Niuatoputapu in Words

When we left Vava’u we said to the kids that from now on we possibly wouldn’t be seeing many boats, and be mostly by ourselves as just about everyone we had talked to was heading to different places to our cruising ideas. What a surprise we got as from the afternoon that we arrived in Niuatoputapu other boats started arriving in the anchorage until we were sharing with 7 other boats and two of those had kids on board. Not only that but both of them had TWINS on board. Having three sets of twins in close proximity in a “normal” population isn’t usual for us let alone a cruising population. This attracted quite a bit of interest and there was even a photo shoot on Division II for the potential of appearing in Cruising World, a sailing magazine based out of the U.S.
On our arrival into Niuatoputapu we had radio contact with Sia, who lives in the village off of the anchorage and is the only one with a VHF radio on the island. She works for the Tourism, Trade and Commerce Department. As we only needed to do our interisland clearance she gave us directions to the Customs and after a rest and some food we headed to shore to do our paperwork. We didn’t want to tie the dinghy to the wharf as it was mostly sharp rocks and we didn’t want to risk damaging the dinghy, so we took it to shore over the reef at what happened to be high tide....more on the later. We started on our walk which we were told was around 3-4 km up the road. As the wind was behind us and we were still quite tired from the passage we were really struggling, but thankfully someone picked us up in their truck and we got to sit in the back much to the delight of the kids and were taken to the customs building. This was great as we would have walked right past it as it was up a small driveway, part of four small buildings (including Police, Bank and Ministry Offices) that was next to the High School and one of the primary schools. It took no time at all to do our clearance, and then we faced the walk back to the dingy, but this was much more pleasant as we had the wind in our faces which helped to cool us down. On our return to the dinghy the tide had gone out some, and there didn’t seem to be anyway we were going to be able to relaunch the dinghy. The tide drop has been less than a metre in most of Tonga and we thought that it would turn soon and we would be able to get back to the boat. As it was we were still only about half tide and after a couple of hours, made the decision to wheel the dinghy down the road and along the wharf and put it back in the water off the ramp at the end of the wharf. I bet the local villagers had a great laugh at our expense!
While we had been waiting under the shade of a tree we were approached by one of the local High School Girls, named Ahi and her youngest sister Sima. We talked for quite a while and learnt many things about the island from Ahi and her family.
The population of the whole Island is just under 800.
This is the first year that they have had a 7th form graduate at the local high school. Prior to this older secondary school children had to go to Vava’u or Tongatapu for education.
The supply ship comes once every three weeks on average, and they have an airport but they don’t get any regular air service.
Women who are expecting a baby have to go on the supply ship to Vava’u or Tongatapu as the Medical Officer is male and not from the Island, therefore will not allow them to have their babies there. There is no hospital to speak of, so if there were complications there would be no way to get help.
There are two primary schools on the Island and one on Tafahi, another smaller island just north.
There are many horses on the Island, both for transport and as a food source. There were also many pigs and chickens, but only two cows and around 5 sheep. We also saw goats on our adventures around the Island.
Weaving is the main source of income for the Island, as tourism, apart from the yachties, is nonexistent. The weaving is sent on the supply ship to Vava’u and Tongatapu and is often made to order from family members in these places. Some of it is also sent to Australia and New Zealand. Often several women are working on the weaving of the large mats, and I imagine that the income from them is shared out among those that have worked on them. The women do the weaving and the men work the plantations and also fish to provide for their families.
While we were there a roading project was in place and they were resealing all the roads and we saw many people, both men and women with high-vis vests on with brooms etc working on the project. I said to someone that this must be a good source of income for the people of the island, but found out that many of the workers, especially the women haven’t been paid yet, and may not be until next year!
Ahi also told us some of the local legends pertaining to prominent land marks around the Island, which was great to link place names with meaning and the stories behind them. The most memorable being the legend of the Samoan Devil stealing the Island out of the middle of Niua’afo (an Island around 200nm west of Niuatoputapu) which was the exact size of the lake now there. The Samoan Devil was trying to get the Island back to Samoa before the sun rise but only got as far as Niuatoputapu when the sun came up and he was spotted by the Tongan Devil, who fought for the Island and told the Samoan Devil to “chop” the lines off of the Island that they were using to pull it, and that is how Tafahi got its name and it means “to chop” in Tongan. It is also said that on a clear day you can see Samoa from Tafahi. We found this slightly unbelievable at first, but when we worked out the distance and thought about the fact you can see Mt. Taranaki from Golden Bay at times, it wasn’t inconceivable, but I don’t know how many clear days you get up here.
In 2009 the tsunami from an earthquake off of Samoa hit Niuatoputapu at around 0730. It killed 9 people and wiped out many homes and did a lot of other damage. The 9 people are all buried together outside of the new government buildings, and it still saddens people to talk about the devastation this caused for them and that it also seemed to take time for assistance to reach them. They did get help, with several kinds of new homes provided by different aid agencies, including the NZ navy. Tsunami evacuation plans are now in place and most of the villages have been relocated closer to the base of the hill. There are still people who do live right on the water front though. Many of the vehicles all looked new to us also, and Dan figures they are all post tsunami, though I think you could easily survive without one here. One of the little islands at the anchorage looks really picturesque and I can imagine was lovely pre tsunami but now the whole island is difficult to walk on as it is covered in dead coral and there is only a small beach, and the snorkelling didn’t look too inviting either. The one thing that was great was the whale just off of the reef there, which was easy to observe from the island.
On the Thursday we went on an Island tour with Sia, who took us all on the back of her truck, again to the kids delight, and we stopped at a church hall where local women where weaving, stopped at the one of the local shops, had a walk around a families plantation area and stopped at the fresh water springs for a swim. We then drove around the new villages and stopped at the main Primary School and High School to donate school supplies from the yachties. The school had the newest playground I have ever seen in Tonga, which was donated by New Zealand after the tsunami.
That evening we had planned a pot luck tea at Sia’s home, but unfortunately we had to rain check, and did this on the Friday, which was great. The two cakes were the first thing to disappear I think! Some of us had expressed an interest in walking up the hill, but the local consensus was that it would be too hard without guides, so on the Saturday morning Sia’s two sons guided us on a walk up and across and down the hill. The views were amazing and I have to agree that I don’t think we would have been able to find our own way, as the youngest son had gone ahead and was cutting the path with his machete in places!
On Sunday we had a picnic lunch with Ahi and her brother and sisters on the beach, where we had traditional Tongan food, all made from food available on the island, most of it grown by Ahi’s father. We had bread fruit and taro, Lesi which is papaya cooked, one in the Umu, and one in a pot with onions, Liu, which is the taro leaf cooked with coconut milk and a meat, usually corned beef or fish or chicken and we also had fish and to finish we had banana (hopa) cooked with coconut milk and brown sugar, plus the small cup cakes that Oliver had baked to share. It was all very delicious and after a rest we enjoyed a swim. We were down by the lead lights for the channel entrance and the kids were climbing up them and jumping off into shoulder height water. Unfortunately Rylee decided to dive in and managed to skin his nose on the bottom! He looked rather funny for a few days with a big scab on his nose but was very good about not picking it and it fell off at the end of the week, just leaving a slightly pale area amongst his tan.
Monday was a busy day for us, as everyone was making moves to leave Niuatoputapu to head south to Vava’u, and we had a constant stream of visitors to exchange details, swap photos, have last minute plays etc, and get information about heading to N.Z. and the places to go. It was very pleasant, but very busy and by the end of the day Rylee was feeling unwell. We had been invited to dinner on a friend’s boat, so we still went, but Rylee didn’t last so we had to return home before dessert, and by the following morning all of us had some form of stomach upset. I am not sure whether we picked up a virus, or it was something we had eaten, but it past relatively quickly, though Tuesday was a very quiet day on Division II!
Dan decided that it was a good time to leave Niuatoputapu from the weather files we received and he initially thought Wednesday would be a good day to go, but when he went ashore in the afternoon to check out (despite still being under the weather) he found the buildings all closed up and managed to find someone who said it was a holiday. After this we thought maybe to leave first light on Thursday giving us a recovery day before passage, all day Wednesday to check out and allow us to arrive in Samoa Friday daytime to clear in before the weekend. Unfortunately we discovered that Wednesday on Niuatoputapu is a cultural day and none of the government workers work on this day, so we had to wait until the Thursday morning, and we were not sure if they were going to be at the wharf to clear us at the time we requested or not. In the meantime we went back to Ahi’s home to say our goodbyes, and we were given some weaving that Ahi had done herself of our family tree, which was a truly lovely gift.
Thankfully Customs and Immigration did come to the wharf Thursday morning as arranged and we were heading out the pass 0900, a couple of hours after our preferred leaving time.