Category Archives: Tonga & Minerva Reef

Pentecost an Island full of Surprises

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We visit the island of Pentecost primarily for the Naghol (land diving).  But there are so many other wonderful reasons to visit this beautiful island barely touched by modern civilization. 

While walking along the beach we came across a man assembling a canoe for his nephew, Sampson.  It took him 3 days to hand carve the canoe and then he brought it to the beach to lash the rope and alma to the canoe.  The super cool thing was he took what looked like a twig with a pointed end and hammered it (with a rock) into the wooden alma.  I could not believe how easily it went in and stuck forming an “X” to hold the long stick to the alma. 

Elleen, our spokesperson in Wali Bay also introduced us to some local weavers who showed us how they expertly weave these beautiful hand bags.   The dye (middle bottom photo) some of the strands with color (left bottom) to eventually make the stunning bag (top right).  They sell for $1000VT ($10 usd).  The only problem is that the dye rubs off on your clothes…

A few of my favorite local photos.  The top right are men from the Ratap Kastom village (and a friend from another boat). Top left is a dancer from the Bunlop Kastom village and the bottom is a man from Londot village – all on southern Pentecost. 

And then here is my tribe of girls that followed me around each day.  I gave them sparkly nail polish and big heart rings.

Home Bay

Homo Bay is the main bay cruisers anchor at when they want to go see the Ratap Kastom Village Naghol.  The bay was beautiful as the clouds danced around the edges of the mountains.

The Bonfire

After the Naghol, we were all way too excited to go back to our boats.  So, we decided to have a beach BBQ and we invited a few of the locals.  It just happened to be the most perfect evening with clear skies peppered with the constellations.

My Pentecost tribe of women, made me a sand gift out of white rocks.

Waterfalls: Maduit Waterfall

After the Naghol ceremony, we head for Waterfall Bay which is a short 8nm north from Wali Bay.  There were so many cows lounging on the beach – it made for such a funny  photo.  Our friends on Moana (Rena, Chris, and Helena) came with us.

This beautiful bay is known for two very distinct waterfalls.  The Maduit waterfall which can be seen from the anchorage and the Rell Cave Waterfall. 

Two rivers flow gently into the anchorage making a very refreshing fresh water plunge. 

Maduit Waterfall

Pentecost is a bit of a rainy island so it is no surprise that they have lots of waterfalls.  We decide to hike to Maduit waterfall first as we can easily see it from the anchorage.  On the way to the main road we stumble across Glen who generously offers to be our guide.  It is a good thing that he came along as the trail was a little tricky to find.  But once you find the entrance, the rest of the trail is easily followed. 

You’d think the water would be freezing, but it wasn’t. It did take your breath away as you jumped in, but then you quickly got used to it.  Bottom right is our guide, Glen.  We ended up paying him $1000VT ($10 USD) for the 2 hours he spent with the 5 of us.  He did not ask for the money, we offered it to him and took it gratefully. 

The two pools at the bottom of the falls made the most wonderful bubble bath!

It was a truly refreshing afternoon at a stunning waterfall.  Super easy access and beautiful.

Rell Cave Waterfall

The next waterfall was much harder to find.  We searched all over the internet trying to find a location or a person who might guide us to this cave waterfall.  We asked several locals and they had no idea what we were talking about.  So, we went back to research some more. 

Finally, Matt found a document from 2015 that had a short mention of this waterfall.  Sweet as!  We contacted the person and his phone still worked.  He told us to contact his wife, Venneth at Noda Guesthouse or call her +678.594.3287.  She was so nice.  She walked us to the next village, introduced us to Michael who became our guide for the day.

It was a super muddy, slippery path that we would have never found on our own.  You truly need a guide to show you this spectacular waterfall inside a hidden cave!  We walked into the forest, up a hill and into more forest.  Finally we came to the mouth of the cave.

You walk down a very shallow river, then you crawl under the opening of stalactites to get to the waterfall cave.

It was obviously very dark and super hard to hold my iPhone, without dropping it and the flash light while balancing on the slipper rocks. but here you go.  The waterfall was probably 3-4 meters tall as it originated behind the stalactite. 

Of course we had to get wet and man it came down with a lot more force than we anticipated.  We had lots of company with little bats.

We did the Rell Cave Waterfall with our friends from Trinity, Kirsten and Stephan.  Here is a photo of their trimaran and Sugar Shack at anchor in Waterfall Bay.

Super fun bay with lots to see and do. But alas it was time to move to our next adventure.

Our blog posts run 10-12 weeks behind actual live events.  This blog post occurred during the end of June.  I hope you caught our 2 part series on land-diving.  If not, be sure to visit here and here.

The Majestic Cliffs of Kenutu

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Our last anchorage in Tonga was a spectacular one!  We picked this remote easterly island based on its location for the upcoming winds.  Plus, we wanted to hit one island on all four sides of Vava’u.  The winning island was Kenutu.  This is a long, pretty flat island with several white, sandy beaches and a thick forest inland.

It can be a bit of a challenge navigating to Kenutu because of all of the reefs.  We had to ensure we had good visibility and updated satellite charts to make it safely, which we did!

Kenutu, Tonga

Kenutu, Tonga

We arrived around 1500 which did not leave us much time to explore before dark descended upon us.  So, we jumped in Sweetie and worked our way through the reefs near shore.  A friend of ours told us that there is a 10-minute walk to the other side so we decided to investigate.

Exploring Kenutu

The path was easy to find as someone put a float in the tree with “trail” hand written on it.  Easy enough.  The first trail we found was truly a 10-minute walk to the other side.  But what we saw shocked us!  The colors were so vibrant!

The rocky cliffs shouted out with bright reds, browns, and greens while the water below had dozens of variation of blues and greens.  I loved watching the waves come up over the table creating a shallow pool.

Another beautiful hillside with more colors.  We found several trails on the east side of Kenutu.  We walked on all of them that we could find.  Each bay was just as beautiful as the last.  One of our walks led us down to sea level where we could witness the blow holes and surf up close and personal (lower photo).

One bay had several blow holes that showed off in a spectacular fashion.  I could have sat here and watched this fierce display of water all day!

It was getting dark and we wanted to explore by dinghy.  We went around the southeast side of the island and found a lovely pass.  But it was too rough and too shallow for us to go through by dinghy.

If we had more time we would have certainly stayed at this Kenutu anchorage longer.  What a beautiful surprise it was to see this island.

The next day we had to pull up the hook and go back to Neiafu to clear out of Tonga.  Super sad as we really did not do the Kingdom justice in 3 weeks.  I would love to come back here and really explore all three archipelagos.

This blog occured in mid-August 2023.  Our blog posts run 8-10 weeks behind actual live events.  In our last blog I share details of Vava’u.

Vava’u, an Island Paradise

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The Vava’u group is the most popular island group in Tonga.  It is remote and unspoiled, the waters are crystal clear and have uninhabited islands speckled throughout.  Matt and I could not decide if the Vava’u group reminded us more of the Marquesas in French Polynesia or the Bay of Islands in the Lao group of Fiji.  Either way, they are gorgeous.  

The downfall is the large number of boats that are here!  We had grown accustomed to being the only boat in the anchorage and now, our first anchroage, we share it with 8 other boats!  Small price to pay for a tropical island paradise.

Vava’u Group

The Vava’u group is made up of one main island (Ut’ Vava’u) and 50 smaller islands. The god Maui reached into the sea and pulled up the islands of Vava’u.

Port Maurelle (Anchorage #7)

Our first anchorage is Port Maurelle, also known as anchorage #7.  All of the anchroages in Vava’u have numbers.  Even though it is called a “Port Maurelle” there is no actual port.  Just a beautiful, small, white sandy beach in a small, well protected bay.

Our plan is to only stay the night and then head to the main island to clear in and hide from the big nasty storm thats coming in a few days.  But, we hope to come back here to explore more so stay tuned.

Funny thing…there were a total of 12 boats that ended up anchoring here for the night.  For the first time, in a long time, we were anchored with 4 other American boats and one of those boats was from Austin, TX!  We did not have a chance to talk to them but we will find them again.

There were many rock star boats:  Zepplin, Rhapsody, Rolling Stones, Sally, and Pantera!  How funny is that?

Neaifu – the Main Town

The main town in Vava’u is Neaifu which is where we check in and clear out.  They have the most services and facilities based in this area.  The anchorage is very protected and two companies offer moorings for $20TOP per night.  It is here that we run into a lot of cruisers that we’ve met along the way!  

St. Joseph Cathedral is one of the top 10 churches in the Pacific and it is a work of art!  There are lots of dogs and pigs roaming around freely.  They are skittish, but truly funny to run into as you are shopping.  Neaifu has a pretty decent fresh produce market that is open daily and behind them is a large craft market.

Are We Famous?

We were meeting cruiser friends for dinner (Brian and Sue on Sea Rose whome we met in French Polynesia).  Our table of 4 quickly expanded to a table for 15 during happy hour.  A young couple who sat next to us delightfully screamed “you’re famous” when they met us and learned we were from “Sugar Shack.”  Well now that was funny.  Yes, we do a lot, but I certainly would not say we are famous.  What do we do??

I ran the Poly Mag Net which is the nightly SSB net in French Polynesia for 2.5 years, updated and included a lot of updates on the 4 FP compendiums and Fiji Compendium (I am currently doing the same thing for the Tonga compendium), and am very active in the cruiser WhatsApp groups and Facebook groups.  But she also mentioned something else…

She said, you were quoted in the new Whangarei Marine Brochure.  I said, “what?”  She said in Cafe Tropicana (which is the cruiser hub in Tonga) there are tons of these new Whangarei Marine books and there is a full page with your quote.  Well, that is new. I had to investigate and guess what she is right!  This is with me and Greg Just who owns Cafe Tropicana and is the port officer.  I think it would have been cooler if Sugar Shack were one of the boats in the photo but I can’t micr-manage everything 🙂

Tonga Carving

There are some amazing carvers in Tonga.  They carve pearl shells, wood of all types and bone of all types (including whale, turtle, cow).  I did not take photos of everything because there is just so much and it is hard to pick.  But here are some of my favoriet pearl shell carvings and yes, I purchased the whale tail in the large photo.

Sugar Shack Custom Designed Items

There is this fabulous place called Coffee and Tees in Neaifu that is run by Cindy.  She is incredibly helpful, kind, and eager to please.  She worked with me for a few hours to design our special Sugar Shack shirts, shopping bags, and backpacks!  We sent her our logo and we had everything completed the same day!

Cindy is the blonde and Isa is the brunnette.  The images below are our very own screen prints with our Sugar Shack logo!

The shirts have a design on the front and back.  Matt and I both like understated on the front and the big design on the back.

And some new shopping bags…front and back

Ovaka & Avalau

We dropped the hook at anchorage 39 next to two small islands called Ovaka and Avalau.  Wehn we arrived there were only 3 boats but by the end of the day there were 9 of us.  So many boats.

We took Sweetie to shore and explored the beautiful beaches of both islands. We were pleasantly surprised to discover a trail that led from the beach to the village.  There ae 15 people, 200 pigs, dozens of stray dogs, 2 goats, a few chickens and 2 churches.  

They have a lot of solar here which is very cool.  They have solar at many houses and the lights are solar powered.

One of the churches, the church drum, a very damaged pier and some fishermen.

 

Avalau is a small uninhabited island.  But what it lacks in size it makes up for in beauty.  

Limestone cliffs, towering palm trees, and soft sandy beaches.

Then this little motu with beautiful birds living onboard – even a boobie.

Sunsets

We had some beautiful sunsets in Vava’u.

This blog occured in early August.  Our blog posts run 8-10 weeks behind actual live events.  In our last blog, we weather the storm at Foa in Ha’apai.