Success in Vava’u   Tuesday, 17/10/2023

All good here! Vava’u is a pleasant and relaxed place, with a pretty vibrant community of expat people doing various things. I visited the boatyard, a half hour walk away because it’s on a northern spur of the inland water. I needed some electrical spray for my intended electrical repairs. On being greeted by the woman running the shop, I discovered that she is South African, from Cape Town. That lead to a long conversation – they’ve been here for about 12 years. Her husband, one of two partners who runs the yard, came in and I chatted to him too. Twice I’ve been to a floating barge which is a simple restaurant serving only fish and chips and drinks, run by the Canadians who have the deli here. Very friendly people, and they use excellent fish: on Saturday night it was mahi mahi (in many places called dorado) which is good quality, common in decent fish restaurants. 

I needed water and there is no public tap anywhere, but I discovered that I could buy water from Riki’s Diving. I found Riki late afternoon when he was back in: a tough New Zealander who seemed pretty reserved. But by my third trip with three 20-litre jerry cans, he became talkative. A no-nonsense, straight talking man, he told me a number of useful things – including not to worry about sailing in November, even though cyclone season is officially underway. Apparently the chance of a cyclone in November is extremely low (which I knew, but reassuring to have it confirmed). In many years here he hasn’t seen one. Plus he’s sailed from here down to New Zealand five times over the years – meaning that his observations are likely more useful than the typical cruiser’s, based on one trip only and often on a lot of hearsay.

As for my electrical problems: fixed! Having thought about it and found a diagram of the whole electrical system in the manual, it was pretty much as I expected: water had got in. It wasn’t rainwater, it was sea water – which must have forced its way in on the rough Rarotonga-Niue trip, when large waves broke over the stern of the boat two or three times. The force of such waves is tremendous – things that would be watertight if you poured a bucket of water over them may not be when under such pressure. Basically, there’s a sort of white box antenna attached to the stern rail, which communicates with satellites to establish your position. If this data isn’t getting through, it would affect both chart plotter and autopilot. I had to clear everything out of the starboard stern cabin, then open the hatch at the back of it and get into the space under the cockpit. Found the cable coming down from the antenna, which contains two wires that then connect with another cable. Here was the problem – the cable was dotted with beads of sea water. Where the join is, water had clearly got in. Stripped off the electrical tape and bingo: the copper wires were all green. Cut off the worst of it then cleaned everything with liberal quantities of electrical spray, then applied new electrical tape. Plus I secured the cable to others so that the join is not sitting at the bottom of a U, so if water does get in again it will not be able to penetrate the cable connections.

The big thing then was a test. On Sunday morning I left the mooring ball and went out for two hours. Everything seemed absolutely fine – working perfectly. So that was a relief – and the fix was a lot easier than I had feared. (Note that I still consider myself an incompetent technician! But, it would seem, not completely incompetent).

Easterly view from Mount Talau, across the Bay of Refuge to Neiafu
The channel coming in from the west
And the view northwest…

Have spent quite a bit of time walking, including up to the highest point in Vava’u, which is about 130 metres (about 430 feet) above sea level. As you can see from the photos, the views are excellent. Interestingly, the cargo ship which serves the islands came into port on Saturday. It comes only once a month – anything that wants to come quicker has to be brought in by air. The Papa Mau sails from New Zealand, through Fiji, Samoa, Niue, Tonga etc. on a large circular route.

Papa Mau, lifeline to the outside world

What I have decided to do is to leave here on Friday and sail to Fiji, which is about four days’ sail away – roughly 550 nautical miles. I could go straight to New Zealand from here, but don’t want to arrive there too early, given it’s still very much spring down there and therefore relatively cold. Plus the later you leave the less chance there is of a storm on the way down. You are basically balancing this risk against the risk of a very early cyclone. Could do the trip in late November, but probably I will depart on say the 7th or 8th of November, getting there mid-month. This is very tentative – I will make a judgement much closer to the time.