August 21, 2014
(The image above is a frame from our whale video, here)
Tonga is the final place on nearly every pacific crossing before making the trip south for cyclone season. Unfortunately, cruisers tend to be pretty exhausted by the time they get to Tonga. The journey from the Americas to the region north of Down Under is long and surprisingly arduous, much more so than most people expect. And still ahead lies one of the most notoriously difficult passages: the tropics to New Zealand.
People arriving in Tonga are often in need of a rest and don’t have much spare energy to figure out and cruise a new and rather large cruising ground, while worrying about the whole New Zealand scenario. And even for those with energy and enthusiasm to spare, there’s just not enough time to really see the anchorages of Vava’u. Tonga, like everywhere else in the Pacific, requires that you hole up during windy periods which happen much (most?) of the time. So while you might have the month of October to cruise, the wind will be a limiting factor. Then there’s the fact many cruisers want to go south through the Ha’apai and Tongatapu before making the jump. The end result is many of us only get to two or three anchorages in Vava’u before heading on.
This is why we’d urge any cruisers who plan to stay in this area of the pacific for a few seasons to consider returning to Tonga. This area has so much to offer and is worth taking the time to see. Rich and I started our third cruising season here at the end of May and stayed three months before heading to Fiji.
Tonga is a different experience when you start fresh. We loved cruising the islands of Tongatapu, seeing more of the Ha’apai, and then getting to see some of the anchorages we missed our first time through Vava’u. Without a doubt, they were well worth seeing! Plus we got to be here in August when the area is loaded with whales and the new calves are old enough that mom will let them swim with the sea monkeys (aka humans). We enjoyed our time here so much we may even go back again at some point.
I’m so behind on the blog I haven’t yet written about our second visit to Tonga but Rich wrote a few posts during that time, and together we’ve made a list, with descriptions and photos, of all the anchorages we’ve visited in Vava’u and put it in our Cruising Information Pages. For that list, see Vava’u Anchorages. We have some info on Tongatapu anchorages, too. For Rich’s posts you can check out our All-Posts Map–just click if there’s a marker on a spot you’re interested in. –Cyndi
