Heading to Town - Neiafu

After our first trip through the Ha'apai we headed up to the capital of Vava'u: the town of Neiafu.  With population of 6,000 it is the second biggest town in Tonga and the centre of most of the "yachtie" and tourist activities.  A bit of a shock after the quiet Ha'apai.

The mooring field

At this point we are by the blue fish and chips house run by a guy from Winnipeg.

Essential repairs to Benjamin's F-14 Tomcat

and repairs to my toys - fixing the SUP pump.

and lots of laundry.

I remember STS Picton Castle was in the news a bit with a Transport Canada report when I was posted to Halifax so we were keen to see her close up when she arrived in Neiafu.  Although registered in the Cook Islands she is based out of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia and doing a circumnavigation.

We did not mean this close up though.  Our anchor chain actually runs under her stern and then off to her starboard side.  They needed to use their tender to push their stern aside when we decided that they were just too close for our comfort and needed to reanchor further away.  Johnathan went out in our RHIB too in case we needed to push Fluenta off that steel hull.

Kind of close.  Was impressive to watch them do the downwind anchor drop though.  One of the crew actually stopped me on the street to apologize for anchoring too close but I never did get a reply back from my polite note to the ship.