Ocean Echo 1: 2013

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Kingdom of Tonga - Tonga Islands - 2013

Dear friends.

Kingdom of Tonga turned out to be interesting country to visit. There are 3 island groups. Tongatapu at the South, Ha'apai in the middle and Vava'u Group at the North. Most popular among cruising boats (yachties) is Vava'u Group. The Islands are all beautiful. This area is still very active with volcanic activity.
I was lucky to have arrived a few days before an Agriculture Show. Their majesty The King and The Queen of Tonga were there to greet local people. They did not have an Agriculture show for 2 years. I have enjoyed to see and learn local culture and ceremonial dresses of man and woman. Local farm products and fisheries display were very interesting.
I have spent most of the time visiting local islands of Vava'u Group. I did sail South for a few days to visit Ha'apai Group, which looks and feels more like Tuamotus in French Polynesia. Most of the islands in Vava'u area are surrounded by deeper waters. Large coral reefs to the E, NE are creating natural barrier for most of the islands, when prevailing E, SE winds and swells come in. Tongan ridge creates a lot of shallow areas in the middle of blue ocean, good for pelagic fish. Islands get annual winter visits from Humpback whales. Diving and snorkeling is OK in most areas. However there are not too many fish around, not even on coral reefs. Coral formations are nice. Swallow's and Mariner's caves are quite impressive. I have seen some black/white coral snakes and cuttlefish (similar to squid/octopus) couple of times. Niue Island had a lot of b/w coral snakes, which are nice and harmless.
Vava'u Group gets visited by many yachts each year, before they continue-on to Fiji or New Zealand. I will be sailing to N. Zealand by mid October. It will be busy time in NZ with many urgent repairs and purchases. Temperatures will be more reasonable for boat projects. Passage to NZ is expected to be difficult, will just have to deal with it.

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Maintaining this blog could by complicated time to time, because Internet signal/connection for uploading pictures, will not be as good/fast as it is in large cities/communities. Please, excuse my poor writing skills and grammar. Google translate does good job converting text to other languages.

I hope, that you will find something interesting in this blog – enjoy.

Jara (JJ) Holcman s/v Ocean Echo 1

(old blog's address - http://oceanecho1.wordpress.com/)

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Their majesty - The King and The Queen

Their majesty - seating

Agriculture show

She is getting old, just like me :-)

Siesia Island - coral reefs

Luafatu Island

Fotula - Mushroom Rock

Kitu Island

Polynesian Catamaran

Nice - hey

Old neighbor from Nuku Hiva

Ha'apai - Luangahu Island

Neiafu - Catholic church

Tauta Island

Swallow's Cave - smaller one of two chambers

Swallow's Cave - larger one of two chambers

Swallow's Cave - smaller one of two chambers

Swallow's Cave - larger one of two chambers

Swallow's Cave - larger one, 3-5 m deep water

Swallow's Cave - larger one of two chambers

Swallow's Cave - larger one, 3-5 m deep water

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Bora Bora Island to Niue Island - 2013

Dear Friends.

I have been having a lot of problems uploading pictures to Wordpress blog lately at slow Internet connection. I have decided to try my backup blog web site - Google's Blogger. I have spent almost 3 days dealing with time-out cut off's, while uploading the pictures to Wordpress, no luck.

The new address for my blog will be: http://oceanecho1.blogspot.com/

(old address - http://oceanecho1.wordpress.com/)

Sorry for the inconvenience. Jara (JJ ) Holcman s/v Ocean Echo 1

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Dear friends.

I have left Bora Bora with nice E to SE winds, which lasted for about 3 days. That was the only good sailing on my passage to Beveridge Reef. The weather has deteriorated really fast. I ended up heaving-to for 3 days in 35-38 kts (70-76 km/h) of wind and drifting for 2 days without sails or engine run, because I was getting too close to B. Reef. I did not want to enter Beveridge R. lagoon in these winds and 6-8 m swells. Rewards were sweet later on. I did not stop at Cook Islands for several reasons. There were some issues, which I did not want to deal with.
Beveridge Reef is large lagoon without any land. It is about 6 km long and 3-4 km wide with 8-10 m depth. The passage into lagoon is wide at 7 m depth. There are no chart or Google Earth references for this reef. All navigation around the reef is visual only. It belongs to Island of Niue. It is comfortable inside at low tide and lighter winds. Second weather system has passed over, while I was there, waiting for Niue weather window. The waves inside at high tide reach 1-2 m at 30-35 kts (60-70 km/h) of wind, because the tidal range is about 1 m (similar to Minerva Reef). Ocean swells hitting the reef on the outside can reach 30+ meters. It is a wild show watching them. I did not see any other boats there for 2 weeks. Some humpback whales showed up. Plenty of aggressive reef sharks around. They took most of my fish catch. My kayak has a little souvenir from them. One shark had a good bite at forward side of the kayak, when I was pulling in Trevalla fish. I am glad, that I was not in the water, when they got into feeding frenzy - no mercy there.
Passage to Island of Niue was quite pleasant with lighter winds. Niue has a free association with New Zealand. It has only about 1600 inhabitants. A lot of young people are leaving the island for better life in N. Zealand. It is a beautiful island with a beautiful people. Almost everyone was trying to help, which is not that common at other places. It is a unique island. They call it "The Rock", because it is one of very few coral elevated islands in the world. Open land masses are dry coral reef formations, which is very interesting. I have rented motorcycle for 2 days to be able to visit most of shoreline caves and chasms, very nice. Niue does not have any anchorages and it is surrounded by deep waters. Boats need to wait for favorable wind conditions to be able to use Niue YC buoys. Dinghies are elevated ashore by the crane at main wharf. It can be very uncomfortable, when the wind comes from wrong direction with open ocean swells. That was a reason for me to wait at B. Reef for right conditions to visit Niue Island. The weather window is usually only a few days long, before all goes wrong way. Ocean water visibility around Niue Island shoreline is 30-50 m. Ocean swells in last cyclone reached 30-40 m. Washing over many houses on shore and main wharf.
Nice 1.5 m Mahi Mahi/Dolphinfish ended up on my hook, when I was sailing from Niue to Tonga. Beautiful and delicious fish. There are not many fish in local waters of S. Pacific islands. Fish is one of main food sources in these islands.
Kingdom of Tonga will be next subject in this blog.

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Maintaining this blog could by complicated time to time, because Internet signal/connection for uploading pictures, will not be as good/fast as it is in large cities/communities. Please, excuse my poor writing skills and grammar. Google translate does good job converting text to other languages.

I hope, that you will find something interesting in this blog – enjoy.

Jara (JJ) Holcman s/v Ocean Echo 1

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