapids, but it is a good reference for finding where you are. It is 170 miles from Vinegar Creek to the Confluence with the Snake, and another 20 miles down the Snake before the first take out after the Confluence. We put in at Hammer Creek, allowing us 52.5 miles on The Lower Salmon plus the last 20 miles on the Snake.

https://www.blm.gov/sites/default/files/documents/files/Media-Center_Public-Room_Idaho_Lower-Salmon-river_BoaterGuide2018.pdf

In the Boater Guide, BLM explains that the 425-mile Salmon River is the “longest completely free flowing river in the lower 48 states,” and “has created the second deepest canyon in North America.” The Lower Salmon River is the only navigable section of the Salmon that does not require participation in a lottery to obtain a permit. You just go whenever you want, and complete a permit at the put-in.

Hammer Creek is at about mile 52.5 (the mile count diminishes as you go down river, so that the downstream confluence with the Snake River is at mile zero). The flow was 4600 cfs (cubic feet per second), diminishing about 200 cfs per day. The recommended flows are between 3,000 and 10,000 cfs (one rapid downstream becomes highly dangerous above 10,000 cfs.) So we were floating the river on the low side, but it still felt like big water at times, and it was definitely higher than when we did it in 2020, with some rapids opening up to more routes and others becoming more pushy.

Hammer Creek is a great put-in. It has a campground with potable running water and flush toilets for only $5/night with a National Parks Senior Pass, $10 otherwise. If you are lucky and get to the campground early, you can get a campsite with river access so that once you load your boats at the ramp, you can float them down next to your campsite overnight. The ramp has secure boat tie-offs and cement prep sites on either side of the ramp. We didn’t have cellular reception there but our friends did. Each boat needs to purchase an Idaho Invasive Species Sticker and a Washington State Discover Pass (for takeout) before you leave. A self-issue permit at the put-in is required for each group.

Day One: Hammer Creek (mile 52.5) to Pine Bar Camp (mile 42.5)

Laura and Mark didn’t arrive at the campground the day before put-in until late, so the next morning there was still some loading to do and we did not put on the river until around noon. As a result, we chose to go a little less distance that day.

The river starts out right away with a fun, bouncy wave train, with Class II rapids and riffles keeping the water moving. At about mile 45.5, we stopped to look at the pictographs on river right up a short but steep, rocky path. Pictographs are designs painted on the surface of rocks. According to the Boater Guide, “the function of pictographs is unknown. They may have been drawn to represent events, serve as trail markers, or send messages to others. Along the Lower Salmon River, the pictographs are usually red. The paint was made by grinding Ochoa, or iron oxide, and mixing it with oil or grease and resin.” It is not known exactly when these pictographs were painted, but the first human inhabitants of the Lower Salmon River canyon were Native Americans who lived in the canyon over 12,000 years ago. In more recent centuries, the Nez Perce Indians dominated the canyon. Observers of pictographs up river in the Main Salmon area noted that horses were included in the pictures, thus dating them to the time after the Nez Perce Indians were introduced to horses in the early 1700’s.

Just after the pictographs, we entered the first canyon, called Green Canyon. I am not sure which rapid in this canyon it was, but I was in the lead and decided to hold back because the entrance to a left hand turn was blind and I didn’t know if there was something there I should be warned about. Having done this river so many times with the confidence that there was nothing to worry about, Laura headed down the inside of the rapid, while Mark and Rick went to the outside of the turn. I stayed inside too. It was a bit bumpy on the left but not too pushy. On the other hand, Rick and Mark met some unseen turbulence at the bottom right – Mark’s right oar popped out of his oarlock and Rick’s right tube got swallowed. The river took Rick’s coffee cup and cup holder too! Fortunately, we later found it floating downstream, the cup still in the cup holder. The guide doesn’t say anything about a scouting point for any of the rapids in this section, but had there been one, it might have been worth scouting.

As we approached Pine Bar, which is another put-in location, there seemed to be some commotion from the group ahead of us on Pine Bar Rapid, so we stopped to take a look. They had wrapped a raft on a large rock in the center of the river towards the bottom of the rapid, and some IK’s were in the eddy below trying to free the raft. We considered running the river past them but we didn’t want them to think we were abandoning them and we didn’t want to get in their way, so we waited. Finally, they freed their raft. We were already out of our boats on a nice beach. Since the put-in just below the rapid might result in crowded campsites ahead, we decided to camp for the night at Pine Bar Camp, and run the rapid the next morning.

It was Laura and Mark’s night to cook that first night, and they made a tasty and abundant salmon dinner. We were all just so happy to be out in the wilderness again, with no cell phones nor internet, and no sounds but those of the river and the wildlife. We were to discover that for the entire trip, there was no moon and there were no clouds in the sky, so we got a clear view every night of the Milky Way, the Big Dipper, Orion’s Belt, Cassiopeia – all the usual suspects. We were super lucky with the weather – fall hadn’t really set in yet, so we didn’t need layers on the river, but the mornings were refreshingly cool until the sun shone. We only had one slight little drizzle one day.

Day Two: Pine Bar Camp (42.5) to just below Lower Whitehouse (27.5)

It turned out that the run down Pine Bar Rapid was quite straightforward, and the tongue didn’t go anywhere near the rock where the other group got pinned, so we weren’t sure how they even got there unless they chose a line less travelled! There are roads that parallel the river intermittently throughout this run, some of which are for off-road vehicle only, so for a while on this day, we saw non-boaters on the shore occasionally. But at about mile 36, the road ended, and there weren’t any more roads accessing the river for the next 24 miles. At mile 33, we entered Cougar Canyon, which is a steep, narrow, 5-mile long canyon with few camp spots. On a river like this, where rowing in slow moving water can become tiresome, we really looked forward to the canyons, which offered more dramatic scenery, shade and faster moving water due to the constrictions. There were lots of Class II and some Class III rapids during this stretch.

This is also when we began seeing basalt columns, which fascinate me. Apparently, and I will have to ask a chemist or geologist why, lava flows cool into square columns. The longer they take to cool, the bigger the columns are. Just below the surface in all the mountains surrounding us were these basalt columns. I only wished I could take some home to build the rock wall we are making! They would fit so well together!

We were also treated to the sight of a family of big horn sheep at close range. They looked gentle enough but I was glad there was water between us and them – those horns look pretty darn powerful.

At the end of the canyon, we camped at an unnamed beach on river left just below Lower Whitehouse Camp. Well, actually, Laura did give a name to this the previously unnamed beach: Spider Bar! Laura was quite taken aback by the several, very large spiders we saw in the sand there, but I didn’t really notice them and they didn’t bother me – I just chose to wear flip flops when I otherwise might have gone barefoot in the soft sand, and I made sure we zipped up our tent completely at every turn.

There was only one really good flat tent spot on the dry sand, and Mark and Laura kindly gave that to us because we had the bigger tent. Mark carved out the sandy hillside a little with an oar blade to flatten another section for their tent.

A large group of young partying rafters were camped just upstream at Upper Whitehouse but fortunately, we didn’t hear them at all. Having again picked a camp on river left guaranteed early shade because the sun set behind the mountain on our side, and conversely in the morning, the sunshine on our camp helped to get us up and out of our tents early, a goal which was particularly challenging for Laura!

Rick and I made chicken tacos with Spanish rice and black beans, much of whose ingredients did not require refrigeration. We learned quite a bit about minimizing the need for refrigeration on our sailboat, and have extended that knowledge to our wilderness adventures. We used canned chicken, which tastes just fine if cooked in taco seasoning, as well as canned tomatoes, canned salsa, canned black olives, canned black beans, etc. (Cans are far better than glass on a river for many reasons, the most obvious of which is that all of our boats are inflatable!) The only ingredients I splurged on for this dinner that required refrigeration were some sour cream and cheddar cheese. And even the cheddar cheese doesn’t absolutely require refrigeration. Laura and Mark are sensitive to gluten, so we were lucky to have packed some corn taco shells, an item I added at the last minute.

Day 3: Below Lower Whitehouse (27.5) to Eagle (12.8)

Just after leaving our campsite, we entered into yet another canyon called Snowhole Canyon, which continued for 10 miles. Snowhole Rapid is at about Mile 23.5, and is rated as a Class IV. We scouted it but we all made it through without incident. When we floated this river with Laura and Mark’s family in 2020, it was important to scout this rapid because there were some fairly technical, must make moves, starting from river right, then ferrying over using the backwash from a pour over to river left next to the large boulder about a third of the way down, then maneuvering your way down from there. This time, the flow was greater and there was pretty much a straight shot starting down river right and moving to center. We watched some other rafters navigate it and decided it was quite doable.

There are plenty of rapids in those first 10 miles that make for a fast and fun morning. However, a rapid called China put an end to my frolicking for the day. It is rated as a Class IV and it is blind, meaning you can’t see the whole rapid from the start because it makes a big left turn around a bend. I hate blind turns! And it is long. The boater guide recommended we scout but we didn’t. I was last to come around the bend and found myself in some very pushy water heading for the middle of the rapid where there was a steep pour over occupying the middle third of the rapid. I had only a split second to choose whether to go right or left of the pour over and I made the wrong choice. I saw out of the corner of my eye that Rick and Laura had gone right, so even though left seemed more attainable from my position, I thought perhaps there was something down there I should avoid so I pulled hard right, probably after hesitating a second too long. Meanwhile, I didn’t see Rick below the rapid, pointing me left! I pulled away from the pour over as hard as I could but there was no stopping the pushy water – as I went over the side of the pour over, my boat stood on its bow and before I could register what was happening, I was catapulted out of my seat and into the turbulent whitewater in the hole below the pour over. I think I did a summersault under water, I had momentary contact with a few rocks and my boat, and I was spit out into deep water. When I turned around and saw my boat upright, I was really surprised – I was convinced it had flipped over and then righted itself again, because I couldn’t imagine it not flipping when it threw me out. But no, they said, my boat never flipped, thank goodness. It would have been a much bigger deal if we had had to right my boat with all my gear on it.

This was the very first time in the nearly 15 years or so of owning my cat that I came completely out of it. Fortunately, nothing was bruised but my ego. But my confidence was shaken. Also, I couldn’t get back into my cat by myself – that was a revelation. I used to be able to, but as I told Laura before this trip began, I choose not to do rivers anymore where I could come out of my boat because I just wasn’t sure I had the strength anymore to get back on by myself. But obviously, there is no way to guarantee you are not going to come out of your boat unless you stop boating altogether. So I have decided at my next opportunity, I will brave the cold water and explore options for getting back on my boat should I fall out, even if it means I use a strap or something to step up onto it.

Anyway, that mishap made for a not so pleasant afternoon for me. After Snowhole Canyon ended, there were a few Class II rapids but mostly a slow slog to our next campsite, and I was ready to call it a day well before we had made the distance.

We camped at Eagle on river right, but by now the river had changed direction somewhat so the sun still set early over the beach, providing us some shade. A road built for off-road vehicles came down to the river there, so we had to contend with a few hunters and anglers. They were mostly respectful of our space and didn’t stay the night, but Laura was pretty shook up by their gunshots.

It was Laura and Mark’s night to cook dinner again so they heated up a chicken dinner she had prepared before the river trip began – a good way to make an easy meal.

Also, for the second night in a row, we found paw prints in the sand that hadn’t been there before we went to bed. Any ideas? My guess is wolf.

Day 4: Eagle (12.8) to Lower Geneva Beach on the Snake (184.1)

This was a fun day. The water moved fairly consistently all day long and there were a good number of fun rapids, although my hesitancy from my swim the day before made me enjoy them a little less than I would have otherwise. At Mile 5 begins the Blue Canyon, which I think is the prettiest canyon on this run. At about mile 4, Slide Rapid appears as nothing more than a riffle, although apparently, above 10,000 it becomes Class V and at over 20,000, Class VI (unrunnable). The last rapid in Blue Canyon is called Eye of the Needle, named for a constriction at the bottom. The entrance to the rapid was a little intimidating but once you saw “the eye,” you realized the width of the constriction was much larger than the name would suggest, and it was easy not to miss it.

After 12.8 miles, we came to the confluence with the Snake River. This wide, large volume, dam-controlled river is open to jet boats and has some small, off-the-grid housing developments scattered along the shoreline, mostly accessible only by boat. After a few ripples at the confluence due to turbulence of two rivers intersecting, the next several miles after the confluence are referred to as “Snake Lake” because the water is moving so slowly. If you run the lower Salmon, there really is no good takeout except to travel 20 miles down the Snake River to Heller Bar, so you are stuck with it. As mentioned earlier, there are ways to make this slog less painful: some hire a jet boat to take them and their gear to the takeout, and others bring along a small motor to caravan their boats out, pulled by the boat that has the motor attached to it.

You have to listen for jet boats and give them room to travel past you, especially in the few rapids that exist, letting them have the deeper water. In exchange, they are supposed to slow down when they pass you so as not to make a wake. They did that about half the time. I was unfortunately afloat next to a beach trying to put wet socks on my wet feet and then sandals over my wet socks when a jet boat came barreling by, full bore. By the time his wake got to the shore, the waves had turned into mountains, breaking on me and soaking me head to toe, almost flipping my cat. Needless to say, I didn’t appreciate that. The weather had started to turn cooler. I did not want to be wet! The good news is that none of the jet boats we saw this time were flying Trump flags; the last time we visited this river in 2020, they were everywhere. We saw a few Trump flags on houses on shore, but it was nothing compared to 2020.

The confluence with the Salmon River is at about Mile 188 of the Snake River. Again, the mile numbers diminish as you go downstream (please tell me, what sense is there to that? The numbering system obviously was concocted by someone in a motorboat going upstream, not at all in tune with the natural flow of things, namely, that rivers only flow one way, and that is downstream!) Anyway, only a short two miles down from the confluence is a nice little stop called Cherry Creek, with a waterfall you can walk around. Just past that is a series of three beaches called Geneva; we camped in the last one.

Once the daytime jet boat traffic subsided, our beach on the Snake was quite peaceful. However, since this river is dam-controlled, the flow can vary significantly throughout a 24 hour period. We double tied all the boats to both a rock and to a sand stake (don’t forget a sand stake if you do this river), and it was a good thing we did. When I woke up the next morning, my boat was afloat and the sand below our kitchen area was wet; we were lucky nothing on the ground in our kitchen had floated away, including our chairs. Fortunately, our tents were both up high on the sand bar. Mark and Laura had gotten up several times during the night to pull the boats up on shore.

Rick and I made a dinner that night that I concocted without a recipe (a rare thing for me) when we were sailing; it is a recipe that requires nothing refrigerated except maybe feta cheese. And like I said, there are ways to keep cheeses fresh without refrigeration. So I would make this dinner while sailing when we were out of fresh foods, but it turns out to be quite useful for river trips as well, especially for the last night when ice in the coolers has diminished. It consists of short curly pasta, pesto, Kalamata olives, canned chicken, sun dried tomatoes in olive oil, and feta pieces garnished on top. The only thing bad about the ingredients is that some of them can only be bought in glass jars. I pack each glass jar in a sock inside an impenetrable dry box (we used an ammo can) so if one breaks, the broken glass doesn’t become a problem. I like to serve crackers and Trader Joe’s canned dolmas as an appetizer. I think the dinner was again a big hit. And we had some left for lunch the next day, to substitute for our tortilla-wrapped tuna salad that Rick made fresh every morning, which was getting pretty tiresome by then.

Day 5: Lower Geneva Beach (184.1) to the takeout at Heller Bar (168.5)

I wasn’t looking forward to these last 16 miles of mostly flat water. The guidebook says there are a few rapids but they are just some big wave trains that you can cheat if you want, and I was so tired and my arthritic hands hurt so much from the oar gripping that I cheated where I could. It is now two weeks later as I write this and my hands still hurt. But mostly the water was so flat that you are constantly searching for the bubble line that may indicate some modicum of current. The only trouble with that is that it is hard to read the water for current when you are facing up river so that you can pull versus push your oars, and pushing wasn’t getting me anywhere.

The USFS Cache Creek Ranch is at mile 177, and Rick and I were hoping to stop there for use of the facilities and maybe to eat lunch. There is a nice dock with lines already tied to the cleats to tie off your boat. Unfortunately, a sign says that inflatables are not allowed on the dock, and that we were instead supposed to use the nearby, non-existent beach. We each took turns running up to the bathroom to do our business and then joined Laura and Mark at a beach across the river for lunch.

The only thing redeeming about this day was that I anticipated it to be so long that I was pleasantly surprised when we somehow got to the takeout sooner than I expected. After the Forest Service ranch, I had lost track of our place on the river, but Mark looked ahead at the geography in front of us and said that if that canyon in the distance coming in from river left is the Grande Ronde River, and if there are houses on the hill upstream of the Grande Ronde, then we are almost to the takeout. Sure enough, he was right.

Heller Bar has a wet, slippery river rock takeout for rafts, while further downstream is a cement ramp for trailered powerboats. We considered taking a look at the cement ramp and then floating down there if it looked clear, but shortly after, several jet skis came upstream from that ramp and we decided we were better off staying where we belonged. Nevertheless, those rocks are very dangerous. We were lucky no one took a fall. Rick and I had to completely deflate both our cats and load our two frames and all our gear in a very calculated fashion onto the bed of our truck so that everything would fit. This was only our second time doing that so it took us a long time. Laura and Mark only needed to deflate the raft while leaving the cat inflated on top of their trailer. They had more room to not have to pack so meticulously, and probably had a lot more practice, so they were quicker. They took off ahead of us down the 20+ mile dirt road to Asotin, where the Scat machine was located to empty the groover. We met them later in town to say our goodbyes, and promise each other we would do this again together!

Laura later published a little post to Facebook where she described all the wildlife we had seen – she had kept notes. Our sitings included a “Screech Owl, a Great Blue Heron, a big toad, Big horn sheep, “Fucking Big” Spiders, four river otters, a little black cow (luckily Mark told Laura that there was a cow across the river, because from where she was sitting on the groover, it looked very much like a bear in the bushes ), two bald eagles, deer, Merganser ducks, many murders of crows, a medium big spider, a Great Horned Owl, another Bald Eagle, more Great Blue Herons, Bigass fish, Canada Geese, turkey buzzards, jumping big fish, miscellaneous birds, and Chukars!”

As Laura commented, all in all this little escapade was a much needed escape from the internet and the craziness of life. There were a few other groups on the river, but it was not crowded. We had no problem finding empty beaches to camp at, and only crossed paths with others a couple of times. We had no serious incidents, accidents or conflicts. We had great weather, clear starry nights, good food and good company.

Let’s back up a bit. Where we left off the last blog entry was Cool Change sitting on a mooring in Musket Cove. While both of us would have been very keen on returning to the Yasawa group of islands or beyond, exploring SavuSavu or the Lau Group if we weren’t about to let go of Cool Change, we felt strongly that we should just play it safe to minimize any chances for mishaps. So aside from a little trip to the mainland for Australia visa issues, we spent every evening on a mooring in Musket Cove until our rendezvous with our new crew. We spent a lot of time reading poolside. We did get out snorkeling a few times, celebrated our wedding anniversary over a romantic dinner, and gathered with friends when we could.

We had one great day sail circumnavigating the group of islands that included Musket Cove. That sailing day was fantastic: sailing in a large circle, we were able to trim Cool Change to every point of sail, and had 12-18 knots of wind the whole time. The upwind leg towards the end of the circumnavigation wetted our sails and us, gifting us one last glimpse of that thrill only sailors can appreciate: “a bone between her teeth,” as Rick likes to say. And to top it all off, a large pod of dolphins blessed us with their bow dancing, even after we changed course. This was the first time we had seen dolphins in Fiji.

We also got in several hikes on Malolo Leilei Island, where Musket Cove is located. On one of those hikes, we met Marie, a relative of the indigenous ancestral owners of Malolo Leilei island. Marie was staying with her relatives in a cottage located in an abandoned resort whose legal status was in dispute. Marie said her sister-in-law was a prophet who predicted that soon, the indigenous descendants of the original tribal owners of all the lands in Fiji that were illegally sold to foreigners would be returned to their rightful owners. Her faith in God alone insured this would happen, and warned us of the fiery perils of hell if we didn’t fully give ourselves over to HIM. She did this with complete sincerity and authority but with the kindest and most motherly of affection.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention, we were visited not only once, but twice, by venomous sea snakes! The first time was on Cool Change just after we had hauled the dinghy up onto the deck. We figured he had been hanging out in the warmth under the inflatable floor of the dinghy, and slipped onto the deck when we weren’t looking. Rick almost stepped on him. Fortunately he was not aggressive, and reluctantly made his way back into the water with the help of our boat hook. Folk wisdom has it that their mouths are too small to bite humans, but Rick saw a video of one swallowing an eel so neither of us wanted to test that mouth theory. The second time we had one in our midst was when it appeared just under the dinghy seat I had just abandoned for the dock, leaving Rick alone in the dinghy with the snake. Rick managed to get to the dock and out of the dinghy too, and then we borrowed another boat hook to ease this one out too. But you never can be certain if they aren’t traveling in pairs!

So far it may appear that this was just another day in the life of Cool Change; another season like any other. But it was not; it was different. Frankly, it was a textbook case of how NOT to “BE HERE NOW.” We had agreed to wait a full three months from the time the new crew demonstrated their interest in the boat, until the time they would commit to taking her on. Those three months were agony. We were so darn obsessed with getting ready to sell Cool Change that nothing else mattered. It didn’t matter that we were living a life most people could only dream of, or that we had over two months at a destination where people save for years just to spend a week. The sale of Cool Change was like a dark cloud hanging over us, which occasionally burst into a heavy downpour, and you never knew when the next torment was coming. If Rick wasn’t fixing something that had just broken or that he remembered he had always meant to fix, he was worried about what would be next.

At the very end, too late to do anything about it, we discovered a slight fuel leak in the engine compartment. Rick labored over it until sleepless and finally thought he had isolated the cause but didn’t dare try to fix it at that late date. Over the three months of waiting for our prospective new crew to view the boat, other prospective interested parties, including some who seemed quite promising, had come and gone. If the new crew decided for whatever reason that they weren’t up for the task of mastering Cool Change, I feared I would have to put Rick on suicide watch, and that is no joke. We tried relieving the stress by considering alternate scenarios if this crew didn’t turn out to be the ones, like sailing Fiji for the rest of the season, following up with other interested parties, getting Cool Change sailed down to New Zealand or sailing her ourselves to Australia. We even looked into shipping her back to the States. But none of those hypotheticals could compare to the bird almost in hand, whose power over us had become omnipotent.

But finally the day came when the prospective new crew were to meet us and a handful of technicians they had hired to survey Cool Change at the Port Denarau Marina. It was a very long day, and the demands on Rick were enormous. They started out by doing a cold start on Cool Change’s engine, followed by a haul out and review of the hull, then returning to the slip and having different technicians review plumbing, electrical and mechanical. Finally, the prospective crew used our equipment to haul himself up the mast. The inspections took all day. No one knows Cool Change’s systems like Rick does, not even trained specialists. So Rick was the one explaining everything to everyone. Our prospective crew had all the questions of a novice but studied boat buyer and more, and it was Rick who answered the questions, more often than not. There was just enough expertise amongst the various technicians that it appeared our prospective crew was satisfied that a thorough survey had been completed. And the cause of the one issue that remained, the slight fuel leak, was confirmed by the engine technician as the simple fix that Rick had already deduced.

During this intense day of inspections, I lent a hand where I could, driving the boat to and from the haul out, and supporting Rick in his efforts, but at the same time, trying to stay out of the way of so many people on our little boat all at once. I did plan a little break in the middle of the day, in anticipation of the stress I would be feeling: a massage! Because our prospective crew had so many questions, nightfall was practically upon us before we had time to ourselves. I felt a huge burden had been lifted: while the prospective new crew had not yet accepted the responsibility for Cool Change, there was nothing that day that was a deal breaker. We had overcome the greatest hurdle. As Rick and I sat in the cockpit reflecting on the day’s events, I found myself gulping down wine. The pressure of months of anticipation of this moment had just been too much. I skipped dinner completely and stumbled into bed.

The sea trial was scheduled for the next day, a Tuesday. The crew taxied over to the boat in the morning, and we sailed them to Vuda Marina, where they had rented a cottage. We went over sail configurations, motor operation, and everything else we could fit in during the sea trail. Moments later, inside the cabin of Cool Change in a slip at Vuda Marina that afternoon, we agreed upon the terms of the crew change, and Voila! it was a done deal. We stayed one last night on the boat and the next day, the new crew moved onto Cool Change and we moved into a cottage.

We worked on helping the new crew decommission all the next day, but we had one last hurdle to overcome, which Rick anticipated with much trepidation: Fiji immigration needed to sign us off as crew and sign in the new crew of Cool Change. Depending on the particular government agent involved, and how complete your paperwork was, this could go smoothly or could be a nightmare ending in disaster. Fortunately, we lucked out on both counts: the marina staff helped us to have the paperwork all in order, and the immigration agent who happened to show up that day turned out to be one of the kind, unsuspicious ones. We turned over the paperwork to the new crew, who were now authorized to be masters of Cool Change, even to the extent of sailing her out of Fijian waters. Done!

Rick and I promised to spend a second full day teaching the new crew about Cool Change and helping them to decommission. It was a very long day, interspersed with a lovely, long, last lunch for Rick and me at Vuda Marina’s Boatshed Restaurant, hosted by the new crew. There are a lot of systems aboard Cool Change, which Rick and I have selected, purchased, installed, refined, repaired and become thoroughly familiar with after 12 years of living intimately with them. It is completely unreasonable to expect anyone, no matter how bright they are, with no previous experience in such systems, to absorb all of that knowledge in a matter of a few days. So we think we probably overwhelmed the new crew. Nevertheless, they are far better off having received those introductions than having had no preview whatsoever – a privilege very few people new to a boat have.

The new crew are a fantastic young couple in their 30’s/early 40’s. He is an Australian of Vietnamese heritage who has been living in France for the last 10 years and works remotely in a high tech startup; she has been his partner for several years, is a US citizen of Taiwanese heritage raised near Los Angeles with a remarkably independent spirit of self-sufficiency who has developed an established career as a technical writer, but loves academia and previously did post-graduate work in old English texts! They are both quite quick and bright, and obviously citizens of the world. They both surf, rock climb, and ski, amongst myriad other sports. They are in great shape, flexible, strong, and able. Cool Change will flourish in their hands.

As dusk settled into the dock basin in Vuda on Thursday, our personal remains from Cool Change were loaded into a taxi to head for the Airbnb we reserved in town. As I stood near the loaded taxi waiting for Rick to finish showing the crew one last thing he believed to be critically important, the Peter, Paul and Mary song, “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” came to mind: “… the taxi’s waiting’, he’s blowin’ his horn, already I’m so lonesome I could cry …”. I stepped down onto the deck and as I gave a hug goodbye to Cool Change’s new crew, I broke out in tears. Twelve whole years of more experiences and emotions and places and friends and marital bonding than I could ever enumerate flashed before my eyes, like the end of a lifetime, the end of an era.

While we will no longer be writing about Cool Change, we will continue this blog for now. After all, there are certainly more cool changes and adventures to come. For now, we have returned home to Northern California and are planning our next escapades. Stay tuned…

This morning we applied on line for our Australian Transit Visas as part of our optimistic plans to be flying home to the U.S. at the end of June. During the course of the application process, we discovered that anyone flying from Fiji to Australia, even just transiting through for an overnight layover, must make an appointment to get their picture taken and their fingers printed at an official Australian biosecurity office here in Fiji within two weeks of applying for their visa. So much for our plan of just wasting away at Musket Cove for the next month! Fortunately there is a biosecurity office nearby on the mainland, but it still means leaving this gorgeous spot, re-entering a marina, taking a bus into the nearest city, etc. At first we thought we would have to go to Suva, the capital of Fiji, to get the biosecurity appointment, which is a 5 hour bus ride away. I think we would have changed our flight reservations to avoid Australia before doing that.

So let’s back up a bit. The reason we have booked flights back to the US is that we have a deposit from a prospective buyer of Cool Change, who is arriving mid June for a sea trail and inspection. We are confident that the inspections will go fine, but you never know until the deal is done. There are a few others who have expressed serious interest in Cool Change as well but who knows if they will have gone on to other boats by then. But last minute flights are hard to come by and cost a premium so we booked refundable flights home in advance of the sale, trusting that all will go well.

Recommissioning this year took on an added element that slowed our progress somewhat: we were not only recommissioning to start sailing, but also, to sell. In addition to the usual removal of all the external protective covers, deep cleaning of the interior, rigging of the sails and running rigging, putting everything that had been stowed back in its place, recommissioning the water maker, testing the engine and outboard, reinstalling the solar panels and wind generator, reinstalling the storm curtains, and a myriad of smaller tasks, we also had other jobs to finalize. We had hired a rigging company to entirely replace our standing rigging, and that was still being finished up when we arrived back in Vuda. We also hired some workers to sand the teak companionway slats and frame, whose varnish had been damaged by the volcanic ash in Tonga, and then we recoated the sanded wood. The workers also polished the deck and topsides.

For the first week of our return, Cool Change remained in a “cyclone pit” in a distant section of the boatyard, while Rick and I rented one of the marina’s cottages, a lifesaver. At the beginning of the second week, Cool Change got moved to a maintenance stand so that her bottom could be sanded and a new coat of anti-fouling paint could be applied. Meanwhile, Rick installed a new sump pump for the shower drain, as well as the newest model of our shore charger. We were fortunate that Vuda Marina and the contractors we hired all completed their jobs according to plan in a timely fashion. After two weeks, Cool Change splashed, and then we spent another week at Vuda marina in the water, continuing the recommissioning. After that, we headed over to another marina called Denarau, where our bowsprit/anchor mount reconfiguration had to be completed. It was all quite the lengthy recommissioning process.

But the thing is, when you are selling a boat, you look at her differently. All of a sudden, little things become big things. Slight dampness at the bottom of a locker becomes a reason for panic until you realize that it is caused by nothing more than a loose hose clamp. A little corner of accumulated dust appears that you never noticed before. And you become hyper conscious of how every little detail looks – should I polish that faucet again? Should we start labeling things so the new owners can find their way around? And interspersed in all of this is confronting the reality of 12 years of accumulated stuff on the boat having to be taken home, stored, given away or thrown out so that the boat doesn’t look cluttered for the prospective buyers. Unlike at home, boats in foreign ports rarely are given the opportunity to shed things, they only accumulate more. Sifting through it all is in itself a full time job.

The good news is that we did have our cute little cottage at Vuda, with a comfy bed, air conditioning and private showers, to come back to each night after a hard day’s work while Cool Change was still on the hard. Our cottage came with a breakfast every morning, served on the cafe patio, where all the regulars hang out every morning. The lovely Boatshed Restaurant, an artistically constructed but massively stable palapa, has daily specials and happy hours that make it affordable. Staying a Vuda Marina is like staying at an intimate but remote RV park with full-season rentals; the staff all know your name, and you know several of the other guests’ names, where they are from and the trials of their boats. There are virtually no other businesses around, so everyone eats and shops and hangs out at the same places every day and evening. It really feels like a family.

The only things we didn’t like about Vuda were the mosquitos and the boat access from the dock. Perhaps it was the season, but the mosquitos were an irritant. And the access from the dock to the boat is challenging. It is a modified med-moor system, where the stern of the boat is tied to the center of the water basin, and the bow is tied to the perimeter of the basin, with a short little stub of a dock to gingerly step onto from over the bowsprit of Cool Change, timed to coincide with the exact moment that the boat has been hauled closest to the dock. If I were to offer up excuses for why the full time cruising life is made for younger people, getting on and off the dock at Vuda would certainly be one of them.

Our next stop at Denarau Marina is a whole different story. Rick describes it as the “Pier 39” of Fiji (in reference to a touristy area in San Francisco). It is not homey like Vuda, but they have excellent laundry facilities, two well-stocked grocery stores, plenty of restaurants to choose from, and customary finger docks that are easy to get on and off of. Big mega-yachts berth there. They have entertainment on the docks sometimes, and there are no mosquitos!

One of the major improvements we made at the very end of last year was to find a machine shop and welding contractor in Fiji able to design and install an ingenious answer to a multi-year problem of our anchor not fitting properly on our bowsprit. They had some final adjustments to make and they only work out of Denarau, so that is why we made the move over there. It took another week to get it absolutely right, but we are delighted with the result:

So with the respite of some nice surroundings and breaks from the workload, we somehow soldiered through all the recommissioning tasks and finally got out of the marinas. Deploying full sails for the first time this season on a beam reach in 8 knots of wind or less was for both of us like flying with wings on a cloud; it was heavenly. The wind died down and we almost stopped moving altogether but neither of us wanted to turn on the engine – could we just float like this forever?

Since we arrived at Musket Cove, it has been a little bit more of heaven. I couldn’t wait to immerse myself in their huge saltwater pool, where I float without effort, and focus on relaxing each tight muscle in my shoulders and neck until I practically fall asleep. We have been to the pool every day since. The first night we stopped at the Island Bar for our obligatory welcome drink of their signature frozen mojito. We are taking walks through the coconut groves and on remote beaches. Only as time allows in our relaxed schedule of taking a breather are we squeezing in additional boat projects like cleaning the hull of the growth accumulated in the short time of being in marinas. We intend to go snorkeling and exploring and simply enjoy our last few weeks of being the guardians of Cool Change.

For those who have been following us for our 12 year journey from buying Cool Change, to prepping ourselves and her for ocean passage making, to refining her in Mexico and then sailing the South Pacific, you may wonder, with all our enthusiasm for this great adventure, why are we now selling our beloved Cool Change? There is not just one reason and the answer is more of a feeling than it is an objective explanation. Yes, we are 12 years older than when we started, and I must admit, climbing onto the deck from the dinghy is more of a strain than it used to be, but age is not the whole story. (Although I could make the argument that the bodily changes between ages 59 and 71 are as drastic as the changes from ages 9 to 21, both just 12 years!) We have both developed some health issues over the years that make extended periods away from access to health providers a bit more risky than they used to be, especially while on multi-day crossings, but that is not the whole story either. I could sit here on a mooring ball, and dinghy into shore for a fancy cocktail or a dip in the resort pool, forever, but there is more to full time cruising than that. Diminishing stamina for long passages and diminishing enthusiasm for the challenges of overcoming potentially life-threatening obstacles, whether they come in the form of rough weather or failed boat parts, probably are bigger parts of the story.

But the other reason is, neither of us are one-trick ponies; we have lives beyond sailing. Had it not been for being separated from Cool Change for over two years due to Covid, we most likely would have long since arrived in Australia and sold Cool Change by now, which had been our pre-pandemic plan. But due to the Covid lockdown, we also learned that our home in California had to offer a lot in terms of our retirement goals. Spending more time with relatives, participating more in our adult children’s lives, watching our great nieces and nephews grow up, and making improvements to our neglected home, all brought us great satisfaction during those pandemic years when we were confined to the United States.

That is not to say that we are likely to be content never leaving the house again; we both have too much wanderlust and curiosity for that. We have sailed to some of the most remote areas of the world, true, but can you believe it, we have never been to Europe together? Extended vacations in France, Italy, Spain and especially Greece are beckoning us, while we can still get around ok. Life is short, a fact which becomes ever more threatening as each year passes, and there is still so much to do, so much to see, so much to experience!

Whether another boat is in our future is still to be determined: maybe a French canal boat, maybe a sailboat outfitted for the Pacific Northwest while we visit our kids, or maybe a large sailboat in Mexico that can accommodate visitors for winter season getaways? Who knows. There is no question that we will miss being part of the incredible world cruising community. It is a community whose members have experienced what most people only dream of, yet who can really only share those experiences amongst themselves because no one else can identify. Traveling by private sailboat is so drastically different than traveling by land because you get to go places that you can’t drive to by car, and that tour boats can’t fit into, so your experience is always an intimate, one-on-one experience with the sea, the sky, the land, and the people who live there. It is so much more than just “what was your scariest moment at sea,” which is pretty much the only question we ever get asked by non-sailors. We will miss being an active part of the community of people who have seen the world through the same lens as we have. But for now, all we want is a clean slate to begin drawing out our future plans.

Stay tuned for a month or so from now, when news of Cool Change’s future should become clear!

Our kids and grandkids arrived in Fiji at the beginning of November. They had a ball.  It was perfect weather.  We cooled off in our private pool, we had drinks at the Island Bar Musket Cove Yacht Club, we swam in the lagoon and the saltwater pool, we hired a boat to take the whole family out to the best snorkeling spot out on a reef, and we took Cool Change out to a floating bar called Cloud Nine for a day of adult refreshments and swimming. And we women had our spa day.

Everyone had ample time to take long walks on the beach or whatever else they wanted to do, but we ate together every night, each family rotating food preparation.  Dan’s family made friends with an Australian family with a daughter about our granddaughters’ age.  The whole trip was memorable, and I hope everyone keeps those memories close to their hearts for a long time.

While Drew and Angela left according to plan when the Airbnb rental was up, Dan’s family decided to stay longer.  After we all somehow managed to spend the night aboard Cool Change together, we sailed them over the next day to an island called Mana, about a ten mile sail from Musket Cove.  There we had found them a little surfer-cottage right on the beach.  We visited the nearby Mana Island Resort, and Dan’s family again made friends with another couple from Australia with a young daughter.  We only had three days there, but they made quite an impact. 

One of the things we did was to visit the local school and offer them some gifts of school supplies we had bought for them.  Once there, Leanne, Dan’s partner, came to understand that water was an issue on the island and for the school. Specifically, they would run out of fresh water because water came exclusively from rain catchment systems, and they didn’t have enough water tanks to store enough rain to make it through the dryer season.  So, Leanne decided to personally address that issue. She talked with the Headmaster of the school, got the phone number of the tank vendor (which is on the main island), and arranged to pay for a huge water tank to be purchased and delivered to the school!  That blew me away.  Hats off to you, Leanne.     

Once our family had departed, it was time to decommission for the season – not my favorite task. We decided to make it somewhat less painful by doing most of the decommissioning at the other marina in the area, called Denarau Island.  It has real floating fingers on the dock so you don’t risk a fall when disembarking, the showers are wonderfully clean and convenient, and the laundry facilities far surpass those of Vuda.  Besides, it is located right in the middle of a commercial center with tons of restaurants, souvenir shops, clothing stores and grocery stores.  The ‘real Fiji,’ it is not, with the only Fijians being workers and not residents of the Island. The “island” was artificially created by moving a reef around to make canals and stable platforms for luxury homes, international hotels and commercial centers.  The whole area is gated and even the taxis need a  special  permit to enter.  Virtually all the customers are foreign.  But for our purposes, it worked well to provide us all the conveniences we needed to make decommissioning comfortable.  Also, there are boat maintenance businesses on the island right near the marina, and we were able to have our anchor system redesigned while we were there.

Finally, the time came to move over to Vuda Marina, have Cool Change hauled out, and have her tied down in a cyclone pit for the season.  Once she was hauled out, there was no more room in the cabin to sleep so we rented an air-conditioned cabin for the last four nights. That really made the effort tolerable. We are heading back there mid-April, when we intend to recommission her and put all our efforts into selling her.  

A few words about Fijian culture, before I close. We have only spent a little over two months in Fiji so far, and most of the Fijians we have met are accustomed to foreigners, so I can’t say we have had much immersion into the “real Fiji.” But one of my interactions was quite telling. It involved a Fijian bakery clerk. A tourist in line ahead of me at the bakery asked another tourist, who had approached the bakery counter and had started to order, to go to the end of the line and wait her turn. I don’t believe the woman in line was particularly mean about it, but the women who had stepped up to the counter seemed a bit taken aback. She withdrew from the counter, stood there a while, and then left without ordering anything. It was an awkward few moments for everyone, and the clerk made eye contact with me while it was happening. When I reached the counter, the clerk said, “That, what happened just then, is not the Fijian way. We help anyone who asks for it.” (Of course I felt a little guilty because I was quietly grateful that the woman in line insisted on respect for the line, because I was in it!) I think what the clerk was saying was that she thought the woman in line was rude to the one who walked up to the counter, because in Fiji, treating people with respect and not saying anything that might offend them takes precedence over social organizational structures like lines. It even seems to take precedence over rudeness. That certainly would explain how courteous and kind Fijians have always been to us and those around us, even when undeserved.

Our flights home on Fiji Airways were fairly comfortable; we got lucky because the middle seat between us on the long flight was unoccupied, and Fiji Airways didn’t change our paid seat selections, as they are often prone to do. We got home just in time to make a Thanksgiving dinner over the holiday weekend, unpack, and then act as caregivers for Rick’s sister Linda, who had a hip replacement.  We are looking forward to January, when we hope to have a little time to indulge ourselves in some of those routines of living at home that we miss so much.  

I think we all learned from COVID that we really can’t say what tomorrow will bring.  It is our hope that we will be able to find the right buyer for Cool Change and that we will be home sooner from the South Pacific next year than last. Meanwhile, we hope that any health issues we have will continue to be manageable, and that our loved ones will stay healthy as well.  This season in the South Pacific, in spite of all the adventure and joyful moments of discovery, was a time when we missed home more than we have in the past. After all, we had never really lived full time at home for an extended period after retirement until COVID hit, and I think we learned that we kinda liked it!  This may foretell a tendency in the future to plan shorter voyages and more time at home.  But we will see. Like I said, we really can’t say what tomorrow will bring, so all we can do is enjoy today.  Happy Holidays.

But here we are and we almost can’t believe how nice it is!  So far we have only been to five islands. There are 295 islands left to explore!  Best I can tell, the area of Fiji we are currently visiting supports a tremendously large tourist population, principally from Australia, to a lesser extent, New Zealand, and then a smattering of tourists from other countries. Accommodations vary from luxurious, romantic, adult-only resorts with individual ocean view dwellings for each couple, to dormitory-style beds for an international crowd of young surfers, all scattered along miles and miles of white sand beaches on small islands off the west coast of the largest of Fiji’s islands.  Although all the resorts seem to be full, they are almost all self-contained with small, single story cabins nestled inside the palm trees, so it is really hard to tell there are many people here.

These west coast islands are entirely enclosed inside a reef that stops the ocean swell in its tracks, so that waves never build very high on any route between islands.  More often than not, especially at this time of year, the main island serves to create a wind shadow from the easterly trade winds for the west coast islands, so the wind rarely blows in the west as hard as it does north or south of Fiji. There are far more remote and interesting islands to visit on the east side of both of the principal islands that make up the island nation of Fiji, where snorkeling opportunities abound, the indigenous people walk on fire, and you must obtain permission from the island chief to anchor. There is a little bit of that on this side, but it is much more traditional, I hear, on the less-frequented east side.  This season, however, we are confining ourselves to the west side, and next season, we are likely to focus primarily on selling Cool Change unless we have a change of heart!

Some of the physical description of Fiji reminds me of Tonga, but there is one huge difference between Tonga and Fiji: Fiji works.  We bought local Fiji SIM cards for our phones that provide 145 megabytes of data per month for US $10, and there is coverage nearly everywhere.  ATM’s are ubiquitous. You can order online for transportation and accommodations.  The grocery stores are large and well-stocked.  There is a good, reliable bus system and ferry system.  People speak English, which certainly is not a necessary sign of a well run country but does make it easier for their foreign guests to get around. 

About ten days after we arrived from Tonga into Fiji,  we finally got ourselves out of the lovely Vuda Point Marina to discover sailing in Fiji, but not before we finished all our repairs, finalized arrangements for our cyclone pit, provisioned, and had a chance to visit with some of our old sailing buddies.  

Rick made quick work of replacing the bilge pump controller, thanks to the Yacht Shop at Vuda having the replacement part.  It took a few days to schedule Rev Marine to come and look at our ignition switch and our autopilot, and a few more days for them to fix both, but fix them they did.  The ignition switch has been replaced, and all the connections within the control panel have been cleaned up and are as shiny as new.  It turned out there was absolutely nothing wrong with the internal workings of the autopilot – Ravi from Rev Marine took it apart and said it looked like new, as if it had hardly been used, which is basically true – it only had about two seasons of use since we replaced it.  The problem lie in the mere fact that it’s mountings had nearly frozen so it was straining to provide the agility it needed to respond.  Just taking it out of the lazarette (a huge ordeal that should have been a snap) and lubricating it’s mountings was sufficient to completely fix the problem of it loosing control. 

The cyclone pit at Vuda Point Marina is the most costly option to date for our off-season storage, but we really had no other choice; Fiji is a cyclone magnet and we really need Cool Change to be safe.  So we confirmed our paid reservation with the Marina and they showed us where Cool Change’s hull would be “buried.”  I just hope the ground is high enough that she doesn’t float out of her pit!  She is scheduled to enter the pit on November 21.

Between Rick and me, we made at least three trips to Lautoka, a fairly large city about 30 minutes from the marina, for boat supplies and beverage/food provisions.  I fell in love with the vegetable and fruit market, very similar to what we have seen in Mexico. (I find it interesting that in the US, people have to go out of their way to “buy local,” whereas in so many other parts of the world like the South Pacific, large indigenous markets where everything is local is the norm.) We found almost every type of packaged goods we needed in their multiple, large, western-style supermarkets. Everything except red meat and fish, that is. (It seems there are specialty stores for those, and we haven’t found them yet.)  And their alcohol was pretty darned expensive, without much variety.  There is only one kind of beer that Rick likes here, and it’s availability is hit or miss.  But compared to Tonga, Fiji’s provisioning opportunities are fabulous.

Our friend from Sausalito, Rob, came into the marina just a few days before we were leaving, with his brother-in-law JD.  They were putting his lovely Oyster sailboat Shindig to bed in another pit and leaving for the season; Shindig’s crew had been in Fiji well before we were.  It was nice to see familiar faces and enjoy a dinner together.  We were also able to reunite with Scott and his partner Cat on Muskoka; we knew Scott from as far back as Mexico, and they crossed the Pacific from there in 2018, the same season we did.  We also reunited with our friends from Tonga, Steve and Patty.

Speaking of running into boating friends, it was a total surprise and “Small world” experience (a double entendre, as you will discover) a few weeks later when I saw someone walking along the dock at Musket Cove who I recognized from Mexico!  Craig and Cathy Small had a power yacht they called “Small Crew” that was in the Tenacatita achorage along the west coast of Mexico at the same time as we were.  We had a “raft up” of dinghies in the anchorage at sunset, shared appetizers, had a talent show, and, well, one thing lead to another and we were invited onto their yacht.  Cathy and I became friends of Facebook. That was years ago.  And then out of the blue, Craig shows up on a dock in Fiji!  They hadn’t sailed or motored here – instead, they flew here and chartered a sailboat for a few weeks.  But it was really fun to see them, one of those completely out of context experiences that jars your expectations of what will happen next.

Once we final tore ourselves away from Vuda Point, we knew we only had a few months before we had to put Cool Change up for the season, and we had to stay close to our base in case one of the parties interested in buying our boat came for a visit.  That left the two island chains closest to our base: the Mamanucas and the Yasawas.  The closest Mamanuca island with ample sailboat amenities was Musket Cove, about a 15 mile sail from Vuda Point, so off we went. It was a lovely, clear day sail to Musket Cove, but there was either no wind or wind on the nose, so we motored.  As we were to discover, the winds on the west coast shift several different directions in the course of a single day, making planning for a sail difficult.  

We were totally enchanted with Musket Cove.  Not knowing the area or the anchor holding at all, we were relieved to find dependable moorings in the anchorage for rent for less than $10 US per day.  The Musket Cove Resort is very welcoming to cruisers, and one can become a lifetime member of the Musket Cove Yacht Club for a mere $5 US. That membership gives you privileges to use all the facilities at the resort, including a large saltwater swimming pool, hot showers and access to many of their activities.  We took advantage of their snorkeling package to let someone else besides us navigate the reefs and the anchoring around an absolutely wonderful snorkeling spot along the wall of a reef near the floating bar called Seventh Heaven, out amongst the reefs surrounding Musket Cove.  

We had toyed with the idea of arranging for our adult children and their partners to visit us in Fiji this year, but we had pretty much decided it was too late in the season to try to make it happen, and we didn’t know enough about the potential destinations to choose wisely.  But then our oldest son Dan asked us when he should plan on taking off work this year to come visit us!  So we got to thinking: Musket Cove was the only remote island we had heard of where we could safely put Cool Change on a mooring while spending time with our kids, and it was close by the mainland, so why not Musket Cove?  We looked into the resort and it was super expensive and not very available.  But then, miraculously, we found a four bedroom house with private pool overlooking the resort, with full resort privileges, on Airbnb! We were lucky enough to find the home and were invited in by the owners to take a look around, and fell in love with the house.  So quickly we put it out there to our kids and voila! it looks like it is coming together for the first week of November. Stay tuned for an update.

Besides the Musket Cove Resort, there is also Plantation Island Resort as well as Lomani Island Resort, an adult-only exclusive resort tucked away at the far end of the island.  We walked through both and were not impressed with the cattle-car concentration of Australian families at Plantation, but the adult-only resort was an idyllic romantic hideaway for couples only. 

After about a week in Musket Cove, we headed over to another island about 10 miles away called Mana.  On our way, we swung by Cloud 9, another floating restaurant, to see how possible it would be for us to anchor there with the family.  We think we can!

We skipped the reef-dodging route through another set of islands that would have let us pass by the island where the movie Castaway, with Tom Hanks, was filmed, but maybe we will get there during our family visit.  

The entrance to the Mana anchorage is through a narrow, winding cut in the reef but it is well marked by sticks as long as one of us is at the bow to watch the color of the water and to determine which side of the sticks to follow!  We entered just before high tide under the theory that we would be less likely to encounter outgoing waves in the pass, and sure enough, the water was flat. There were several boats in the anchorage but there was plenty of room for us.

Mana has a little village and a few surfer/backpacker accommodations owned by the villagers on one end of the island, and the large Mana Island Resort on the other end of the island.  In the village we found a cute little modest cabin facing the beach that would be perfect for our son’s family to stay in after we leave Musket Cove, something they requested we set up for them.  It is a far cry from the comparative luxury of Musket Cove but will give our son Dan’s nine year old girls a better feel for the real Fiji. We spoke to the school there and hope that our granddaughters will get a chance to sit in on a class too.  

On the other half of the island, we found Mana Island Resort, an all-inclusive resort containing acres of little cabins with several pools and restaurants, a private snorkeling beach, and lots of activities planned for every age group. We had to pass through a gate and give our name to get in, and then check in at the main reception to obtain a pass. We had been told earlier that we should “dress appropriately” or they may refuse us entry.  Then someone greeted us with a golf cart to scurry us off to the main resort activity area. They have made a point of being as much removed from the village as possible, going so far as to construct a big fence that keeps the villagers out.  The workers live on the resort property rather than in the village. The resort is set up so that no one ever leaves the resort grounds; there are miles and miles of deserted beaches on the island yet all these tons of people in the resort never go out to explore them.  We talked with the village ladies selling their small souvenirs on the beach and you could see how heartbroken they were to watch ferry-loads of people disembark every day for the resort without anyone ever coming down to visit them.  Unlike other resorts we have since visited, Mana Island Resort did not invite the locals to sell their souvenirs inside the resort. I paid for a massage on the beach given by the ladies, and we bought some souvenirs from them, mostly because we felt the need to contribute to their economy.  The school told us that the resort does not share their water with the village either, and that due to the current drought, the school has had to pay for water brought by the ferry just so the students have water to drink while they are in the hot, non-air conditioned classrooms.  (We later discovered that this practice of excluding the locals is not universal, and several resorts have a symbiotic, integrated approach to their local communities.)

Nevertheless, admittedly due to our white tourist privilege, we were treated relatively well by the resort.  I can’t say they denied us anything. We took advantage of our access to the resort to enjoy their buffet lunch at a reasonable price, and we could have enjoyed the pools and lounges as well had we so desired.  We will probably bring Dan’s family there on occasion, since the meal availability on the island is otherwise quite limited.  Also, there are paths through the resort that lead to a good snorkeling beach and a lookout, places we are saving to visit with Dan’s family.

Our supplies were getting low and our dirty laundry was piling up. So we headed back to another marina along the “mainland” coast, called Port Denarau. It is a huge hub for all the ferries and boat tours departing from the mainland, and a marina for many super yachts.  We weren’t able to get a slip or a mooring so we anchored out in some very blustery conditions, waiting for it to calm down enough to drive our dinghy into port.  Once there, we found some nice do-it-yourself laundry facilities, very modern shower and toilet facilities, two well-stocked grocery stores, a bakery and several restaurants and bars.  There are condos and multinational hotels there too, all on an artificially created island: a city in itself. The marina staff were quite accommodating. We found that the slips were about the same price as Vuda but were actual slips, with fingers, instead of a modified med-moor system.  We made slip reservations there for the days preceding the arrival of the first of our kids, and also for the days preceding our haul out at Vuda.  (Vuda does not take reservations and we definitely need fresh running water for decommissioning so we decided on the sure thing of Denarau.)

We finished our laundry, got our shopping done at two well-stocked grocery stores in Denarau, and had a “frozen coconut margarita” at a restaurant/bar overlooking our dinghy, all in one day, and decided that was enough of Denarau for now. We would be back. Instead, we were anxious to go explore the other nearby island chain, called the Yasawas.

We barely knew where we were going when we headed off for the Yasawas.  We had read and reread the cruisers’ updated online highlights of the area, and had seen Facebook updates from others, but it was hard to tell one bay or one resort from another until we got up into the Yasawas and experienced them.  We had a Sail Fiji app that gave us some routes through the scattered low lying islands and reefs to get there, but everything was all a bit too approximate for us to be certain.  Then we got out there and understood why.  Everyone kept telling us that you can’t rely strictly on your electronic charts when sailing in Fiji, and that you had to use some form of satellite imagery as well, in order to spot the shallow parts.  Fortunately, our friend Scott had warned us of this early on and had simply said to use Google Maps in satellite mode! So I downloaded Google Maps for Fiji in satellite mode for offline use onto my iPad, and voila! we could see where the shallow water was. The whole area we were sailing was no deeper than about 200 feet, for miles and miles, and reefs were everywhere, often uncharted.  Unless a cloud was obscuring the satellite photo, usually the shallow places were visible as lighter-colored water on Google Maps.  They often, but not always, were also identifiable by waves breaking on them.  This meant keeping a watchful eye at all times, and not just counting on the electronic charts to trust you are in deep water.  Even the Sail Fiji app, when giving waypoints, says, “Waypoints are indicative at highlights on the route. They are NOT a continuous route.” WTF?  I surmised that to mean that all of these waypoints are places you are safe to go to but the passage between them is not necessarily a straight line, because you must constantly dodge reefs.  When planning a route, that is NOT helpful!

There are anchorages all along the western (leeward) side of nearly all the Yasawa Islands, so once we approached one of the southernmost islands, we started looking for a place to anchor for the night.  It was a 30 mile sail to get there from Denarau, and we made pretty good time, arriving in less than six hours. We departed early enough that we had plenty of time to anchor and get settled before dark.  That first anchorage was lovely.  Unlike the lower elevations of the Mamanuca Islands or any of Tonga, this island had a lush, steep, green backdrop, with high cliffs. It was at the southern end of an island called Waya, in a bay called Yalobi.  It was about five miles short of the first resort we wanted to visit, called Octopus Resort, which was reportedly friendly to cruisers.

I was rather surprised once we got there that there was no cell reception, since I had been promised that cell reception was everywhere in Fiji. I guess we were more remote than I had realized, or the steep mountain made cell reception less certain.  I was a little disappointed because it meant I was going to miss my weekly Zoom call with my sisters the next morning.  But the fact that I have mostly been able to make those calls every week since I arrived in Tonga was itself amazing, and I decided it was ok to forgive myself for missing this one, rather than insisting we press on. After all, I was in a remote anchorage in Fiji, for goodness sakes!

The next morning we sailed on up to Octopus Resort, and I caught the tail end of my sisters’ zoom call while underway! Yes, sailing up the coast of a remote island chain in Fiji, I had cell reception!  That was fun.  

Octopus Resort was the exact opposite of Mana island Resort.  It was small and intimate.  Women from the village were selling their souvenirs right in the middle of the resort next to the only pool, 90% of the employees of the resort lived in the nearby village, and the village chorus performed songs and dances for the resort guests.  The resort was completely integrated with the community and they depended upon one another.  Cruisers like us were welcomed like family – they had us leave a credit card with the office and then we could order anything to eat or drink that we wanted, enjoy the lounge chairs and swim in the pool.  I loved it! The only problem we encountered there was that we had bad weather one of the two nights we were there, and were swinging all around on our anchor, with our wind generator being overpowered and putting on its squeaky brakes.  I got little sleep and Rick got even less.  

Not knowing when we might have to rush back down to the mainland for a prospective buyer for Cool Change, we felt we needed to press on north so that we could see as much of the Yasawas as we could before our time was up. In addition, there was a strong westerly wind predicted to arrive in a few days and we wanted to be in a more protected anchorage when that happened. So after only two days at Octopus, we headed up the coast another 30 miles or so. We passed by the anchorage where reportedly you can swim with giant Manta Rays and snorkel in a fantastic drift dive, partly because the we were told that the Manta Rays had already left for the season, and partly because we couldn’t afford the time to stop.  We continued on to Blue Lagoon.  Blue Lagoon is where the 1980 movie by the same name, with Brooke Shields, was filmed.  It is a large, calm lagoon with several fingers, protected by islands on several sides. It was perfect for holding up in a storm.  From just looking at the electronic charts, getting into the lagoon appeared to be tricky, with reefs everywhere, but the passes were wider than they appeared and most reefs were marked.  

The principal Blue Lagoon anchorage contained about 14 boats when we arrived, down from the purported 40+ boats a month before.  We were glad we missed them!  We had barely anchored when we were welcomed by another cruiser on a paddle board.  She answered a bunch of our questions and gave us an introduction to the lagoon.  We also saw that our friends Sylvia and Tom from Cinnabar, who we had last seen in French Polynesia, were anchored in the lagoon too.  We ended up getting together with them our last day there.  Meanwhile, we took showers, cleaned ourselves up, went in for happy hour at the Boathouse Bar on shore and made reservations for dinner at the nearby Nanuya Island Resort.

We were so happy to be at the Blue Lagoon. The anchorage was calm and protected. There was a small store with all the basics like eggs and bread and even frozen chicken if we ran low. There was a happy hour every night and you could buy wine for takeout and bring it home. My birthday was coming up and I was looking forward to going out for dinner at the resort.  And there were lots of things to do! Snorkeling, hiking, and nearby caves were ready for us to explore!  

After taking a day to get our bearings and walk the beach a little bit, the next day we made arrangements with a young couple with a small tour business, to take us to the Sawa-I-Lau caves.  These caves were made famous by the Blue Lagoon movie, and tour groups go there every day, so I imagined they were fairly commercialized and safe. But my interest in going there was that the visit would include a quick dive underwater to get from one cave to another.  I had always wanted to do something like that but was afraid that I would loose my breath or get lost before I found air! I was assured that this was just a three second swim towards the light, so, I thought, what could possibly go wrong?  Haha!

We descended to the first cave, which contained natural light from above. We were warned that the cement stairs down to the cave were slippery and that we should bring fins because we would be treading water for a long time, and those tips helped us to avoid a mishap.  We were fortunate that we had picked a day when no cruise ships were visiting, so there were just a handful of people, and only one other group in the cave with us.  Our guides Navi and his Kiwi wife Molly, then prepared our small group of four guests to dive to the next cave.  They explained that inside the second cave there was no natural light, but Molly and Navi had underwater flashlights.  I didn’t have a waterproof flashlight, but I put my brightest headlamp inside a small, clear dry bag so at least I would have something to see with, or for others to see me. 

The dive to the second cave seemed pretty straightforward.  From above, the entrance seemed quite narrow, but once your head was underwater, you could see the light on the other side and it didn’t seem that far.  There was a large stalactite hanging down in our path, but I could see my way around it if I stayed deep enough. When I got to the other side, Molly or someone else with strong hands kept my head down for me until it was clear for me to come up.  I made it!  And so did Rick.  The second cave was a lot smaller and you could touch the walls on all sides. It seemed likely you could touch the ceiling as well, although I didn’t, as though there might not have been enough space to breathe if it were high tide, but maybe that was just my impression.  (I had asked about the fact that it was past low tide by a couple of hours when we went to the cave, but I was told not to worry). Next, Navi said, “follow my light,” and he took off into a deeper part of the second cave, through passageways and around bends.  The two young Kiwi sisters in our group followed closely behind Navi, but Rick and I were somewhat further behind. Rick told me later that he hadn’t realized the group was moving until he was left alone and had to quickly catch up.  I almost lost the group too, and I wasn’t sure where Rick was. I kept calling out Rick’s name but there was no response.  Finally, once we were all gathered at Navi’s destination and he was giving us some history of the caves, Rick appeared.  I was so relieved.  It was hard to communicate inside the dark cave because there were echos, we had snorkeling gear on, and there was so little light.

The next thing I knew, Navi told us to follow his light again, but quickly he and the two Kiwis got too far ahead of me and I lost them. Thank goodness I had my little headlamp lit, because I was just about to panic as I was feeling my way around the walls of a small cave room trying to find an exit, when Rick found me and lead me to the light.  And then there was the swim out.  Somehow it seemed less direct than the swim in.  I could see the light I was supposed to swim to, and I could see the stalactite, but I also saw that the woman ahead of me did not come up when she got to the light, but instead kept swimming underwater to the left.  I didn’t like that idea much because I wasn’t sure where I was supposed to go once I turned left.  Fortunately, it all turned out ok – I got to the light, was pushed to the left by the guy holding the light, and the next thing you knew, I was breathing air again.  

Okay so I probably made it sound scarier than it was.  I am sure Navi and Molly knew exactly what they were doing, and it was his cousin in the cave whose strong hands helped me through.  Tons of people do this same thing every week, and I have come across no reports of bad outcomes or people getting lost.  There probably was only one way out and if I had gotten lost, I would have been found in short order.  The swimming underwater part turned out to be the least of my worries, and really wasn’t that hard, even at higher water – anyone can swim ten feet holding their breath, right?  The guides seemed to think that the biggest danger was hitting your head by coming up too soon, so they made a point of keeping our heads protected.  But even knowing all this, the thrill I got from this experience was more than I had bargained for! Yet it made me feel alive in a way that few experiences I still dare to undertake do.

To top off a really exciting day, Navi talked with Rick about fishing all the way back to our anchorage, and gave him a pole to troll with as we returned.  Navi is a great fisherman and it was his skill that allowed he and Molly to survive the lack of customers through the COVID pandemic – they traded the fish he caught with others who had flour, sugar and other basic necessities of living. 

Unfortunately, the bad weather did come to the anchorage the next day, so we hold up in our boat for a few days. The good news is that the anchorage was so protected that Cool Change was still. We had cellular data so we were able to complete our ballots for the upcoming California election and a few other housekeeping chores.  It was nice to just relax.  The day of my birthday came and it was still raining, but I woke up to sweet messages from all my kids and lots of kind words on Facebook, so those made my day even before we managed to get to the resort for dinner that night. By that time, it had stopped raining.

Our last day in Blue Lagoon, our friends Sylvia and Tom from Cinnabar took us on a hike to a home at the other end of the island where a woman named Lo makes donuts for cruisers!  How fun was that!  It was nice to get out walking, and great to catch up with Sylvia and Tom.

We left Blue Lagoon and had a lovely sail back down to Octopus Resort. It was one of those days sailing that was so beautiful that you wanted to create a movie of it in your mind, to have at ready recall in moments where you’d rather be somewhere else. As if to share in our joy, dolphins joined us on our bow for several minutes. Because we intended to leave first thing the next day, we didn’t deploy the dinghy, so we were confined to the boat for dinner. I didnt have much left to make for dinner, so I found a recipe online for flour tortillas. They came out pretty darn well for my first try. Next I whipped up some salsa from the remaining tomatoes, onions, hot peppers and cilantro I had, and cooked up some packaged spiced meat I dug out of our stores. I even had some beans to add to our impromptu Mexican dinner night!

Yesterday we got back into Vuda Point Marina to take care of some more paperwork and start preparing ourselves and our boat for our kids’ visit in a couple of weeks. After that, we will begin our decommissioning process to store the boat in a cyclone pit until next April.  We have booked our tickets home to California at the end of November. We are looking forward to being home again and resuming our routines of dancing, taking daily walks, and spending time with family and friends.  

Departing Vava’u was bittersweet. It felt like we were leaving family behind.  Bear and Char from the Falalau Deli froze our home-cooked passage meals and prepared for us a couple of frozen meals extra, in exchange for giving them some wetsuits.  Caryl from The Kraken Bar and Grill turned me on to the best doctor in town, without whose help I wouldn’t have been able to depart, due to a stomach bug.  Bo from the Yacht Shop charged our new starter battery for us, and she jumped through all the Customs hoops to get our new battery charger to us. As we walked down the street, people we knew honked hello as they drove by.  A dozen or more permanent residents of Vava’u knew us by name and it felt like they were there supporting us, taking care of us.  The last night as we went out to dinner for the last time at the Bella Vista, and walked back to the dock seeing all the familiar signs of Vava’u, I felt the melancholy of the impending loss of familiarity, combined with no small amount of trepidation for our oncoming voyage.

The next morning we spent our few remaining Tongan coins on some bottles of soda water, and headed down to the Customs agent for our final departure papers.  I was certain that the copier must have been broken and the assistant must have walked into town to make the copies because she took so long, but Rick said no, he could see her through the glass window the whole time.  Oh well, that is Tonga for you.  We weren’t really in much of a hurry anyway. 

Normally we would have been required to arrive at the Customs dock with Cool Change to check out of the country, and then the Police boat would have escorted us out to open water to ensure we didn’t make any last stops once we checked out, but this time they made an exception for us. We were allowed to dinghy into the Customs office on the justification that the Vava’u Customs dock is not built for small sailboats and can destroy them – it is built of cement and is too high to approach.  Furthermore, their Police boat was destroyed so they couldn’t escort us out anyway; we were on the honor system to leave promptly.  And so we did.  

We were optimistic about a four and a half day passage of about 600 miles. We were going to have a full moon to light our way at night. All the forecasts were in sync, and showed winds in the 12-16 knot range.  Seas were to start out bigger but then diminish. Not much rain forecasted.  We were going to be able to update our weather forecasts along the route using our satellite connection on the Iridium Go! And just to be extra safe, we arranged with the pre-eminent weather guru of the South Pacific to give us daily weather updates. We were all set. And even knowing all that, I still had doubts. It helped that my sister Kim had given me a spiritual passage many years ago that I kept at hand for moments like this.  I am not particularly religious, but I do find myself turning to trust in God/the universe to provide for me when I have done all I can and still have doubts.  It helps.  Thanks, Kim!

The route I planned for our trip from Vava’u, Tonga to Vuda Point, Fiji was an attempt to avoid as many potentially dangerous obstacles as possible.  We had already marked on our chart plotter, a list of over 40 reefs or other obstructions on our route that had been identified by cruisers but were not on any navigational charts.  According to Jimmy Cornell, the author of one of the most well known world cruising route books of all time, “passages between Tonga and Fiji have the reputation of being the most hazardous in the South Pacific, and the number of cruising boats which were lost in these waters confirmed that assumption.”  We did not want to become part of that statistic. One of causes for concern is that the eastern border of Fiji is lined with numerous atolls with no lights.  Atolls are so flat that they can hardly be seen and are not recognized by RADAR. The entire area area is called the Lau Group of islands.  They are very remote, with tribal cultures and few modern conveniences like electricity.  Cornell specifically states that “because of the risks involved in passing through Fiji’s Lau Group, boats leaving Vava’u should avoid the more direct Oneata Passage and sail instead through the wider passage between Ogea Levu and Vatua Islands.”  So we did! Not only that, but this region is in the center of the seismically extremely active “Ring of Fire” of the South Pacific. New islands can be forming in the ocean right underneath you. I don’t know if it is true or not, but one of the dive company owners in Vava’u told Rick that if you happen to be directly above a developing underwater volcano, a giant-sized bubble of methane gas can rise from the eruption and sink you!

We didn’t find out until later that indeed, in our first day of the passage we came within 15 miles of a new island in the making, called Home Reef.  According the USGS, just as we were passing by, ”a volcanic submarine island re-emerged 10 meters above sea level and continues to grow larger, from one acre to nearly six acres in five days, (we passed by it on the fifth day, the same day the USGS photo below was taken) sending steam vents one kilometer into the atmosphere…. The eruption events had increased in the last 24 hours to 11 events compared to two events in the previous 24 hours, thus a total of 13 eruptions in the last 48 hours.” Mariners were advised to sail further than four kilometers from the site.  Good thing Late Island was between the eruption and our course, or we could have easily chosen to head in that direction, although we did have the underwater volcano marked as an obstacle on our chart from previous eruptions.

So, we planned our trip as carefully as we could. Instead of taking the most direct route in a straight line, which would have landed us on an unmarked island or reef for sure, we set waypoints out of the way of any known obstacles.  And then we put those waypoints into our PredictWind app to give us an idea of what weather we would hit along the way, and what our point of sail would be.

What I hadn’t given much thought to, was PredictWind’s estimate of how deep the wind angle would be for most of our passage. Sailing “deep” means that the wind is coming from almost directly behind you, and you are sailing “downwind.”  Well, Cool Change can do that, but only if we sail in a configuration called “wing on wing,” or a little less effectively, with our spinnaker.  But both of those sail configurations require fairly flat seas, at least for Cool Change – otherwise because of the rocking caused by bigger seas, it would be too easy to backwind one of the sails and get into serious trouble.  

As a result, at least for the first two days when the seas were over two meters and the true wind around 20 knots, we couldn’t sail as deep as our route required, and instead had to gybe back and forth in a zigzag motion to stay more or less on route.  In those first two days we sailed 242 nautical miles (nm) to get just 180 nm from Vava’u.  All in all by the end of the trip, we sailed almost an extra 100 nm over our intended route of 600 nm, which added almost a day to our passage time. 

You can see part of our passage below. The blue line was our intended route and the black line is what we actually sailed.  The long stretch on one tack without gybing is when we had flatter seas and were able to sail deeper, wing on wing.  

Complicating the control of our direction was the fact that our autopilot had started acting up, not holding a course, even before we left Vava’u. We are accustomed to the autopilot staying the course for us even if the sails aren’t quite trimmed properly to accommodate it, and even if the waves keep throwing the boat off course.  It’s only downfall is that it does suck power. We weren’t certain of the cause or severity of the autopilot failure because it was intermittent, but we got to the point where we couldn’t trust it. Rick could have changed out the autopilot with our backup before we left Vava’u, but since we were assured there would be wind the entire trip except at the end, we figured we would just rely on Charlie instead.  

Charlie is Rick’s deceased dad’s name, and also the name of our Monitor Windvane steering system (so his Dad can always be with us). This is an apparatus that will steer the boat for you on a particular angle to the wind if you set it correctly, as long as there is consistent wind.  It doesn’t need any power from the boat to run it. There are two drawbacks to Charlie, however. He doesn’t really do super well holding a tight course when steering near to downwind unless the sails are set correctly to accommodate that, namely, wing on wing, especially in big seas. He has no way to anticipate sea state influences like the autopilot does, so he bounces us around a lot between different courses, sometimes as much as 30 degrees. His other limitation, obviously, is that he only operates when there is wind.  

On the third day, sure enough, by about 11:00 a.m., there was too little wind to sail. We tried to use Charlie along with the motor while the wind at least supported the mainsail being deployed, but it was a challenge. Once Charlie was out of the picture, we were left with either the failing autopilot or hand steering.  Most traditional sailors do not baulk at hand steering for long periods, but Rick and I just don’t feel we have the stamina to do so.  It takes concentration, constant attention, often standing for long periods, and no time for anything else.  Even taking a moment to search for your coffee cup can throw you off course. So mostly we used the autopilot and reset it over and over again every time it failed, cursing ourselves for not replacing it before we left.  

It was a relief, though, that the seas calmed on that third day as the winds died, and we could relax a little.  The afternoon was gorgeous, and the gentle rocking of the seas made us both feel like babies in a cradle.  Rick and I spent the late afternoon together in the cockpit talking and checking in with each other.  Our watch schedule was deliberately set up so that we “dog-watched” from 4 to 7 pm – both available to mind the helm but no one assigned.  That was partly timed around our two SSB radio net check-ins each day. Rick took the 4 p.m. and I took the 7 p.m. check-in.  Those nets made us feel more secure that at least someone knew we were out there, and we could get some advise if we needed it.  In fact, our friend Rob from the boat Athanor, who was in French Polynesia, stayed on after the SSB net one night to talk through some boat problems with Rick.  We would heat up dinner and eat together during that dog-watch, and discuss any issues that might have arisen during the day that we needed to work out. 

I was able to share that I was delighted to find not only that my stomach problems seemed to be resolving themselves, thanks to the medication I got in Vava’u, but also, that my favorite anti-seasickness medication, Stugeron, seemed to be working – I had very few symptoms and hadn’t gotten sick yet, in spite of the rough seas.  I was also starting to realize that while I wasn’t having as hard a time as I remembered adjusting to the lack of sleep at night, I was, indeed, moving into an interesting altered state of consciousness where I was never neither completely awake nor completely asleep.  I was in a transitional zone where non sequitur scenes from a dreamlike state entered into my conscious thoughts, where hallucinations were not infrequent, especially at night, and where unresolved feelings from past events passed through my awareness as if I were watching them from a moving train, with no control over the scenery.  A cow was in a field and then a boy was running and then I was awake, or I awoke to see a wall where the mainsail was and a door where the lifeline gate was. The unresolved feelings from past events were more elusive, but it seemed my subconscious was struggling to find a way of thinking about them that could bring me peace.  I told Rick that ocean passages were looking more and more to me like a form of therapy!  

So here we were, enjoying the late afternoon together, when Rick looked down and saw that the ignition had completely disintegrated and fallen out onto the floor of the cockpit, along with the key.  While the engine was running, mind you.  We had a running engine with no key in it, the lock that the key goes into had disintegrated too, no way to shut it all off, and worse yet, no way to turn it back on if we shut it off!

While Rick was still in shock, I suggested we just keep the engine running for the whole rest of the trip, in neutral if we had wind, so that we could have the engine on at the end of the trip when we needed it to get into the harbor.  Rick said we likely didn’t have enough fuel for that. We decided to let the engine run all night since we had little wind anyway, and maybe his sleeping on it would give him some insight into a solution. Well, it did.  The next morning Rick reinforced to me that this was a relatively simple tractor engine that starts with not only a key but also with a start button, and shuts down by pulling a cable that shuts off the fuel supply.  The key lock really only serves to energize the start circuit and to turn on the electric fuel pump.  Rick awoke with the idea that on this engine, the key can just be left in the “on” position and the engine can then be run or shut off as needed.  He would just need to reconnect the fuel pump on an independent circuit and install an on/off switch for it.  So that’s what we did.  We haven’t gotten it fixed yet, so right now, that is still as it stands.  If we want to start the engine, one of us turns on the new fuel pump switch and the other one presses the starter button that completes the circuit to the solenoid and starts the engine.  This is one of those “MacGyver” things that Rick is so darn good at; a solution I would never be able to conjure up on my own.

The longterm solution to the problem was obvious: the ignition switch needed to be replaced. [Status update: we are now in the marina a week later and the ignition switch has not only been replaced, but all the electrical terminals in the instrument panel have been cleaned up and are as shiny as if they were new. The autopilot has also been fixed – some external mounts that are designed to move were frozen, so they have been unfrozen and lubricated. Both of these problems were issues that resulted from Cool Change sitting for so long during the Covid lockout. They would have been hard to anticipate, and required a shakedown cruise like this one to find. We now feel confident that such issues have been addressed]. It is the nature of full time cruising that improvements or repairs are constantly being made to the boat, no matter the value of the boat or its build date; we just had the added challenge of shaking out what final repairs were needed due to the Covid lockdown.

Anyway, back to the passage … by the fourth morning, the wind had picked back up and the seas had settled down enough that we felt comfortable with a wing on wing configuration.  Most of the time, a sailboat sails with all the sails deployed on one side of the boat or the other, but with wing on wing, the mainsail is deployed to one side, and with the help of a “whisker pole,” the headsail is deployed on the other side.  This made it possible for us to sail very close to downwind, and hold our course with Charlie, while staying fairly true to our intended route.  We didn’t loose as much ground on this tack, and held it for a long time. The day was glorious: we were traveling smoothly downwind in the right direction at a relatively fast pace, the skies were clear, we had a temporary fix for the ignition problem, and all was well on Cool Change.

But as the evening of our fourth day approached, things got more challenging again.  First, Rick discovered that the bilge pump control panel had failed, which meant that the bilge pump was no longer operating.  He was able to rig it to operate manually, but in doing so, he moved the controller out of position and it blocked the full opening of the fridge lid.  Furthermore, the toilet was leaking, so we found ourselves having to mop up regularly. [Status update: Fortunately once at the dock, Rick was able to replace the bilge pump controller with an identical brand new one we bought in Fiji, and we found the cause of the toilet leak and fixed that too. In both cases, just as with the ignition and autopilot, the cause was clearly linked to Cool Change sitting for over two years during Covid lockdown.]

And then on my 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. watch that night, I was hitting squall after squall, drenching my first set of clothes. I donned my foul weather gear, only to get those soaked too.  The periods of rain were short but quite intense, and I must have gone through four or five squalls. The wind and seas would come up and then drop to nothing as each squall came and went, making me disconnect Charlie occasionally and either hand steer or deal with our failing autopilot.  We were still wing on wing, and I didn’t want Rick to go up to the forward deck at night to release the whisker pole even though a more flexible sail configuration was advised by that time. Then I saw a light off in the distance that turned out to be a large, very bright fishing trawler. He was not on AIS (an electronic identification system used by most commercial and well-commissioned pleasure boats other than fishing boats), but I could see him on RADAR.  His bearing remained constant as his distance diminished, a telltale sign of being on a collision course. I couldn’t really change course without furling in the headsail because wing on wing limits the boat to a very small variation in course, but I didn’t want to loose the little use I could make of Charlie by furling in the headsail.  

Meanwhile, Rick had set a guard zone on RADAR, which means an alarm goes off if traffic enters the zone in front of you.  It is a great safety device but I find guard zones a pain in the butt!  Unless the target has no lights, I usually see them well before the alarm goes off. On our Raymarine system, after you turn it off, the alarm keep coming back on, repeating itself until you go deep into the system to change the alarm setting. Meanwhile, you are dealing with the real emergency of traffic ahead.  

When the alarm kept going off, Rick came up to see if he could help but as I said, the alarm setting was way too deep into the system for him to be able to help, and meanwhile, the alarm for the failing autopilot went off. I was soaking wet, it started raining again, two alarms were going off, I had a dangerous target ahead directly intersecting me on my course, and Rick was in his underwear at my side trying to help!  It was not a pretty scene!  

I can’t imagine that the fishing boat could visually see us through all the lights they had on their boat, but finally about a mile away from us, they changed course as if to avoid us. When I finally thought they were no longer a danger, they then approached us again, this time from behind, but stopped about a half mile away.  Because they rarely carry AIS and have erratic routes, fishing boats are cruising boats’ nemesis. But this time we seemed to have escaped unscathed.

The rainy weather let up before Rick’s 2 a.m. watch started, and he had a beautiful night with no rain and with sufficient wind to sail.  He did wake me up to get the windvane set properly, one of the very few knacks in sailing that I have acquired perhaps with slightly more prowess than Rick. We decided to wait until the morning to have him go forward to remove the whisker pole. At first light when my watch started, we furled in the jib and Rick went forward to take down the whisker pole, but by that time, the seas were starting to build again and we were reminded why we don’t use wing on wing more often in open water: going forward in higher seas with just the main deployed is not something you want to do with regularity.

The fifth day was to be our last full day at sea and we were really looking forward to that last waypoint that marked a turn north directly towards our destination.  From nearly downwind, we would be turning more into the wind so that we would no longer be struggling to maintain a downwind course.  We would be sailing on broad reach, where the wind is still coming from behind you but just by a little bit.  (The angle of the wind, for example, was about 160 degrees for the past 100 miles (just 20 degrees off from dead downwind), whereas the new wind angle would be just about 115 degrees (90 would be right from the side, so this would be a little more downwind from that and a little more comfortable).  And the wind was predicted to be about 14 knots, quite comfortable. NOT!

We got to the waypoint, revised our heading and boom! we were close-hauled! What that means is our angle to the wind was only about 45 degrees.  The apparent wind was not 14 knots; rather, it was gusting to 23.  The waves seemed so much bigger because we were sailing into them. It was all very uncomfortable.  Charlie had a hard time not rounding up and we were constantly adjusting him while sheeting out the mainsail enough without backwinding to try and appease Charlie.  Just as we thought we had gotten the sails balanced, we entered a 30 mile stretch that our weather Guru called a “wind tunnel.”  There were two large islands about 30 miles apart off starboard and we think maybe the wind tunnel was caused by wind whipping through the gap between the two islands.  In any case, the wind and the waves picked up even more. By this time, I had just gotten off watch at midday and was looking forward to having a little rest when Rick called me up to the deck, asking me to help him put another reef in the mainsail.  I assumed this would be a quick assist and then I could go back to sleep, and I wasn’t dressed.  So I thought about what I could throw on in a hurry to assist him and I thought of my “Tongan dress.” I call it that because it has sleeves and goes below my knees, appropriate attire for a Tongan church.  It is kind of like what we used to call a “moo moo” and easy to put on.  So I threw this dress over my head, otherwise naked, put my vest on and went up to assist Rick.

Well when I got on deck, I realized why he thought we should reef – we were hauling ass at more than 7 knots and felt extremely overpowered.  Even after we went down to the third reef, it was still hard to stop Charlie from rounding us up.  Rick commented that in these conditions, we should probably both be on deck – there went my afternoon nap.  As I was trying to position Charlie, I would ask Rick to sheet out to take some power off the sail, and Rick would reply that he couldn’t because the mainsail would get back winded, but it was getting back winded because we were pointing too high because we were overpowered and Charlie couldn’t handle it!  It was a catch 22 and kinda humorous when you think about it.  But finally we got the sails balanced and Charlie mostly behaved unless a wave he couldn’t handle threw us off course.  And each time that happened, I got a wave over me!  At one point the cockpit nearly filled with water and it took quite a while for it to drain out.  So there I sat in my lovely yellow Tongan church dress with nothing on underneath, my hair not tied back because I hadn’t intended to be on deck for long, soaking wet and salty, and hanging on for dear life.  It was all so ridiculous, all we could do is laugh. I went down below to change and wash the salt off my face, and then Rick got drenched too!

When we finally got out of the wind tunnel, it was quite a relief, but it wasn’t too long after that when the wind died altogether. It was hard to believe that the wind could change that much in one day by just sailing north, but it did. We were starting to get into the wind shadow created by the large Fijian island that was our destination.  So as dusk settled upon us, we realized we would have to hand steer all the way to our destination about 11 hours away.  We decided the best way to do that was for both of us to stay on deck and take half hour shifts behind the wheel, which is what we did.  While off shift, we would rest lying down in the cockpit with a pillow for our head and hope to catch a few moments of sleep during the half hour.  I found this process easier than I thought it would be.  My wrist watch has a great little alarm that kept track of our 30 minute watches with ease. I was so tired that catching a few moments of sleep  for 30 minutes every hour wasn’t hard for me at all, although waking up got harder and harder.  Rick figured out a trick of anticipating when the autopilot would fail before the failure alarm went off (i.e., when the actual heading increasingly varied from the locked heading.) That made resetting the autopilot easier and didn’t wake the other who was resting, so we were able to use the autopilot somewhat. I helped that process by setting some of the instruments to provide us the readings in big numbers that we needed to predict an imminent autopilot failure.

By the time we reached the pass that would take us from open ocean to inside the reef 4 hours from our destination, we were both pretty tired.  Entering a pass for the first time at night is never a good idea, but we figured this was a major shipping channel so it should be wide enough and well marked enough for us to figure it out. There were some confusing lights at first, and we had to remind ourselves that the “red right return” adage was reversed in the South Pacific, meaning that the red light is on the left, not the right, when going to shore, and the green light marks the right side of the channel.  I was confused by a green light to the left of the red light, but then I realized that it was a green light from another approach to the channel.  And what really saved us was that there was a “range” set up on the far side of the channel, where two red lights, one above the other, marked how to line up to get through the pass.  Rick followed those and voila! we were through.  

It was still another four hours or so of motoring to get to our destination, but there was enough going on that we got a second wind, or at least Rick did. There were large ships anchored on either side of the channel that confused us, and RADAR scatter made it look like there were more targets out there than there were.  But finally as dawn was breaking, we arrived at the anchorage outside the marina where our quarantine buoy was waiting for us. We were relieved that no one was yet on it.  It took us a couple of tries, mostly because I didn’t slow us down enough on our first pass for Rick to grab the buoy line, but eventually we got moored, put up the yellow quarantine flag, and breathed a sigh of relief. We had made it.  It was early enough that the marina hadn’t opened yet, so we gathered up all the sheets and dirty laundry, cleaned up ourselves and the boat a little to make us presentable for Customs and Immigration, and waited for the sun to rise on a new day in a new country. Fiji, here we come!

Well, COVID, cyclones and the biggest volcanic eruption in centuries have changed all that.  Mango’s dock got torn off in the 2020 cyclone, and the place closed up.  But more importantly, because Tonga closed its borders in 2020 at the first sign of Covid, had a big Covid outbreak when the rescue workers came after the January, 2022 volcanic eruption, and as of July, 2022, still hadn’t opened their borders to foreigners, we find ourselves in a forbidden sailing paradise! As of August 1, they did make a limited border opening for flights, but the maritime borders are still closed. What this means is that we are in the unique position of being one of the only sailboats on the water here. No one would have believed me had I made this up:  a worldwide pandemic closed the borders to one of the best cruising grounds in the South Pacific, and only because our boat was here before the pandemic began and a sympathetic Tongan Consulate worker felt sorry for us, we are now free to enjoy these very cruising grounds all to ourselves!  The whales who mate and give birth here, no longer frightened off by the whale-watching boats circling them, have re-entered to play in the most inland waterways of the group, much to the delight of both the locals and us!  There is no having to maneuver around even one other boat in any anchorage.  Miles and miles of beaches on uninhabited islands await our discovery, with interesting shells accumulating untouched for years. Islanders and expats alike, treat us like royalty because we are a novelty they haven’t experienced for over two years, and we represent a glimmer of hope that their economy will pick up again soon. We have gotten to know most of the major players in the expat community here, who have welcomed us with open arms.

We had been so gun shy about trusting the Tongan government’s borders policy that it had been our intention to sail out of Tonga and into the waters of Fiji as soon as possible. Fiji was the first in the South Pacific to open up its maritime borders during the height of the COVID crisis, by designing an effective “blue lane” system of restricted entry ports and self-quarantine. They are quite welcoming to yachts, they have many more yacht services available, they are a lot easier to get to by air, and everyone raves about the diversity of cruising grounds there. So it made sense to sail west 600 miles to get to Fiji as soon as we could.

But then we went sailing.  We had forgotten how wonderful sailing is here! The reason that the Vava’u Group in Tonga is such a unique wonderland for sailing is that the entire island group is enclosed within one gigantic reef that abruptly dissipates the ocean swell. And even inside the group, the frequency and random scattering of islands prevent fetch from building up.  So sailing between islands within the group is like sailing on a lake – no swell, no fetch, and just a few wind waves.  For those who have sailed in the Society Islands in French Polynesia, the water is like sailing inside a lagoon there, except that in the Societies, the lagoons are too small to really get much sailing in.  

It is fun, active sailing too, because the tradewinds blow right through here, often with winds in the high teens to mid-20’s. You are regularly changing course around one island or another, and the islands create their own weather of gusts and calms.  The Moorings charter company, although no longer active in Tonga, left behind the legacy of having identified 42 different anchorages scattered throughout the 12 mile wide by 10 mile long group, anchorages where you can snorkel right off your boat into a nearby coral reef, or dinghy into miles of uninhabited beaches sprinkled with fascinating shells. There are caves to explore, remote lodges to visit for a snack or a drink, and invitations to be had from the locals for church, dinner or other island festivities.  

And navigation is important here too: while it looks like it is deep enough to sail between certain islands or in many wide open spaces, it turns out that there are reefs everywhere, so the nautical chart looks very different from what you see with the naked eye.  This also makes the 12 mile crossing of the group from West to East, or back again, for example, longer and more interesting than if it were a straight shot.  It is often a matter of seeing a place you want to go just a mile or so away, but having to sail ten miles to get there because an impassible reef lies in the way.  To get to the easternmost islands, you must negotiate through a narrow, unmarked pass in a zig zag pattern with the sun behind you and a spotter at the bow to avoid patches of coral just below the surface. Fun!

Throughout the month of August, we still had lots of smaller recommissioning projects to catch up on, and there were some pretty big winds that kept us on the mooring near town for part of the time, but we nevertheless got ourselves out sailing on 11 different days, sailing over 100 miles in total.  

We headed out to Vaka’eitu Island, only about 7 nautical miles away from the principal mooring field in Nieafu as the crow flies, but a 15 nm sail around islands and reefs. Back in 2019, we were treated to a pig roast with the other boats in this anchorage, hosted by David and his wife Higa.  David’s family has had rights to this island for four generations, ever since his ancestor arrived in Tonga from Germany and was gifted the island by the King.  David and three generations of his family are the only inhabitants of this large island. 

This time, we were the only ones in the anchorage at Vaka’eitu. David greeted us with a basket full of coconuts and papaya picked from his crop, and invited us to lunch with him and his wife the next day, Sunday.  David and Higa have 11 children, including one who found himself in California as a missionary when COVID hit. That son then went on to marry and have a child with a woman of Mexican heritage.  We arrived on the beach at 1 pm on Sunday as instructed, but David hadn’t gotten back from church yet – he and the other men from the village were indulging in Kava after church, as they often do.  When David got back, we chatted for a while and then a few of their older daughters set Poisson Cru and sweet potatoes on the table for us, along with tepid lemonade. The fish for the Poisson Cru had been caught the night before by one of their sons.  We ate with only the four adults – the kids had eaten earlier. Higa showed us the leaves hanging nearby that she was drying to weave mats with other women on a neighboring island, and David asked if Rick could take a look at his electrical connection.  They had a few solar panels that powered a battery for a few lights and one outlet, which is used mostly to charge David’s cell phone.  The electrical connection was working when Rick looked at it so there was nothing to fix.  They live mostly outside, but they did have a roofed structure supported by unmilled poles, and walls made of corrugated sheet metal with a dirt floor. They cooked with wood.

One has to be careful not to be judgmental about the differences between David’s family’s standard of living and ours.  A consumeristic society, Tonga is not. But all that means is that “things” have a lower priority in their lives than in ours.  One could argue, that is not a bad thing.  We did want to give back, though, for their generous hospitality, so we loaded up with as many “things” as we could to offer from the meager supplies on our boat that might be useful to them – a bag of lightly used batteries, some jewelry, a cutting board, mechanical pencils for the kids’ schoolwork, fishing supplies, etc.  But when trying to repay a debt of generosity with material things in a society that does not value things, you always come up feeling that your gifts are inadequate. Nevertheless, we did our best!

From David’s, the next morning we sailed over to Mounu Island, where we anchored downwind of an aqua-colored reef and dinghied over to a beach, where a table had been neatly set up for us under a palm tree for lunch.  Kirsty, a world famous kitesurfing champion, inherited the Mounu Island Resort from her parents, who passed away fairly recently and are buried on the island. She has a lot to handle on her own – a nice lodge, four cabins scattered around the island, an all-inclusive resort environment and a whale watching business on the side.  She is quite the woman!  

Kirsty’s parents arrived on a power boat in 1996 from New Zealand and fell in love with Tonga.  They found the whales irresistible, and her father dove in to swim with the whales one day. He discovered how gentle they were, and wanted to share his experience with his friends, and later, with paying customers.  Thus, a new industry was born in Vava’u, swimming with the whales. It became quite a popular industry, and one of the biggest draws to come to Vava’u outside of sailing and fishing.  It also represented a huge paradigm shift for the people of Tonga: before Kirsty’s father came along, whales were considered, at best, a nuisance, and at worst, food.  Now, whale watching has become an economic incentive for environmental sensitivity. 

Kirsty’s dad obtained the 50 year lease on Mounu Island from the King for the price of a pig and two tuna.  We walked all the way around the island, which Kirsty said would take about ten minutes but we spent more like a half hour.  She walks around the entire island daily, cleaning and raking the beach.  

Kirsty is also an accomplished chef, and made up a delicious smoked wahoo salad for us for lunch.  She left a pair of binoculars on our table so we could watch the whales frolicking in the bay in front of us while we ate our lunch.  Rick had at first balked with me at the price of the lunch – about $20 US each – but once we found ourselves comfortably seated under a palm tree being served a lovely lunch while watching the whales, he changed his tune.  This IS the life!

The weather was calm and the Mounu anchorage was gorgeous, so we debated about spending the night there, but we had other plans – we wanted to take advantage of the calm weather to anchor near a cave we wanted to visit the next morning.  So late in the afternoon after a leisurely lunch, we motorsailed in light winds downwind to the Port Maurelle anchorage.  This anchorage is very well protected and the closest anchorage outside of town, so in years past, it has been packed with boats.  But again, this time, we were the only ones there.  

In late morning, we dinghied about a mile and a half from the anchorage to Swallows Cave.  This is a gigantic cave with a deep water, wide entrance into the underbelly of the tip of an island. The ceiling is at least 50 feet high and the width is probably about 100 yards, with stalactites hanging down from the ceiling but not low enough to get in your way.  It is so big that the light coming through the entrance only illuminates a small portion of the cave.  It is a fantastic natural wonder, but since boats are the main mode of transportation on the island group and every teenager learns how to drive one, kids have graffitied the inside walls with their names and dates.  Partially for this reason, Rick chose this spot out of everywhere we have been in Cool Change, to leave the remains of our nephew Christian, who died a premature death as a young man.  Rick could see Christian having come to party with his friends in this very cave. So we videoed our short ceremony and dropped a miniature urn with Christian’s ashes into the deepest part of the water within the cave, overseen by what looked like a sculpture of a guardian angel’s face made out of stalactites.  May you Rest In Peace, Christian.

On our way back to Cool Change, we dinghied over to the shoreline where coral outcroppings had formed a sweet little cove of aqua water populated by all kinds of colorful reef fish and starfish.  We tied ourselves off and shared a lime-infused papaya while enjoying the scenery, which included bats hanging upside down from a nearby treetop.  Bats have been declared by the King to be sacred, so they are left unharmed to fly (and hang) throughout Tonga.  

The next day we were sailing upwind, tacking back and forth, making a zigzag track to cross through a narrow pass precisely in the deep water between reefs off of the islands of Kapa and Taunga, when Snap! Rick’s clothes-pin warning system that something was on his fishing line, popped off its clip abruptly.  We were in a critical point in the pass and couldn’t change course to slow us down, but I quickly sheeted out the main to try and provide some brakes while Rick got to his hand line and started pulling whatever it was, in.  Rick tugged on the hand line, trying to keep tension on the line so the fish wouldn’t spit out the hook, until it came time for him to grab the gaff and bring the fish aboard.  At that point he handed me the line and told me to keep pulling the fish in.  Well towards the end of the line, the thick black line turned into a smaller diameter line that cut my fingers as I tried to pull on it, and the fish was getting more violent than ever, but somehow I was able to keep tension on it until Rick was able to gaff the fish and bring it on board.

“Whatever is was” turned out to be a 5.3 kilo tuna!  Fortunately, it made less of a mess than some of the other fish we have caught in that it didn’t bleed much, and being a tuna, it didn’t have scales nor a lot of random bones so it was a lot easier to fillet.  Somehow I have assumed the task of cleaning the fish that Rick catches, and while I am never quite enthralled with the idea, I have learned to cope as best I can: I move away all the cushions from around me in the cockpit; get my fillet knives, cutting board and baggie ready; tie my hair back; take my watch and my ring off; and get completely naked! It is a lot easier to get fish off my skin than it is out of my clothes! Rick helps as best as he can by fetching buckets of water and throwing the entrails overboard for me.  Needless to say, I make a much bigger mess than a professional fish cleaner would, but we managed to get four large dinners for two out of that tuna, including some very chunky steaks.  And most importantly, Rick’s curse of not catching any fish for some time now was finally broken.

Later on we consulted with enough experts to discover that it was a “dogtooth” tuna we had caught, which are known to hang out near reefs.  It is distinguishable by its sharp, triangle-shaped teeth.  Although the meat is white, the bones are few, the taste is mild and the texture is firm, all around an excellent fish for eating, it is often not eaten because of fear of ciguatera, a parasite that grows on unhealthy reefs that is toxic to humans. Fish who hang out near reefs are more likely to be infected with it, although it doesn’t hurt the fish.  It is undetectable, not killed by cooking, incredibly painful and can cause permanent nervous system damage, not to mention the unfathomable symptom of reversing the sensations of hot and cold.  Ciguatera is a problem throughout the world, especially around unhealthy reefs.  Fortunately for us, we would have shown signs of poisoning within a few hours of consuming the fish and we didn’t. Besides, Ciguatera tends to be a problem in localized areas where the reefs are damaged rather than scattered uniformly around the world, and Tonga has had few reported cases.  Nevertheless, I would feel more comfortable eating a truly pelagic fish like Wahoo or MahiMahi than a fish that hangs out near reefs.  I guess ignorance was bliss in this case; had I known beforehand that it was a potential carrier of ciguatera, we might not have enjoyed four great dinners.

On one of our other sailing outings, we anchored in the beautiful and well-protected Tapana Island anchorage and dinghied over to what had been the Paella Restaurant, owned by Maria and Eduardo, from Spain. They were some of the first Palangi’s (foreigners) of the current crop to settle here, back in 1989. They established their family here, and their son opened the Basque Restaurant in town.  The Paella Restaurant is on all the maps of Tonga, including Google.  When the Moorings charter company was in its heyday, they would send their customers over to Tapana bay to eat at the Paella Restaurant – it was a nice day sail over and a very secure anchorage in almost all weather.  The bay was so popular that there was even a floating art gallery in the bay for a while.  Back in 2019, we ate at the Paella Restaurant several times, including when our son Dan came to visit.  Maria served a several course dinner with interesting and stylish tapas, and then a big pan of Paella cooked over a wood fire.  Meanwhile, her husband Eduardo entertained us on his guitar with an eclectic mixture of Spanish ballads and American pop music with quite a liberal interpretation of the lyrics!  Maria is also a musician but was too focused on being the chef to be able to entertain us with her music the nights we visited back then.

Anyway, Maria and Eduardo, like us, were stranded out of the country when COVID hit; they had gone to Spain for Eduardo to have surgery. They couldn’t get back into Tonga until just this last May, in spite of incurring all the expense of staying in Fiji for six months in 2021 in hopes of a promised repatriation flight that never happened. Meanwhile, they enjoyed their time in Spain and found some work there. They also came to the realization that at their age, they could no longer keep up the restaurant as well as the maintenance of the four cabins they have on their property on Tapana.  So when we saw them, they sat us down to chat for a while, and they reminisced about old times when they would throw big parties at the restaurant that lasted all night.  Then they went on to say that they were working hard trying to put the restaurant back together after over two years of abandonment in order to find a renter or buyer so they could return to Spain.  And if they found no one to take over, they would simply abandon it.  They just wanted to live out the rest of their lives in peace without as much work as their life in Tonga required.  No more Paella – it was time for the next wave of entrepreneurs to take over, Maria said.

I found somehow a kindred spirit in Maria, maybe because she was expressing some of the same concerns about running the restaurant as Rick and I had about crossing oceans – maybe our time had just passed; that ship has sailed, as they say.  She spoke of no longer making plans for what she would achieve five or ten years from now – she was content with working on being happy for the next five or ten months!  I was sad to see the Paella Restaurant no more – it signaled the end of an era that had started over 30 years ago.  But it was reassuring that we weren’t the only ones whose lives had changed during COVID, and that it was ok to accept those changes rather than fight them. It’s ok at our age to just simplify our lives, live for today and enjoy life without always planning for the future.

Between visits to various islands, we also found ourselves most every morning and every evening in lovely settings all alone, enjoying the beauty of our natural surroundings or keeping ourselves busy with cooking, boat projects or entertainment.  There were rainbows, glistening aqua reefs, interesting marine life, papaya for breakfast and outdoor movies in the evening. 

And when we were on the mooring in town, even though we talk of cherishing our time alone on the hook, it was nice for a while to share the mooring field with another boat from the boatyard that had just splashed too: Patty and Steve from Hawaii on their boat Kaelani.  They were lifelong sailors and delivery captains who bought this most recent boat in Croatia and sailed it from there – a large, fast, French production monohull that had previously been in charter.  They sail four months per year and are making their way West.  He is a world-class surfer, now in his 60’s, fit as can be, and she is in great shape herself, especially considering she is my age!  Perhaps because of their extensive sailing experience or maybe just based on personalities, they seemed comfortable with a lot more uncertainties sailing than we were: they splashed out of the Boatyard less than a week after they arrived without much prep, even though their boat had been on the hard longer than ours had. They had no SSB (long distance radio), and they had a Sat phone that couldn’t call out. Their throttle cable dangled from an anchor mounted on the stern. But I suppose that is part of what made them fun to be with.  We felt instantly connected with them and spent a good amount of time having sundowners together. We even went sailing briefly with them on their boat. They were an inspiration.  It was sad to me when they left for Fiji, but maybe out paths will cross again.

As for the sale of Cool Change, there has been some interest, and we may be visited by a few prospective buyers when we arrive in Fiji; Vava’u, Tonga is just not an easy place to fly into right now since there are currently no international flights into here, and the domestic airline is unpredictable. And there has been a huge interest in representing us as a broker.  However, we would kind of like to enjoy Fiji for a while before Cool Change is sold, and we had to prepare for storage of Cool Change during Fiji’s fierce cyclone season in case she didn’t sell.  That meant we had to put a deposit down on a very expensive cyclone pit, and the final payment is due on September 15.  Once that non-refundable payment is made, it makes little sense to waste it by selling the boat before the 2023 sailing season.  Besides, we would like to understand better the process of selling a U.S. flagged vessel in Fiji to a foreign buyer so that we make sure we comply with any requirements.  So the sail of Cool Change is sort of on hold, although in the right circumstances, we could make an exception!  Meanwhile, we are continuing to love every minute we spend with her.  

FOR SALE BY OWNER

S/V COOL CHANGE

1989 PACIFIC SEACRAFT 31

Currently situated in Fiji. She will be fully recommissioned by May 15, 2023 and available for viewing, sea trial, etc. Please contact us by email with any questions or to make an appointment to view her.

PRICE: Please contact the sellers for pricing details.

CONTACT INFORMATION: CoolChange4Sale@gmail.com (it may take us a few days to respond)

SPECIFICATIONS:

Year: 1989

Make: Pacific Seacraft

Model: 31

Class: Cutter

LOA: 31’10” (9.7 meters)

LWL: 24’2” (7.4 meters)

Beam: 9’10” (3 meters)

Draft (standard): 4’11” (1.5 meters)

Displacement: 11,000 pounds (4990 kilos)

Ballast: 4,400 pounds (1996 kilos)

Sail Area: 485.67 square feet (45.12 square meters)

Fuel type: Diesel

Engine: Yanmar 3GM30, 29 HP auxiliary

Hull Material: Fiberglass

Hull Shape: Monohull

Cabin Headroom: 6 feet, 2 inches (1.9 meters)

Two fresh water tanks totaling 65 gallons: one 50 gallons and one 15 gallons (246 liters total)

Fuel tank: 23 gallons (87 liters)

Holding tank: 16 gallons (61 liters)

Heads: one

Total berths: five

MANUFACTURER DESCRIPTION:

“Pacific Seacraft Yachts have a well-deserved reputation for being among the world’s finest. They are simply beautiful.  Their construction is legendary. The Pacific Seacraft 31 is a world voyaging yacht reflecting the best of the Pacific Seacraft tradition, melded with an astonishingly innovative interior design…. The cruising design is from the board of renowned naval architect W.I.B. Crealock, born of the same wisdom that conceived the immensely successful Crealock 37 and 34.  The 31’s hull configuration, rig and underbody are very similar to her two forebears, yet she boasts a proportionately broader beam and longer waterline.  The result is outstanding speed, comfortable motion, and superb ease of handling.

“The Pacific Seacraft 31’s moderate displacement contributes to both comfort and speed. An efficient sail plan and highly effective underbody produces the kind of performance that has generally been associated with the all-out racer. The 31 is fast, powerful and easy to handle…. Control and comfort have been central to her entire design. Her balance is so positive that she is easily singlehanded, even under adverse conditions. Her elegant bow flows smoothly into a long keel and sturdy skeg-hung rudder for directional stability and balance. For protection against accidental groundings or when careened, the external lead keel extends slightly deeper than the skeg and rudder. The reinforced skeg also allows for a propeller aperture, which protects the propeller from being fouled by kelp, lines and debris….

“A conscientious attention to detail sets the 31 apart from most other production boats, such as 30-inch lifeline stanchions thru-bolted to stout vertical bulwarks, and a unique companionway and seahood unit that forms a totally weathertight enclosure over the hatch…. The Pacific Seacraft 31’s cockpit is a celebration of comfort. Seven foot long seats invite even the tallest crew to stretch out and dream under balmy summer nights.  High coamings provide refuge from wind and spray. Three large seat lockers furnish an abundance of storage area. And an ingenious locker utilizing the otherwise dead space of the cockpit coaming provides fully vented and drained stowage for propane or CNG … two oversized cockpit drains … a 25 GPM bilge pump is mounted thru the cockpit seat riser, always accessible from the helm.” (partial description)

COMMENTS FROM THE CURRENT OWNERS:

If only we could have found a boat as well outfitted as Cool Change when we were in the market! We purchased Cool Change in 2011 as a rarely used boat in Bristol condition whose first owner sailed her only in fresh water; there were less than 400 hours on the engine, and hardly any enhancements whatsoever had been added beyond the manufacturer’s standard equipment. Since then, we have invested over $100,000 in capital improvements, above and beyond maintenance costs. It was our dream to sail to the South Pacific, so we spent three years in California preparing Cool Change for ocean passage-making, and another three years in Mexico fine-tuning Cool Change’s equipment to suit the demands of full-time cruising. In March, 2018, we departed from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and crossed the Pacific to French Polynesia, where we remained for a season before departing the next season, in 2019, for Tonga.  We had hoped to continue our voyage west from Tonga in 2020, but were locked out of the country due to COVID.  We finally were allowed back into Tonga in 2022 and we were delighted to find Cool Change no worse for wear. She is back to her old self, better than ever, with new batteries, a new fuel pump, a new macerator and sanitation system overhaul, and brand new standing rigging.  She is ready to cruise again.  We are looking forward to finding her next owners to treat her with the love and respect she deserves, and carry on her voyage.  All of the pictures included in this post have been taken since we returned to Tonga in July, 2022 except as noted.  

FEATURES:

PROPULSION:

1. Yanmar 3GM30 29 HP auxiliary 
2. 2369 hours on original engine (as of November, 2022)
3. Electro Maax small case 120 amp alternator with serpentine drive pulleys and belt (2014)
4. Max Prop 3-blade folding propeller, serviced, lubricated and coated with prop-glide in 2022
5. Dripless shaft seal (2014)
6. New electric fuel pump (2022)
7. New raw water pump installed in 2022, with rebuilt spare water pump on board
8. New motor mounts (2017)
9. Oil and transmission fluid have been changed religiously at 100-hour intervals
10. Fuel tank was rebuilt in 2014
11. Cutlass bearing replaced in 2016
12. Fuel tank: 23 gallons
13. Racor Primary fuel filter
14. Six 20-liter containers of on-deck diesel storage, attached with fixed webbing to teak rails midships on port and starboard

ELECTRONICS:

1. Raymarine Lighthouse multifunction Hybrid Touch e97 series 9” chart plotter with sonar, with Seatalk (2014)
2. Recent Navionics chart cards for the South Pacific; Queensland, Australia; Mexico; and the United States
3. Raymarine Type 1 Linear Drive Autopilot (replaced in 2017) controlled by Raymarine Evolution EV-200 Sail Pilot and P-70 control head (2014)
4. Raymarine Wind transducer (2014)
5. Raymarine i-70 instrument display head for speed, depth and wind (2014)
6. Raymarine AIS650 Class B AIS Transceiver (2014)
7. Shakespeare Galaxy AIS Antenna (2014)
8. Raymarine RD418HD 4KW 18” Digital Radome with 10M Raynet Cable (2014)
9. Raymarine ITC5 Instrument Transducer Converter
10. NavPod at helm for Chartplotter, autopilot and speed/depth/wind displays (2014)
11. Richie binnacle-mounted compass
12. Icom M802 Single Sideband Radio (2014)
13. Icom M604 VHF Radio (2014)
14. Pactor Modem (2014)
15. EPIRB: Global Fix Pro 406 Mhz GPS EPIRB (2014), battery replacement 2018; NOAA Beacon registration is current

ELECTRICAL:

1. 110 volt shore power system
2. Blue Sea Master Power Switch (2016)
3. SI-ACR Start Isolation Automatic Charging Relay (2016)
4. AC/DC master power control panel (hinged for easy access)
5. Balmar Max Charge MC-614 multi-stage voltage regulator (2014)
6. Sterling Pro-charge Ultra Global AC input and active power factor correction battery charger with display – 12v, 40 amps (2023)
7. Two Odyssey 2PC1800-FT 225 Ah AGM batteries – 450 Ah house total (2022)
8. One Optima 34M Bluetop Marine starting battery – AGM, 750 CCA, 55 Ah (2022)
9. Electric Rule 2000 bilge pump (2022)
10. Emergency Whale bilge pump at helm
11. High water alarm (2016)
12. Wagan Tech Elite 200 watt pro DC to AC Pure Sine Inverter (2017)
13. Red/white chart light at nav station (2014)
14. Lunesea Tri-color LED navigation and anchor lights at masthead with emergency strobe (2014)
15. Deck light on mast
16. LED strip lighting has been added in galley and on both sides of the salon (2014)
17. Carbon monoxide detector (2014)
18. MarineKinetix MK4+ Marine wind turbine, 400 watts (2018)
19. Eight Solbien 50 watt flexible solar panels (2014, 2016)
20. Eight Genasun GV-boost solar panel controllers (2014, 2016)
21. Engine room cooling fan (2014)
22. Two 12v accessory plugs at nav station, one on starboard in v-berth, one in aft quarterberth, one on port bulkhead amidships, and one at helm (2014, 2016); One double USB port accessory plug at nav station (2014)

SAILS AND RIGGING:

1. All new standing rigging in March, 2023
2. Cutter rig with running backstays
3. All lifelines replaced in 2013
4. Top lifelines in cockpit replaced with stainless steel rails in 2016
5. Extensive $20,000 refit of running rigging and rigging system improvements performed in 2014 by Hansen Rigging of Alameda, California, including addition of a rigid boom vang, modification of the running back stay system, installation of rigging and additional bowsprit for the asymmetrical spinnaker, mounting of the whisker pole on a track on the mast, replacement of the traveller, addition of deck organizers and clutches, restoration of boom (removed and reinstalled), addition or replacement of most sheets and halyards, and other improvements
6. Hood Mainsail replaced in 2014, slab reefing, three reefs, all lines run back to cockpit (clew and tack reefing lines)
7. US Sails Yankee jib in very good condition, sacrificial strip replaced and restitched in 2018, on Harkin furling system
8. North Sails furling staysail (replaced in 2018) on Pro Furl furling system
9. All control lines return to cockpit – rigged for single-handing
10. Pineapple Sails trysail with dedicated track on mast, bought second hand (2018) but never deployed
11. Anchor riding sail
12. Hood Asymmetrical spinnaker with sock (2014)
13. 100% Genoa, reburbished including new furling cover in 2012, available for additional shipping charge from California (stored at current owners’ residence)
14. Harkin Traveler replaced in 2014 
15. Whisker pole mounted on track on mast (2014)
16. ATN Tacker spinnaker rigging
17. SSB antenna incorporated into backstay
18. Preventer system upgraded in 2019
19. Delta Drogue
20. Custom waterproof dry bag for sail storage on deck 26” diameter by 24” after roll down. (2017)
21. Harken bosun chair

DECK/HULL/STEERING EQUIPMENT AND STRUCTURE:

1. Custom stainless steel arch and pole for wind generator and solar panels (2017)
2. Top lifelines in cockpit replaced with 1” stainless steel tubing, and a stern rail seat added (2016)
3. Scanmar Monitor Windvane steering system with two sails, wheel adapter and Cruising Spare Parts Kit (2013)
4. Seaforce AFI Teak four drink holder and removable cockpit table (2012)
5. Edson throttle and transmission cables and chain replaced in 2017. 
6. New pedestal wheel lock – helm brake (2017)
7. Topsides painted (2017)
8. Five padeyes in cockpit for security underway (2018)
9. Engine fuel shut-off cable replaced in 2014
10. Magma Marine Kettle BBQ installed on cockpit rail (2013)
11. Bilge pump counter added (2017)
12. Radar reflector suspended from spreader (2018)
13. Lifesling in soft case on cockpit rail (2011)
14. Life ring with strobe attached to stern pulpit (2011)
15. Vetus stainless steel dorade cowl vents (2014)
16. Hot and cold shower in cockpit (2017)
17. Two 7’ seats in cockpit
18. Two oversized cockpit drains
19. A 25 GPM whale bilge pump is mounted thru the cockpit seat riser, accessible from the helm
20. (4) Lewmar #16 two speed winches 
21. (2) Lewmar #43 two speed winches
22. Wide side decks, double-rail bow and stern pulpits, 30”-high double lifelines, four teak handrails and bulwarks from 4” high amidships to 9” on the foredeck
23. Two 12” bow mooring cleats on the foredeck with 4” hawse pipes; at the stern are two 10” stern mooring cleats with 9” chocks; amidships are two 8” spring cleats. Herreshoff cleats thru-bolted to deck using full backing plates for even load distribution, polyurethane caulking is used under hardware and under backing plates to prevent leaks 
24. All winches, cleats and other deck hardware are of solid polished bronze.
25. The heavy solid teak caprail is hand fitted with butterfly joints.
26. Deck/hull connection is engineered with a double flange bedded in high tensile polyurethane adhesive compounds and thru-fastened with ¼” 18-8 stainless steel bolts. 
27. The main structural bulkheads are bonded with fiberglass mat and woven roving, then bolted in place 
28. The rudder has a ¼” thick backbone welded to a 1.9 O.D. stainless steel shaft. The rudder is further supported by the skeg, which is reinforced with a molded-in structural steel channel. Skeg and rudder are connected at the lower end by a massive manganese bronze gudgeon
29. Chain plates are type 304 stainless steel, thru-fastened to the hull with ½” stainless steel bolts and full backing plates
30. Fenders and docklines available for docking and mooring

GROUND TACKLE:

1. Massive stainless steel bow platform incorporates two extra heavy-duty anchor rollers
2. Forward is a double chain locker for two anchor rodes. Aft is a stern chain locker.
3. Cool Change has 200’ of 5/16” G4 chain (2014) attached to a 35 pound Mantus anchor on the bow, and 350’ of rode in the stern locker attached to a 13 pound Mantus anchor mounted on the port quarter rail.
4. One 10 pound Danforth anchor (2014) stored in a canvas case in lazarette
5. Lofranz Tigress 1500 watt Windlass with solenoid control box and deck foot switches, 150 amp breaker and panel (2012)
6. Mantus snubber

CANVAS:

1. Dodger (2016)
2. Full at-anchor cockpit enclosure (2018-22)
3. Bimini (2014) 
4. Sail cover (2011)
5. Storm curtains with pockets surrounding the cockpit for privacy, wind/wave protection and storage
6. Caprail covers for protection during storage (2014)
7. Covers for all handrails, liferaft, forward hatch, outboard motor, BBQ, windlass (2014)
8. Full boat sun covers for long-term storage
9. Bottomsider brand closed-foam custom-made cockpit cushions, covered in custom-made Sunbrella fabric.

GALLEY AND NAV STATION:

1. Cool Change is equipped with a Spectra Ventura 200t watermaker with a Z-ion Protection System (2014) that was recommissioned in July, 2022 with good pressure, clear discharge and water quality well within manufacturer’s specifications.  An additional pressure vessel membrane is included as a spare.
2. Custom-built shelf and support post installed between galley and port settee (2014)
3. LED Lighting strips installed above food preparation areas (2014)
4. The galley faucet was replaced (2022)
5. Hot and cold pressurized water at galley, head and cockpit shower
6. Fresh water foot pump
7. Salt water foot pump
8. Two burner gimballed Force 10 stainless steel propane stove and oven
9. 10’ deep stainless steel double sinks
10. The icebox has a five cubic foot capacity, is insulated with 3.5 inch thick, poured polyurethane foam, and contains an electric sump pump with overboard discharge.
11. Icebox upgraded to a refrigerator (2012) with the installation of an Isotherm 3251 SP with ASU energy management electronic control cold plate with a Danforth BD 35 compressor located under the head sink.
12. Custom teak dish locker with 5 compartments
13. Two deep storage lockers outboard and forward of the sinks
14. One large locker with sliding doors outboard of sinks and stove
15. Four drawers
16. Cool Change comes supplied with dishes, silverware, cooking pans, pressure cooker and utensils
17. Nav Station contains a large chart table above the refrigerator, and includes a tilt-out chart storage locker and a tilt-out drawer 

INTERIOR

1. Cabin sole sanded and revarnished in 2016
2. Two lounging settees stretch to port and starboard, and extend forward under the vee-berth to 7 feet
3. Settees are both equipped with lee-cloths with pockets to serve as sea berths
4. Teak bookshelves with removable fiddles extend behind the settees.
5. A large dining table slides from below the vee-berth, locked into the compression post with a solid 3/8’ stainless steel pin welded to an internal stainless steel plate. When not in use, the table disappears under the vee-berth.
6. Vee berth in the forward cabin is 6’6” long and 5’0” wide for a queen-sized sleeping room. Full length shelves and lockers to port and starboard, and drawers underneath.  
7. The vee-berth stock cushions have been removed and replaced by a custom-made, Queen vee-berth 5.5” Latex Mattress with pillowtop by Handcraft Mattress (HMC) – 2013. The mattress folds lengthwise to allow access to the storage lockers below. Fitted sheets are supplied with Cool Change.
8. Underneath the vee-berth is the largest water tank, and to both sides of the tank are additional storage lockers
9. The aft cabin of Cool Change has been modified to include centerline storage, aft of the stuffing box access, for the heavy but slimly designed house batteries that offer increased amperage. The remainder of the double aft cabin has been modified to supply unfettered access to the stuffing box and to store supplies for passage-making.  This arrangement can be easily modified to restore it to a sleeping cabin with the addition of cushions, or the use of the existing cushion backs from the settees. 
10. The head includes a stainless steel sink, marine head, a shower nozzle using the sink faucet extension, and a shower pan with a solid teak grate. Teak drawers and lockers offer storage.  
11. Marine head replaced in 2017 with Raritan Manual Marine toilet
12. The water maker is mounted in a locker aft of the head.
13. Four Cafran fans for ventilation are distributed around the salon, galley and vee berth

OTHER

1. 4 person Viking RescYouPro life raft with deck cradle (2013, recertified in 2017)
2. Achilles LSI-260 Grey Dinghy (2011)
3. Tohatsu 6HP 4 stroke outboard motor with 15” short shaft, tiller steering (2011), with complete tune-up in July, 2022; serviced in May, 2023
4. Removable Stainless steel lifting arm mounted on RADAR pole off stern quarter for lifting outboard motor onto its mount on the stern pulpit
5. 3-to-1 block crane system with ½” 8 plate polyester rope, Harkin Rachet block with bocket, and Garhauer Double block for lifting and lowering outboard motor onto its stern pulpit mount (2012)

PARTIAL LIST OF IMPROVEMENTS:

DISCLAIMER:

The owners offer the details of this vessel in good faith but cannot guarantee or warrant the accuracy of this information nor warrant the condition of the vessel. This vessel is offered subject to prior sale, price change, or withdrawal without notice.

SOME RANDOM PICTURES FROM OUR TRAVELS (2015-2022)

This post is a little out of chronological order because most of it transpired before we splashed, but I didn’t want to miss talking about our month on land in Tonga before Cool Change was afloat.   (However, I do want to update you that the fuel uptake to the motor issue mentioned in the last post is now resolved.)

Before we even arrived back in Vava’u, Rick arranged with a guy named Tim, who we knew from our last visit here, to rent us a cute little car with great gas mileage (good thing because gas here is $8 US per gallon).  Tim, possibly originally from the U.K., is married to a Tongan woman and has a nice house across from the water on the Bay of Refuge just outside of town.  He used to have some rentals listed on AirBnB but they all went to other uses during COVID.  He put us in touch with Julie of Vava’u Vacation Rentals.  Julie and her husband arrived here by sailboat about six years ago, her husband died of a heart attack shortly after landfall, and she has been here ever since. She hangs with a guy named Bob. She rented us a cute little bungalow (that had been unused since COVID hit) for about 30% of its usual rate, calling it a “cruiser discount.” It was a studio with kitchenette and bathroom right on the water, with comfy chairs on a lovely deck over a windy but mostly undeveloped bay referred to by locals as the “Old Harbour.”  A small structure along the waterfront of the Old Harbour is where dozens of people catch rides on small boats that ferry them to and from the outer islands.

The bungalow was such a sweet refuge from the toils of boat recommissioning.  The stove had only one burner that worked, but we managed to cook dinner there nearly every night. It had a good working refrigerator and freezer to store all our food from the market and make ice for our daily cocktail. There were tons of hot water that we used to wash by hand not only our clothes, but lots of covers and other fabrics from the boat that had been mildewing for 30 months.  Best of all, if it wasn’t too windy, which it often was, we could sit out on the deck at the end of the day to watch the locals lay out their pandanus fronds on the rocky shelf in front of the property to soften the fronds before weaving, or to collect a type of shellfish from the reef at low tide for eating. We were facing east so no sunsets, but the sunrise was equally beautiful. The yard had banana plants with bunches ripening just as we arrived, and we were told we were allowed to eat them.  

The first ten days or so after we arrived, we went to the boatyard every single day, trying to get a handle on the enormous task in front of us.  But on the weekends in the evenings we at least tried to make it out to eat a few times.  Bob told us about a new place we should try on the water called The Kraken.  It was a new building made up of a large, open space with high ceilings and only waist-high walls; the open areas above the walls were closed off when the business was closed with gigantic shutters hinged from the top.  It was owned by a couple from Australia who have been here for 10 years, mostly in the whale-watching business, until they decided to carve out this awesome spot on the water to build the bar and grill around a derelict boat.  The local tattoo artist painted a sea monster on the hull of the boat. Especially since the previous cruiser hangout called Mango’s was damaged in a cyclone and never rebuilt, the Kraken is destined to be a very popular spot once the cruisers return.

Our first meal in town was breakfast at the Cafe Tropicana, which is Expat-central, the main gathering spot during the day for all expats in the area. We had a delicious breakfast there. Another place we ate a few times is the only restaurant in town that could be considered “fine dining,” called the Bella Vista.  It does have a nice view, the presentation is always elaborate, and the food is not bad. Rick’s birthday fell during this first month in Tonga, and we spent the entire weekend celebrating it since one could argue that his birthday should be celebrated on two days – one on the day that everyone on the other side of the dateline thought was his birthday, and the other on the actual date here that was the date of his birthday.  One of those evenings, we celebrated at the Bella Vista.  

We also took an afternoon off for Rick’s birthday and went for a drive out to the remote island where we stayed when we decommissioned almost three years ago, about 30 minutes from downtown Neiafu. With gas prices as high as they are now, we were certainly grateful we were staying closer in this time. But it was nice to see the countryside again, and be reminded of how in Tonga, PIGS RULE!

During our four weeks on land, we also managed to take a drive to a deserted beach one day, as well as explore the highly agricultural, rural region of the northwest corner of the Vava’u Group (you can’t drive to all the islands, but many of them, you can, thanks to one-lane causeways.).  After having visited what feels like half of the beaches that exist in the world without much luck finding intact shells, I was delighted to find some on this deserted beach.  Finally! But then I discovered they were inhabited by hermit crabs. I took them back to the bungalow and put them in a bowl filled with fresh water, hoping the crabs would either die a quiet death or crawl into another shell I provided for them so I could have their shells. But instead, all night long, all I could hear was one of the hermit crab’s shells scratching against the side of the porcelain bowl as he was trying to get out of the bowl. It kept me awake and made me feel terrible.  Yes, I eat crab, so why the sudden pang of guilt in killing a few?   Anyway, my conscience got the best of me so in the middle of the night, I went out onto the deck and tossed both of the hermit crabs inside their precious shells, back into the ocean.

The day before we had to give up the car, we took another ride, this time up to Mt. Talau State Park. The hike up to the lookout was steep and the 177 cement stairs weren’t level, so it was more of a climb than a stairway, but the view at the top was worth it – you could see many of the islands that make up the Vava’u Group.  We met a nice young 17-year old student named Uluaki and his sister Lesieli Similai there.  He wanted to take us to a secret cave where the source of the mountain’s name could be found.  That would have been fun, but partway there my sensible self got the best of me and I insisted we turn around – we were walking down a hillside through a dense forest on a faintly marked path, I had a dress on, and the sun was about to set.  Too bad we didn’t arrive earlier; we could have been treated to something very special, perhaps spiritual. Uluaki was a treat nevertheless. He was the seventh of 11 children and his father had passed away; his mother ran a farm. He was in the second to last year of high school and was studying math and agriculture, saying he loved farming.  His English was quite passable and he was fascinated by Palangi, the word they use to refer to foreigners.

For three luxurious weeks we slept at night at the bungalow while working on the boat during the day, but the last week, we gave up the bungalow and moved on board.  Living on board when the boat is not in the water is not pleasant, but I took the climbing up and down the ladder to get on board as a challenge to get my hips in better shape.  The old woman in me with both hips replaced stepped up the ladder one step at a time with the same foot leading all the time, and vice versa down the ladder.  But the sailor in me realized that method was not doing me any good – I needed to strengthen my hips to be able to rely on them equally.  So I took it as a personal challenge to walk up and down the ladder, alternating legs. I think over four weeks, it may have made a difference. And life aboard on land wasn’t all bad – every day we shared a small papaya with lemon for lunch, at a cost of about 50 cents US each. Or ate our freshly picked bananas. Lovely. And as the sun set, we walked down the boat ramp with our camp chairs and watched the sunset while discussing our progress towards launching. The boatyard dogs always came to visit us.

It was also fun getting to know the local expats a bit.  We were considered somewhat of a celebrity couple because no one had seen anyone new on the islands since COVID first closed the borders back in 2020. New faces meant new things to talk about. When we needed to pay her for an extended stay, Julie, who found us our bungalow, and Bob, her partner, met us for a drink, and introduced us to the expat owners of two prominent business establishments in the area – the Basque Tavern and the Mystic Sands hotel. The Basque Tavern is owned by a Spaniard from the Basque Region, who has built a family here including a handsome young son. Mystic Sands is owned by a Norwegian man and his South American wife, whose son is best friends with the Basque Tavern owners’ son.  Then there are Barry (Bear) and Char, tireless Canadian entrepreneurs who seem to scrape together so much from so little, first running a ramshackle floating fish and chips bar called The Hideaway that eventually sank, to now making a go at running a deli and three pizza shops.  

Al, Dora and Cyro at the Vava’u Boatyard are all inspiring characters as well.  Al is from South Africa and is the co-owner of The Boatyard. Joe from Great Britain is the other owner. Joe lives in New Zealand, but has been locked out of Tonga since COVID so Al has had to run the Boatyard all by himself. Al’s wife, Bo, runs the Yacht Shop in town, which also provides all the supplies for work done in the boatyard.  And Bo’s parents run the local laundry shop! They all sailed here together about 10 years ago. Dora is a smart, attractive young woman whose father is from Oklahoma and whose mother is Tongan. She was born and raised in Tonga but then went to the States and graduated from Oklahoma State University with a degree in accounting and international business. She speaks English without a Tongan accent.  She runs the Boatyard office without excessive gossip, which is at pandemic proportions on a small group of islands like these. Cyro is a handsome young Frenchman, kind as can be, and loves his job as a skilled laborer in the Boatyard.  He lives on a sailboat that the Boatyard sold him, which is moored just outside the Boatyard.

These people have also given us a bit of insight into life here in Tonga as expats and business owners/workers.  One thing we learned is that the reason Tonga has been so slow in opening their doors to foreigners after COVID compared to the rest of the South Pacific is that the government doesn’t really care about tourist dollars. The reason they don’t care is that Tonga doesn’t really have an economy independent of the support they get from the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, Japan and China.  The reason they get so much support from other countries is that Western countries are trying really hard to prevent China from dominating the South Pacific.  But China is winning, according to Bob.  Most of the grocery store owners and their workers here in Vava’u are already Chinese, although there is some animosity towards those establishments. (You know them by their adding machines that say the numbers in Chinese.) China is quietly making its way into every day life here, unlike the West.  For example, while the West supplied a brand new toy in the form of a Police boat that the Tongans promptly sank by going out in bad weather, the Chinese continue to supply trucks that keep the roads maintained.  China is supporting essential infrastructure while the West is looking for photo opportunities.

Likewise, we are finding out that the best way to get things done here in Tonga has always been to get to know the right people and make a back room deal.  Many of the business transactions were a bit nefarious.  Rules and regulations were more of just a suggestion. Bribes abounded.  And the foundation of many people’s businesses relied upon those good relationships. But things are supposedly changing. Tonga is slowly trying to become more modern, but lots of people will suffer in the transition, and the situation is so ambiguous that no one really knows how to get anything done anymore, so lots of things don’t get done!

And then there is the gossip.  Oh my gosh the gossip.  I guess it is to be expected for such a small population of people, even smaller if you consider just the expats and their families. And the gossip situation was made a million times worse because there has been no new blood for 28 months now, due to COVID.  Our favorite piece of gossip was that the local mechanic, a friendly, kind, unassuming older gentleman, is being brought up on drug charges that could put him in jail for the rest of his life! Say what?  He certainly didn’t seem like a drug dealer! But what happened was that a raft of hundreds of pounds of cocaine drifted up on the shores of an outlying Tongan island.  It was a raft designed by high-tech drug dealers, with the cocaine hidden under the raft, complete with GPS and everything.  Somehow it must have been lost in a storm in the South Pacific and ended up washed up in Tonga.  Locals swooped it up, either thinking they could make a quick buck by selling it or just thinking it would come in handy somehow – a novelty they couldn’t pass up. The mechanic got wind of it and got some himself.  Who knows what his intentions were, and some say it was all his wife’s fault that he even took any in the first place.  But most of the people who found it and took some have now all been identified and arrested.  I didn’t dare ask the mechanic about it personally, even though he did some work for us.  With all this gossip, I just wonder what all the expats are saying about Rick and me?  Haha!

And in the category of “who knew?”, who knew that when you cut off a “hand” of bananas from a bunch of green bananas directly off a banana plant, your own hands become full of the stickiest glue you could ever imagine?  And if you accidentally touch your face or hair with you hand that has the sticky glue, it will take days for the glue to come off?  The gardeners took with them all of the remaining ripe bananas when they paid their monthly visit to the fale we were renting, much to our dismay because we were told we could eat them, so before we left, I cut off a dozen or so green bananas from another plant in the yard to take with us to the boat.  I thought at first that maybe the plant had been infested with some bug that released a sticky goo, but no, upon research, I discovered it was the banana plant itself!  It is as sticky as if superglue had been left to dry on your fingers, but remains tacky until you get it all off.

Exactly four weeks after we arrived in Vava’u, Tonga, we finally “splashed” Cool Change – out of the boatyard and into the water.  These last four weeks represented no doubt the most detailed, strenuous and even frightening recommissioning we have ever done since our 2014 departure from San Francisco.  

We expected no less, after 30 months of separation from our dear Cool Change, but we were lulled into believing we had escaped any issues of import because at first, the recommissioning went so well.  Soap, water, vinegar and WD-40 seemed to cure almost any ill. The engine was very gingerly coaxed into purring once again. The chart plotter displayed a detailed nautical chart and the RADAR showed the vicinity. The water maker ran clear and had good pressure, and the cold plate in the refrigerator worked. Recommissioning the running rigging went well, but with an extra element of caution and care as we tried to recall, with the help of photos from previous efforts, how to put everything back together.

But just as we thought we had passed through the process unscathed, we peeled back another layer of the onion to find one issue after another that needed resolution. For example, all of the knobs on the stove were frozen.  A moment of panic set in as we imagined life aboard without being able to cook.  Fortunately, those did resolve themselves with vinegar and gentle nudging.  

Not surprisingly, none of the three batteries (two house and one starter) would hold a charge. Fortunately, we had ordered replacements for the two house batteries that were waiting for us when we arrived. With the help of some very strong guys from the Boatyard (the batteries are each 160 pound, 225 amp hour AGM’s), and some very cleverly engineered installation ramps by Rick, we got them installed.  We are awaiting a late-August arrival of a new starter battery.

The bilge pump wasn’t working and and bilge counter was acting funny. First, Rick discovered that the electrical connections for both were corroded. So he cleaned them up and added a spring from a writing pen to replace a spring in a connection that had disappeared. The big surprise was when we discovered that the bilge pump had actually cracked apart.  Fortunately, we had a back up bilge pump that Rick installed, and now, all is working fine.

Something we wouldn’t have thought twice about had our layover been just 3 months instead of 30, were the thru-hulls. These are basically holes in the boat that close with a ball valve operated by a metal handle.  Obviously you don’t want any holes in the boat that you can’t control!  Normally we would have just exercised the handles a little to make sure they would still open and close and that would be the end of it.  But as Rick was doing so for two of the thru-hulls, the handles broke! They were rusted to the point that they broke under pressure where they were connected to the thru-hull. Here we are in Tonga where boat supplies are almost nonexistent.  So we found some normal plumbing ball valves in the local hardware store with handles similar to our thru-hull handles, and with the help of the Vava’u Boatyard and our handy Dremmel tool (a gift from my recently deceased friend Chris), we were able to modify them to fit. Phew! We also had to check with a flashlight from outside the boat to make sure each thru-hull was opening and closing properly. What an ordeal.  Everything seemed to be taking so much longer than we remembered from earlier recommissionings. 

And then there was the ordeal of the chart plotter.  After removing one of the two micro-SD cards in the chart plotter to update it online and then return it to the chart plotter, all of a sudden, the detailed navigation chart on the other micro-SD card disappeared.  If there is one leg of our entire voyage from San Francisco that requires a detailed navigation chart, it is the one from Tonga to Fiji, which is reported to be one of the most dangerous crossings in the world due to the number and proximity of reefs scattered all along the passage.  We absolutely needed that detailed chart, showing our location and the location of all the reefs, including the ones we added ourselves based on cruiser reports.  We have backup systems, of course, but none would be as reliable or easy to use as the chart plotter.

It was hard for me to believe that the chart company would cut off my access to the chart just because I hadn’t paid for the annual update, but I was desperate to find the solution so I paid for the update. As the card was updating online, the Starlink internet connection dropped and the update stalled.  (Ever since the volcanic eruption here destroyed the undersea internet cable, Starlink has been the only internet available for all business and private use needs, the only link to anyone too far away for cellular – but there aren’t yet enough satellites so the connection drops for a few minutes on a consistent basis. In addition, the public access Starlink networks are located at specific access points in town, where you hope you can get a parking spot close enough to be within range.). When I came back the next day to restart the download of the update, it wouldn’t start.  Tech Support online chat and phone contact closed at 9:30 a.m. my time (they are one day earlier and 7 hours later than we are here in Tonga), so I had to wait until the next day and get up early to drive to the Starlink location to talk with them.  Well, when I called, they said the lines were all busy, so I had to come back the next day.  I was able to send an email, though, and the respondent told me to “Remove the folder Navionic making a copy on the desktop. Then start the download again.”  In retrospect, I don’t know how I could have missed what she really meant, but I interpreted that statement to mean that I should remove a folder called Navionic that was being made onto my desktop.  I searched my entire computer and there was no folder called ‘Navionic.’  She said if that didn’t work, I should download an app that would allow her to control my computer, but the link for the download didn’t work. She sent me a new link, so the next morning I drove out in the early morning darkness to to the Starlink site to try again. The link now worked, but then it wasn’t clear how I was supposed to get her online to work with me.  

So I contacted Chat again.  I was able to get through, and the new support person told me to “remove the Navionic folder FROM THE SD CARD and try again.” Duh.  Simple solution, bad English instructions the first time. (It turned out that the first person who responded was in Italy and her first langauge was not English). That worked and I was able to update the card. Meanwhile, since I had the support person on chat, I asked her a few more questions, one of which was whether the card would stop working if it hadn’t been updated.  She said no, it would not stop working.  That worried me, because that meant there could possibly have been another reason why the chart was not showing up on my chart plotter.

The story doesn’t end there, though. The day I finally got the card updated was Rick’s birthday, so I left him at our bungalow to lounge in while I updated the card.  I had to see if it would now work in the chart plotter so I drove to the Boatyard. I inserted it, waited what seemed like forever for the charplotter to fire up, and … still no chart. Shit.  So I removed the card and inserted it again, and voila! Chart!  All along it may have just been a bad connection between the card and the chart plotter, and all I needed to do was remove it and put it in again. I just hope the connection remains throughout our passages. (Rick thinks it will – once the connection is made, it will stay, he says.)

A problem we knew we had to face even before we returned to Tonga was that the macerator had stopped working, probably years ago.  The macerator grinds up the contents of the black water tank as it is discharged from the tank. We hadn’t been using the tank since we came to the South Pacific because we were always at anchor in open water, not in a marina. But in Fiji we were likely to be in a marina again, and if we sold the boat, we wanted the macerator to be working, so that was a job that Rick had slated for completion this time around. He was also concerned that maybe the cause of the macerator failure was a clogged black water tank, so he wanted to replace the lid of the tank and install an inspection port to be able to clean the tank. 

Well, it turned out that the lid couldn’t be replaced because a permanent shelf had been built above it, but a Boatyard employee named Cyro was able to get the lid up enough to reseal it, and he also installed an inspection port. The tank was not clogged.  But the old macerator had to be unscrewed from a large plastic fitting to which it had been attached for 33 years, and it was frozen.  The fear was that if that fitting broke, it was likely manufactured with US threads and couldn’t be replaced here.  With much patience and lubricant, Rick got the fitting unscrewed. He could finally have a full night’s sleep again, his deep concern about it keeping him up at night before he got it loose. The new macerator is now installed, along with a new Y-valve and all clean toilet system hoses, and the toilet has been serviced and reinstalled too.  

Other issues we faced included that the ignition for the engine was frozen. Rick managed to get it working again with silicone lubricant and a lot of patience. The dinghy motor started up but it wouldn’t idle, so the local mechanic did a tuneup on it and it runs well now.  Rick’s handheld VHF radio no longer works – he figures the factory-installed battery just expired.  That is a small problem because mine still works, but it only concerns me in that we had used our handhelds to communicate at night when he went forward to the bow.  We bought some walkie-talkies at the Yacht Shop here in town and that should solve that problem.  Also, one of the navigation lights on the bow stopped working – Rick built up the connection on the bulb with extra solder and that seemed to fix the problem.  

We were fortunate to have been given a cruiser/COVID-era discount on a cute little bungalow (called a “fale” in Tongan) for the first two weeks of recommissioning, which we agreed to extend to a third week once we realized that the head project (toilet, black water tank and macerator) would be done during the third week.  So it was only the fourth and last week before splashing that we spent on the boat.  Living on a boat “on the hard” (on ground) is not the most pleasant experience: for example, you have to climb up and down a steep ladder every time you get on or off the boat, which you have to do every time you need to use the boatyard bathroom unless you pee in a bucket, because the discharge otherwise goes directly to the ground. The boatyard shower is warm only if by chance or if you know about how to turn on the heater if turned off, which we didn’t discover until the day before we launched. Cool Change was parked right up against the backdrop of a dense brush growing up the side of a steep cliff, which is great for cyclone protection but not so great for avoiding mosquitos day and night.  The cold plate that turns our icebox into a refrigerator is cooled by coils in a thru-hull when they have contact with the ocean water, so we can’t use our cold plate for fear of it overheating while on the hard. So we had to load it with ice every other day and use it as a true ”ice box.”

So now to the frightening part.  Here we were, newly moved onto Cool Change and just having faced one maintenance issue after another, exhausted by the physical and mental toll all these challenges had taken on us and trying to nevertheless get just one good night’s sleep, when … EARTHQUAKE!  Yes, a 5.6 earthquake centered only about 35 kilometers out in the ocean from us, shook our boat with us asleep on it to a degree of violence that neither Rick nor I had ever experienced before in our lifetimes, in spite of having spent most of our lives in earthquake-prone California.  It was really terrifying.  We can’t believe with all the shaking that the hull wasn’t damaged nor that Cool Change didn’t fall off of her supports, likely bringing us to an untimely, unlikely and unfathomable death. Just meters from the ocean where we would have been safe from an earthquake, we could have died on a boat on land!  The danger was multiplied by the fact that the heavily-reinforced “cyclone cradle” that held Cool Change stable above ground had been replaced with lightweight maintenance supports so that her hull could be painted just before splashing. As a result, we were balancing on a minimal foundation. Tonga is located within the “Ring of Fire,” known as one of the most volatile seismic areas on earth.  I was in a deep sleep when it started, and thought I was having a horrible nightmare until Rick woke me up, while Rick was awake for all of it and almost in shock from the experience.  We were both paralyzed in fear and disbelief until it stopped.  It made me ever more anxious to get ourselves off land and into the water!

But finally after all that work, we were ready to splash. We took some pictures of Cool Change when she was all cleaned up and ready to go:

This move onto the water is opening up a whole new chapter for us, but before I go there, I feel the need to acknowledge the people who have helped us get here. First, there was Lisa at the Tongan Consulate in San Francisco. Had it not been for her, our trip would not have happened when it did. She smoothed the way through an obstacle course to get us to Tonga.  Only now has the Tongan Government finally agreed to open its doors to visitors, and we got a big head start ahead of all of the boat owners who have been locked out for so long.  Then there was the friendly guy at our release from quarantine who took us under his wing, got us out of the quarantine hotel and drove us to the hotel of our choosing, just because he recognized we would have trouble getting a taxi on our own in the chaos of the end of quarantine. 

Then there was Tim, who rented us a cute little car with great gas mileage (good thing because gas here is $8 US per gallon) and who put us in touch with Julie of Vava’u Vacation Rentals. Julie rented us a cute little bungalow (that had been unused since COVID hit) for about 30% of its usual rate, calling it a “cruiser discount,” and also introduced us to many of the local business owners. As always, and throughout the years, Greg Just of the Tropicana Cafe has been an unrelenting source of information and help, online and in person, and Rick has become addicted to his employee Mary’s whole wheat bread. And finally, there are Al, Dora and Cyro at the Vava’u Boatyard, who have been incredibly responsive and attendant to our every need, from grinding down a metal thru-hull handle for us to finding a home for our house-cleaning give-aways. Last but not least, thanks to all of our family for understanding and supporting our need to get back to our boat.

Anyway, back to Cool Change. “Splashing” was a huge event for us, and it feels like we are finally doing what we started this adventure to do: being on the water with a warm sea breeze gently caressing our faces and watching a sliver of a moon float through the sky, all problems in our lives feeling like a distant memory.  This, in spite of the fact that within a half hour of splashing, our engine died due to an interruption in the fuel intake – cause still uncertain.  It forced us to deploy the sails in an emergency situation (trial by fire!)! that was exhilarating. Then we decided we had better get a tow if we were going to make it into the harbor before nightfall (the wind direction was not cooperating).  But no worries.  The huge powerboat from the boatyard that had splashed just moments before us, came out and rescued us and towed us in, and then some people we had met years before in French Polynesia from one of the only other boats in the anchorage, invited us over for beers.  Life is good.