On Friday (Thursday US time) we made land fall at Nuka Alofa on Tongatapu Island in Tonga at 11 AM. Just shy of 5 days and just over 1200 nautical miles from our departure point in New Zealand.
In that this is “island time”, customs was closed at the time of our arrival and won’t open until Saturday – thus we are stuck aboard with the “Q” flag up until we are cleared. Debby was bummed out as she was ready to be off to town (I use the word advisedly). Instead, we used the afternoon to clean up Iron Lady from the passage and blast off all of the accumulated salt.
After and early dinner of Whahoo steaks with a nice red wine, we were all off to bed early to catch up on a full night of uninterrupted sleep.
Next morning the mission was to clear Customs and Immigration. You are supposed to advise before arrival that you are enroute. Only problem is that nobody would answer the phone and we have been calling since we left New Zealand. Lots of people stopped by this morning and tried to help but to little avail. No one was at the Port AUthority Office, nobody responded to our VHF calls. With the additional help from the locals, we now have 7 different phone numbers for Customs and Immigrations – none of which answer.
One fellow who stopped by was a Tongan back for a fishing tournament from the US. When he heard we were from Pittsburgh, he told us he knew Troy Polamalou well. He now lives in Palo ALto and promised to say Hi to son George when he went back – small world.
Finally, we got someone to answer as a result of a local guy calling the customs guy on his cell. The response was to move the boat to the fuel dock and they would come around in 45 minutes. We tried to move the boat to the fuel dock, but it was too small for us and occupied by other boats so we moved back to our original spot. Now several hours had passed and finally he showed up – very apologetic – we should have called and he would have come yesterday. Oh well – no sense in pursuing that one.
At the end of our clearing in, he said that he would take care of things, but we were not strictly legal because he didn’t have all the necessary forms and he couldn’t raise any of the Immigration people. We were allowed off the boat illegally, but would have to stay at our present spot until Tuesday (it is now Saturday) when he would bring the Immigration people around. As a “by the way”, his “fee” for this service was $110 Tongan which we, of course, did not have since we couldn’t get off the boat.
No worries, he would collect the extortion Tuesday. Once we agreed – miracle of miracles – there was a commercial boat clearing in on Monday and he could take care of us early Monday instead of Tuesday.
We offered our profuse thanks and he was on his way – loading his pockets with fresh fruit from our fruit bowl as he departed.
We used to say when in the Bahamas that “It’s the Bahamas Mon” – well – it’s Tonga Mon.
More later.