Tonga to Fiji
Tonga. Tonga. The word has the sound of a bell – not a clamorous Christmas bell; more like a lazy, sonorous cowbell. The Tongan people, with their slow movements, easy smiles and serene friendliness, make French Polynesia seem like the Fast Lane.
Neiafu, the main village of Vava’u, is the kind of soporific place we’ve become used to. Like all these Polynesian villages, it’s a little scruffy in a sleepy way, with corrugated-iron walls fallen down across the street, abandoned buildings dotted among smartly outfitted boutiques. No one hurries, not even the few vehicles on the road.
We are pressed by other cruisers to attend church on Sunday morning to hear the singing, and are not disappointed. With astonishment, and then tears, we listen to the soaring and gliding harmonies, the purity of the voices, the hymns delivered with enthusiasm and amazing volume. There’s a lot of fire and brimstone in the sermon that follows, but as we don’t understand the Polynesian language we don’t feel at all chastised.
This is holiday yacht charter territory, and the place is brimming with visiting sailors. In the coffee shops the conversation is all about anchorages – all numbered, so that you need not remember difficult Polynesian names.
‘Did you like number seven?’
‘You must go to number thirteen – hard to enter, but wonderful once you’re there.’
‘We saw whales – let me explain. Go by number six and then . . .’
There’s a falseness about this that is disturbing.
But away from the charter-cruising areas, the ‘real’ Tonga is delightfully unspoiled. Snorkelling in the Swallows Cave offers some magic moments, and the Tongan feast put on by the local community is gratifyingly free of any hint of organisation by a foreign tour company. It’s tourism, certainly, but the grandmother of our hosting family sings traditional stories to us while the daughters sway and dance to the music. The food is served in shells and banana leaves, and is mostly local seafood dishes. They tell us they are raising money for the local school, and the welcome seems genuine and relaxed.
The closer to Australia we are, the more we become part of a migrating horde of sailing boats all hoping to get to New Zealand or Australia before the start of the cyclone season. I begin to understand the feelings of those cruisers we have met who, having finished one circumnavigation, simply start again on another. I love my family and friends, but I love this life – how will I ever give it up?
But Fiji beckons. We can’t delay anywhere too long, as the cyclone season is only a few weeks away . . .
So we sail on. It’s an interesting sail, with many islands, reefs and atolls to pass, some of them at night. I can’t forget that the next stop is to be our second-last landfall of our circumnavigation. However, Fiji is a disappointment, with the obvious rift between Indians and Fijians barely concealed. We repair to Vuda Marina, a pretty marina-cum-cyclone hole.
Fiji is home to 500,000 Polynesian/Melanesian Fijians and 350,000 Indians. But at Vuda Marina we meet only Indians – Indians in the marina office, Indian mechanics, Indian IT specialists, Indian security guards, Indian taxi drivers.
We find the Fijians later – roaming the foreshores, having conversations on the side of the road, selling fruit and vegetables in the markets. Always a smile, always ‘Bula!’ – the ubiquitous Fijian greeting. In all our comings and goings, we are aware of the uneasy truce. Fiji has built its resorts and populated them with Fijian smiles. The gentle atmosphere of the resorts is all Fijian, with Western administration keeping the wheels oiled in the background. But only a few hundred metres from the six-star atmosphere of the large resorts, the Fijian villages stand as an indictment of the system. The thatch and woven-grass walls of old villages have been replaced by cheap unpainted besser bricks or corrugated iron. The villages have a down-hearted feeling, with dirty, dishevelled surroundings.
The Indians in Fiji live in comparative opulence in the countryside. As farmers they till the soil – everything from sugar cane to pine forests – or they dominate the trading in the city. In Suva, every shopkeeper seems to be Indian, and the streets stream with brightly coloured saris. It’s a prosperous atmosphere, so unlike the dejected feeling of the Fijian villages.
We are not tempted to stay. The resorts are good for what they represent – a break from city life for the working citizens of New Zealand, Australia and more distant countries. For the cruising sailor, the natural, lively harmony of the other islands of the South Pacific seems to be missing from Fiji.
Everyone’s running and shouting. It seems the whole of Vuda Marina is running and shouting. Indian taxi drivers, yachties walking by, Indian marina security guards, Fijian loungers, friends on the boat we are about to visit. They are all converging on the place where they heard the splash. We’re all looking down, down, but it’s dark and you can’t see much.
In all the shouting I hear a soft-as-butter voice beside me, so close to my ear he might be about to kiss me.
‘What is it?’ he asks.
‘It’s my husband,’ I reply. I glance sideways to see an old seafaring face – long silver hair in a ponytail, crow’s feet, eyes shining in the half-dark.
‘Ah – your husband?’
‘Yeah, he fell in.’ I’m trying to keep a straight and sympathetic face. This ‘falling in’ habit was supposed to be my territory.
There’s more shouting – the tide is out and it’s not a floating marina. Hard to get out. Nobody’s doing much else but shouting.
I call out, ‘It’s okay. I saw him. He fell in clean, he’s not hurt, it’s only water.’
The voice again. ‘Does he do that often?’
‘Er, no, actually, it’s the first time – it’s normally me. He’s fine though, just wet. I think he thought the finger wharf was longer than it really is.’ I can’t help giggling. ‘He hasn’t even had a drink . . .’
Now Ted’s halfway up, clambering and scrambling like a wet crab on the side of the timber wharf.
The voice again, almost a whisper, but insistent, ‘Normally you? You fall in often?’
A saturated Ted butts into this conversation he’s unaware of. He says: ‘f&%@&%@!!!’ He’s ignoring all the people enquiring if he’s okay. Ted says ‘Piffle f&%@ cough f&%@ shower f&%@!’ and heads off into the darkness to Blackwattle, leaving a trail of dirty marina water behind.
‘You fall in often, do you?’ It’s old silver ponytail again.
People are gradually trickling away now – taxi drivers to wait for jobs by their taxis, security guards to their posts, yachties back to their beers. They all have something new to chat about for the evening.
Maybe the shock of seeing Ted in free fall has freed my tongue. ‘Sure, in Marigot Bay, in St Lucia, in the Galapagos – well, in Marigot Bay it was intentional: I had to jump in to retrieve a buoy we had lost.’
‘You lost a buoy? What kind of buoy?’
‘The one the boat was tied to.’
‘Mmm.’ He shakes his head. ‘How long have you been sailing?’
‘Five years – we’re almost home.’
‘Ah, you’re cruisers!’ He smiles. ‘Most cruisers don’t know much about how to sail, but usually they know to stay on the boat. Where have you been sailing?’
‘We’ve almost finished a circumnavigation.’
‘Of Fiji?’
‘No, of the world.’
‘Then you’re not cruising, you’re just circumnavigators. You betcha.’
‘We’re what? We’re not cruising?’
‘No, you see it goes like this. There are sea gypsies, cruisers, circumnavigators and boat deliverers.’
‘Oh . . .’
‘Now the sea gypsy, he’s the one you’ve got to watch for. He started out as a cruiser, then runs out of money, and can’t get himself back on land. Can’t sell the boat and can’t afford to fix it up. You betcha. So ya gotta watch him because he’ll rob you blind. Fixes his boat with the things he steals.’
He’s warming to the topic now. ‘The cruiser – he’s real easy to recognise. He’s the one who says he doesn’t know where he’s going next. He’s just cruising around waiting for inspiration. He figures his lifestyle is better than he would have at home, so why not stay cruising?’
‘And what about the circumnavigator?’
‘Well, they know where they’re going – on a set itinerary. Like yourselves. Unless . . . Where have you sailed this season?’
‘We started out in Turkey in July last year.’
‘And just kept sailing?’
‘Yes.’
‘From Turkey to here without stopping a season somewhere?’
‘Er, yes . . .’
‘Then you’re not even circumnavigators – you’re on a delivery trip! You’re just delivering your boat somewhere. You can’t see much travelling as fast as that.’
I’m smiling now – we’re just on a delivery trip, are we? ‘And what are you?’
‘Me? Oooh, I don’t know – I’m the Old Man of the Sea.’
He grins as he sees Ted approaching looking buoyant (no pun) in a new set of clothes, and walks away. I haven’t seen him since. Ted’s smelling fresh and soapy as we go back to our friends’ boat for cocktails, and gets a round of applause as he appears in his clean clothes.
So now we know our station in life – we’re ‘boat deliverers’.