[password] pilot25041
[position] 15 56.44s 173 46.11w
[status] Tuesday 11th September on a bright, sunny and hot mid afternoon and again from Niuatoputapu, Tonga.

We had a very quiet night at anchor on Sunday after a roast beef dinner washed down with some fine Bordeaux ......, Monday morning we had to go and visit Customs ....... apparently a 1 1/2m walk to another village, "but don't worry someone will stop and give you a lift"! Well after approx 2m with no indication of a Customs place or the 'bank next door' and no lift, a friendly local person stopped and asked where we were going, to the customs and bank we replied, well hop in and I'll take you there ....... this was 1/2m back in the direction we had come from and next to a big school ...... the Customs Office, Bank next door and Police Station, being 3 large wooden sheds / garages set back from the 'main road' by some 150metres with no outward signs as to what they were for!

Anyhow, the very kind Customs lady made a few phone calls and said they would meet us in an hour back at the wharf ...... they could also arrange for us to get a lift back ........ needless to say we took up this offer! After changing some money in the bank, we were eventually dropped off back at the wharf at 11.50, and found that the tide had gone out by about 1m so it was now well below the wharf height and there was even a step at the end of the slipway. Barry started to go down the slipway to move the dinghy, promptly started to slide, despite it looking dry, fell flat on his backside and still kept sliding towards the water's edge, despite his best efforts to try and dig in with everything he had to stop the progress ...... fortunately, he stopped just short of the edge and with some help from Dirk and one of the locals on the wharf, managed to regain his feet and reach safety ..... only suffering damaged pride, dirty shorts, hands and knees.

Back to the boat, Customs +2 arrived around 12.30 at the wharf and we duly ferried them out ....... a fairly painless experience apart from the environmental health guy, who found a flying ant in the stbd forward heads, then having lifted mattresses and carpets found a tiny 'money' spider under the stbd pontoon carpet ........ the fiasco and palaver that then followed was comical ..... we were not sure what his end game was, but he kept on about the biosecurity fines levied in NZ ..... we did not rise to the bait and eventually he calmed down and after paying the appropriate fees we were cleared into Tonga! We were then asked if we would take the local dentist to Vavau with us, he needs to get there urgently and the next plane (only 2 flights per month) isn't due for another 10days, this has been provisionally agreed, providing they give us an authorisation letter and customs add him to our crew list. After a lazy afternoon swimming and reading, we had sundowners and tuna cu
rry for dinner, by now the wind had picked up and probably for the first time on this adventure we had a fair bit of shearing on the anchor ...... it didn't stop us from sleeping though.

This morning we ventured ashore, planning to climb the big hill and visit a fresh water stream that had a swimming area, the guide books stating to just ask a local where the path up the hill was ....... after a number of attempts we were told the path up was too overgrown and dangerous so we then went for the fresh water stream option, this required walking out past where we had got to yesterday, before being taken back to Customs ........ after a long and hot walk (not as humid as yesterday as the cloud cover was lesser and higher) we eventually got to the fresh water pool, Dirk went for a swim, Allan paddled his toes. A local lad (who was obviously 3 sheets to the wind at 11am, slightly concerning), got in to the water and was trying to get Dirk to swim down and enter an underwater cavern, armed with Barry's underwater video camera Dirk attempted this feat ....... only achieving some very dark underwater video that can't be seen and a cut to his right eyebrow, where he di
dn't go deep enough and hit the sharp lava rocks! Anyway we then set off back to the boat and within half a mile were picked up by a local flatbed truck and ferried back to near the wharf.

This is a fabulous location and completely unspoilt island, there are some very nice houses, but most appear to be people living hand to mouth, there are pigs and chickens roaming freely everywhere, quite a few horses and in one village a number of sheep. The 'petrol station' is a simple wired off enclosure, with 45gal drums and hand stirrup pumps to discharge the fuels. We should hopefully get our clearance paperwork at 4pm ready to depart tomorrow morning for Vavau, with or without our additional crew member!

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