Vava’u (va-vow), Tonga (tong-uh, the G is silent, like song)

Vava’u is both an island and an island group, consisting of the island of Vava’u and 40 other smaller islands.

It’s near the northern end of the Kingdom of Tonga, which itself is a long string of 171 islands. (More correctly, Tonga is made up of two parallel island strings – the western string are high volcanic islands of the Tonga Volcanic Arc, and the eastern string are lower limestone coral islands.)

The Tonga archipelago runs north-south for about 800 kms, all along the west side of the Tonga Trench, the deepest trench in the southern hemisphere and second deepest on earth after Mariana.

I confess it was a bit of a thrill to sail across the Tonga Trench – almost 11 kilometres deep! Thankfully it’s not very wide and doesn’t take long to cross.

In Polynesian languages, the word tonga means southward, and Tonga is the southernmost archipelago in all of Oceania. Apart from the Niuas, which are the northernmost islands of Tonga, Vava’u is up there, close to the equator and warm in terms of Tonga temps. 

Seems the northern end of the southernmost archipelago is a pretty good place to be. Ideal weather this time of year.  Highs and lows 27°C/21°C, similar to Niue.  But here in Tonga, it’s winter and it’s dry season – which is as it should be in the tropics.  Unlike Niue where winter is weirdly wet – throughout our time there, if it wasn’t raining, it was pouring – don’t get me wrong, we loved Niue, but it was a soggy kind of love.

Spectacular to arrive here in Vava’u. Heavenly. Feels like the peak of summer at home. Sunny and hot, but not too hot. The most wonderful breezes. And even the look of the place is like home. All these small islands and short distances and calm waters. Feels more like a lake district at home than islands in the Pacific Ocean.

And the Vava’u islands themselves even look a little like home. Neither high volcanic islands nor low atolls. Like Niue, the Vava’u Group are raised coral islands. Densely forested. If you ignore the palm trees, it even looks like a deciduous forest at home.

Having only recently encountered the mystery and marvel of rising Niue, it was surprising to find that the eastern string of Tonga too consists mostly of raised coral islands. They’re everywhere. Higher than Niue, around 200 metres. Thing is, here in Tonga, it makes sense. Raised coral islands are pushed up by co-seismic activity, and along the Tonga Trench, there’s a motherload of tectonic plate action – in fact, Tonga is the most seismically active place on the planet. So, while Niue remains a bit of a geological mystery, here in Tonga it all makes seismic sense.

Similarly, the western string of volcanic islands were created by subduction – meaning, the western movement of the Pacific plate under the Australia-India plate at the Tonga Trench. It’s the fastest moving plate on the planet, and geologists now think it’s travelling at about 9 inches per year. That’s really fast if you’re a tectonic plate.

Tonga ranks third in the world for risk of natural disasters – cyclones, tsunamis, flooding, sea level rise, volcanos – including recent volcanic activity in Ha’apai, the middle group. A whole new island was created in Ha’apai by back-to-back eruptions in 2014 and 2015. Even more recently, in January 2022, a major underwater volcano erupted and triggered a 90-metre tsunami that was felt throughout Tonga and beyond. Including right here in Vaka’eitu, where we are currently anchored (middle left on the Vava’u map).

Neiafu is the capital of the Vava’u District, and our port of entry into Tonga. It’s situated in a well-protected natural harbour.  Take a look at Neiafu there in the middle of Vava’u island, and you can see why its harbour is so aptly-named the Port of Refuge. Talk about protected.

We pulled into Neiafu, expecting a grimy little town where we would check-in, get some onions and cabbage, and head out to cruising heaven. Not very populated up here in Vava’u, by far most Tongans live in the southernmost island group of Tongatapu. Of total Tonga population 100,000, less than 4,000 live in Neiafu. From all we’d read or heard, Neiafu had nothing much to recommend it, no reason to stay here, or so we thought.

Turns out though, Neiafu has a great vibe. We stayed for four days before we pulled away. Nice market – big selection of fruits and veggies every day – a real bonanza, we hadn’t seen anything like it since Tahiti.

Local crafts include high quality weaving – we splurged on baskets made by the very charming (and very pregnant) Salote and her twin sister. Whalebone carving – when a whale dies and washes ashore, or its body is found by fishers, the bones are buried in sand for cleaning by critters, and then it’s divvied up among local carvers for jewelery and sculpture.

Cool cruising scene in Neiafu. Big mooring field, 30+ boats, where we met several new boat neighbours and reconnected with some we’d met along the way. Hospitable dinghy dock at the Mango cafe for going ashore, many meals and social time at the Mango.

Tongan people are modest, and their traditional dress is modest, to say the least. Knees and elbows usually covered. Often ankles too. Women typically wear dresses, and underneath it often another skirt, called a tupenu, to cover their legs and ankles.

A ta’ovala is a woven mat that’s worn, by both men and women, wrapped around the waist and tied with a string made from coconut fibre. It’s an essential item for any formal or semi-formal occasion and shows respect – similar, I think, to how men used to wear ties at home.

Men also wear tupenus that reach at least to the knees or longer. The high school kids we saw at a rugby tournament wore uniforms that involved tupenus and collar shirts for both boys and girls, and also included ta’ovalas for the boys.

At more casual occasions, instead of a formal waist mat, women may opt for a kiekie – another type of ornamental girdle or string skirt attached to a waistband. Making kiekie, usually knitted or crocheted, is part of the handicraft repertoire that’s expected of every Tongan woman. Traditionally both ta’ovala and kiekie are made from pandamus leaves that, according to our host family here in Vaka’eitu, have been soaked in the sea for a week to soften.

An interesting sidenote about the ta’ovala. Its origin story. A group of Tongan sailors arrived at the place of the ancient Tongan kings after a rough passage, and their clothing was battered and not respectable for the occasion. They cut their sails into pieces – traditional Polynesian sails were also woven mats – and wrapped them around their waists to improve their ragged appearance. The king was so moved by the sacrifice of their sails that he ordered the ta’ovala to be worn for court dress from that time forward.

Gives pause to think about what modern modest Tongans must think about the “grotty yachtie” look that some of us bring to their islands …

Before leaving Neiafu, we took an island tour with driver Henele (henaylay) and boat neighbour Ian on S/V Reflexion, lovely man, single-hander from the island of Jersey.

Interesting island, fertile, lots of agriculture – food for local consumption and kava for export. Kava roots are dried and ground and used to make an intoxicating beverage, traditionally used in ceremonies in Tonga and throughout Polynesia.

Now in Vaka’eitu, just a 2-hour sail from Neiafu. It’s beautiful here. A pristine well-protected bay. Just one family lives on the island – David who was born here, Hika his wife, and several of their 11 children occupy the family home. In a tent nearby, one son lives with his wife Dorothy, their son Daniel and another on the way.

I think, when we travel, we should “drink with our eyes” and, as Bill noted in his last post, we got ourselves drunk on sightings of humpback whales in Alofi Bay, Niue. Turns out though, Niue is at the edge of the annual humpback migration from the Antarctic up the coast of New Zealand to the tropical waters of Tonga. That is to say, Tonga on the other hand is right in the thick of it.

So happens that these particulare very calm waters – surrounded by Vaka’eitu, Lape and Nuapapu islands – are favoured by visiting humpbacks. We didn’t come here for the whales, but it seems they love it here as much as we do. On our first day here at this anchorage, Bill and I were out in our dinghy for a good part of the afternoon, up close and personal with at least one mom-and-calf pair, maybe more, hard to say. Truly breathtaking.

When you’re drifting along in your rubber dinghy, and a big blow announces her arrival just metres away, and then she and baby whale surface there beside you – it actually takes your breath away.

We have more time here in Tonga. This is the last island group that we’ll visit before completing our Pacific crossing. Lots more to see.