Besides that, the weather was just getting better and better. Winter was closing in, and one could almost smell the Antarctic ice sheets on the southern breeze. By the middle of June, there were the occasional nights when one needed a light blanket in bed. Nevertheless, the hardy Tongan mosquitoes soldiered on through these cold snaps. Shortly after our arrival in February, I read that the Tongan media never included temperatures in their weather reportage; it was either going to be sunny or rainy, or in the case of a tropical storm, exceedingly rainy. I described it this way to Gail at the end of June, when the winter solstice had passed, expressing temperatures on that quaint Fahrenheit that we backward Americans insist on clinging to:
It's in the 80s here. It's always in the 80s here... except when it's in the 90s. But that would be summer, and it's winter now, so it's in the 80s here. But winter or summer, 80s or 90s, it's always humid. Sometimes we get a nice breeze, sometimes we get a tropical storm.
Actually, it did seem a bit drier now, and it certainly was cooler, which meant that the tropical storm action had shifted north of the equator.
Before Maikolo departed to enjoy a few weeks of Oregonian summer, he wanted to take Meleline and me on an excursion to Fafa Island. It's a tiny but upscale resort island several kilometres north of Nuku'alofa, where one can go on a day trip for a nice lunch, nice cocktails, nice walk on the beach, nice massage. He was emphatic that the weather must be perfect: no rain, not even a cloud, and on a Sunday. Several Sundays in late May and early June slipped by before nature was able to comply with Maikolo's exacting specifications. Fortunately, 13 June, the last Sunday before Maikolo boarded his flight to the USA, promised to be such a Sunday. He picked us up in the morning and drove us to the wharf. We embarked on a boat that was filled with about two dozen passengers. Maikolo fairly gushed as he confidently predicted that the passage to Fafa would take exactly 35 minutes, and he insisted that I note the departure and arrival times to confirm this. Why this was at all important to him, I have no idea. During the passage I periodically checked our compass heading, just out of curiosity, given that I had trained as a navigator in the U.S. Air Force, and my digital watch just happened to include a compass.
Upon arrival, we made our lunch reservations. The restaurant was on the northwest corner of the island, near out debarkation point. Maikolo advised that we schedule the reservations for the latest slot, 1330 hours, to give us time to walk around the island. At first we walked inland (southward) to examine the conference centre, library, and other facilities in the resort complex, all designed in the traditional Polynesian style. As we passed through this area, Maikolo verbalised in inordinate detail his fantasy of how the 'Atenisi campus would look if money were no object. As we continued southward, we passed the row of guest cottages, also done in the Polynesian style, but with the important difference that they included air conditioners; unlike us, upscale tourists came to Tonga expecting to be comfortable. In Maikolo's fantasy, these cottages would be the campus housing for 'Atenisi students. But would they be able to ring up room service?
In places the path took us through rain forest, which as far as I could tell, had gone unmodified by the human hand. Upon reaching the southwestern corner of the island, we found the shore to consist of coral formations that would not make for a pleasant walk, so we retraced our path to the restaurant and strolled eastward along the northern shore of the island, which was a pleasant beach. I have yet to see waves breaking on the beach; rather, they break on the reefs far offshore, and the beaches are as still as a swimming pool; very unlike California. We rounded the northeastern point and headed south until we reached the southeastern point, where we once again encountered hard coral. Apparently most or all of the southern shore was coral. From here, Maikolo hoped to find a trail coming out of the bush and strike inland. There were no such trails. We were on the windward side of the island, so the island's owner had built no guest cottages or anything else out here. Yes, the beach was nice, and this particular day was quite calm, but what paying tourist wanted granulated coral blown in his face when it wasn't so calm? Once again, it was necessary to reverse course. We trekked north, rounded the northeastern point once more, to find the long, northern beach stretched before us. Maikolo continued to seek a path inland, still thinking that this would be the most direct way back to the restaurant. I pointed out the restaurant in the distance; the beach was now the shortest path. "You're with a navigator," Marilyn reminded Maikolo. Cripes, my grandfather had taught me that much navigation on family camping trips in the Sierra Nevada.
We returned to the restaurant with more than half an hour to kill, having wandered the length of the 45-hectare islet. Not a hardship; we ordered drinks. I had a Campari and soda in anticipation of my upcoming lunch of chicken over pasta. With lunch itself I had a chilled glass of white wine. After the dishes were cleared away, Maikolo excused himself to retreat into the library and work on some papers he had brought with him. Meleline and I broke our laptops and spent the next couple of hours on the Internet. No one was in the mood to swim; we were pleasantly full from the meal and relaxed from our respective couple of drinks.
We re-boarded the boat at 1630 hours, returning to Nuku'alofa shortly after 1700 hours. Once again, [sigh] about 35 minutes. Meleline asked Maikolo how many times he had been to Fafa. He replied that this was his 19th trip. I remarked that I would have been surprised if he didn't know that the transit time was 35 minutes. When I got home I decided to do a simple navigation exercise, which I explained in email t Maikolo the next morning:
From satellite imagery I estimate Fafa to be 3 nautical miles from the wharf on a true course of 023 degrees. Transit time of 35 minutes makes our true speed about 5-1/4 knots. Since average magnetic heading was about 350 degrees, and magnetic declination in these waters is 12 degrees east, making the true heading about 002 degrees, the cross current correction was about 21 degrees, so I estimate that we had a westerly cross current of roughly 2-1/2 knots.
Had I noted the sustained heading on the return trip as well, I could have estimated the north-south component of the current, if any. In any case, I hoped not to hear about the passage time to Fafa or any other minor details of navigation in Tongan waters in future.
Thomas Gangale's Tales of Tonga
No comments:
Post a Comment