Trouble in Paradise

It all started Wednesday night when the sea got rough. The boat was anchored just off the coast and tied to a tree at camp. I was in the kitchen with Finau cooking spaghetti for dinner. We heard the dogs bark first, then Talanoa yelling for help. We ran out to see what the problem was, and saw Talanoa struggling with the boat on shore. Finau ran back in to shut off the gas on the stove and then ran out into the sea to help Talanoa. P helped push the boat out into the sea and then we both watched from the shore feeling slightly helpless, not having much experience with boating and especially not with stormy seas. Finau and Talanoa eventually both hopped in the boat after a bit of struggle and used a bucket to bail the excess water from the boat. Deciding I was more help in the kitchen, I returned to the kitchen to finish the spaghetti. As it was getting dark, I thought Finau and Talanoa would appreciate having dinner ready when they got back. We did actually have a single light in our fale, but no light in the kitchen. P joined me two minutes later with the news that our hosts were sailing away in the boat. Not sure if they would be back tonight, we began to prepare camp for night, checking the lights, finding a flash light and trying to start a fire. 

Ten minutes later, spaghetti was ready and Finau was walking down the beach toward camp. She returned with the news that Talanoa was going to take the boat back to Pangai for the night where it could be sheltered in the harbor. She was pleased to hear that dinner was ready and the three of us sat down to dinner and had a great chat. Finau explained the origin of the traditional Tongan kava drink and how it is used to welcome visitors. We never got to try any, but it was good to hear the stories that had been passed down from ancestors. 

Finau and me standing at camp, flooded toilets to the left

The next morning the sea was still rough, so Talanoa brought the kayak over from Pangai (too rough to anchor the boat at sea) and joined us to finish the clean up of the first fale and to pack up camp and get everything secured. Unfortunately, as high tide washed in, it got closer and closer to camp. Finau said that they used to have lots of beach before the cyclone, but that it had all been washed away in the storm. I'm not sure if it was wishful thinking or reality, but we all kept hoping that the surf was bringing some of the beach back, bit by bit. Looking at camp, you wouldn't think so though. First the sea water seeped into the fresh water supply (or what little was left of it after the rain water collection system had been destroyed by the cyclone).

View from the side of camp, tide threatening the still standing structures

With each wave, the water got closer to the kitchen and our piles of recycled wood. We scrambled to move everything back even farther and blocked the kitchen and fale doors with plywood, what little good that did I'm not sure. It was truly distressing to see the camp slowly flood with water, even if it was only part of it. I suppose the silver lining of this scenario is that a lot of the debris got pushed back into the bush where it could potentially be more easily burned later. I was impressed at how calm Finau and Talanoa remained. I guess you can get used to disaster.

Room with a view- emergency toilet after flood receded

You may remember the emergency toilet from earlier in my blog, well here's the emergency to use it. The toilet with a door had a better floor and walls and therefore held the water better, so it was flooded up to the rim and toilet seat. The emergency toilet was only flooded to my ankles. Since I wasn't sure how long the flood would last and knew we had a long walk and kayak ride ahead of us, I decided to go for the emergency toilet. The beauty of staying on a mostly deserted island is that you can use a toilet with no door and not have to worry. It was the most scenic bathroom I've ever used!

We had to wait for low tide before we could head back to Pangai. Paul and I were to kayak back with all the bags while Finau and Talanoa walked/swam across the sandbar.


Eventually, the flood receded with low tide and nothing was permanently more damaged than before except for the fresh water supply. Hopefully the next high tide doesn't come so close!

Walking to Pangai

With the arrival of low tide, we started the 30 minute walk to the tip of the island (the part closest to Pangai). I was glad for the cloud cover- it was still a hot walk even with the sun hiding behind the clouds. It felt good to wade through the water and cool down my feet a bit, something we had to do on occasion to get around the tree line!

Talanoa and I arrived at the kayak first, followed shortly by P who had stopped to take a few photos. Finau wasn't too far behind. Thankfully, Talanoa carried my bag or I would've been far behind Finau. We were all tired so took a brief break and enjoyed the view of the small channel between the two islands before packing the bags into and onto the kayak.

Kayaking from Uoleva to Lifuka

Soon everything was loaded up and it was time to set off to Pangai, Lifuka. P took the front and I steered from the back. Naturally, we arrived much before Talanoa and Finau, even with our slow pace and 'sightseeing' for fish on the way. Walking through water is not fast.

We weren't sure where the road was, so just pulled the kayak up onto the shore and waited for our hosts to join us. Talanoa guided the kayak through the shallow waters while the rest of us walked around the 50m or so to the road. Within two minutes, Talanoa's brother-in-law arrived with their van to pick us up. We all piled in with the kayak hanging out the back and drove to town. We have definitely had some eventful modes of transport on this trip.

Guiding the kayak through low tide

The drive back to Pangai

Mission: Clean Up

Camp overview

Makeshift kitchen using the walls of the former house

 Now that we've finally arrived on Uoleva and settled in a bit, we can get to work. It was hard to know where to start and it seems it's a constant battle against nature. Finau and Talanoa had planted some baby coconut trees and put some bedding in a lean-to to keep it dry, but the sea had washed the trees away and seeped into the lean-to making wet all the things that had survived the cyclone. The kitchen was completely destroyed, all that remained was a concrete slab full of debris. Their parents house had fallen apart and everything blown or floated everywhere. Since the cyclone, they had reassembled the walls of the house to act as a temporary shelter and kitchen, but it still had some holes in the roof and a lot of work to be done.

Drying mattresses

While P and Talanoa worked on drying out all the mattresses, mats and blankets, Finau and I filled at least 8 wheel barrow trips full of rubbish to take to the burn pile at the very back of camp. I managed to salvage a coconut bowl, some clothes pins, a gum boot (still looking for it's mate though) and a few other things. I had to throw away books, playing cards, games, broken glass, cups, shoes and much more. It was really sad, and I didn't even have a clue what it was like before the cyclone. I can't imagine how the clean up would be if it were your own home.

Lean-to and concrete slab of former kitchen (day two, after clean up efforts on day one)

After a short coconut drink break, we teamed up to start sorting through the first of five collapsed fales. It seemed like it wouldn't take long to move the debris to the burn pile and salvage anything we could, but everything was tangled or buried in sand. It took all our energy for 3 days to sort through this pile. We moved the in-tact wood to the back of camp in hopes that high tide wouldn't wash it away and sorted it by type. Timber is expensive, so they wanted to salvage anything they could. We carted the leaf roof to the back and added it to the top of the bonfire, to double as a mosquito repellant and a clean up aid. It looked as though we weren't going to manage, but by the end of the last day, we finally found the sand and had completely cleaned up one fale. And we even managed to save a hammock and some mats too!

BEFORE: A collapsed Fale to sort through and clean up

AFTER: The Fale cleaned up after 3 days of teamwork

  

Our piles of reusable wood

Final Destination: Uoleva

 Home Sweet Home! At last we made it to our destination, Uoleva. What a journey to get here! It was a welcome sight to see that we had a beautiful, if a bit repaired, fale to stay in. Finau had brought a brand new mosquito net and she and Talanoa put it up for us to protect us from the little buggers. This was one of two fales that had already been repaired from Cyclone Ian and it housed us well. As I discovered when we were cleaning up on the last day, you really and truly can "sweep it under the rug" in Uoleva as the floor is just a series of straw mats. If you lift one up, you can sweep all the sand underneath to meet up with it's fellow sand where it belongs. No official floor here. Before the cyclone there had been hammocks in front of every fale, but thos had been blown away, buried or ruined. The few remaining hammocks were hung at the front of camp. We did have a table and chairs and managed to rig up a clothes line. We also even had a line inside with some hangars on it to act as a 'closet' of sorts. Already much more than I was expecting.

After dropping our bags in the fale, Finau gave us a tour of the camp. We were shown the toilets and I was pleasantly surprised, but at the same time a bit disappointed, to see that they were real flush toilets. I was kind of looking forward to the rustic camping experience with no electricity and long drop toilets. There was one shower and two toilets- one with a door and one without, for emergencies. I didn't realize at the time that such an emergency could arise where the second toilet would be needed.

We did a bit of work on this first day, but I'll get to that later. We also managed to relax and enjoy the little slice of paradise we had found ourselves in. You had to look past the debris, but it truly is a beautiful part of the world.

They say a picture is worth 1000 words, so I think once again I'll let the photos speak for themselves. I'll just say that it was wonderful to bask in the sun and listen to the sound of the waves on the shore (sometimes even beneath your bum!) and relax! There is nothing else to do.

A pretty bird

First sunset on Uoleva

Bent and broken trees

Aah, this is the life

A fascinating critter- I think this entertained P longer than anything

High tide

Cruising at low tide

I was expecting to get in a much bigger boat with a proper steering wheel, but don't ask me why. This one makes much more sense with the rest of the trip and fits in with the surroundings. It's not a far journey to Uoleva, heck you can walk there at low tide if you pick the right route. In our little boat it took about 30 minutes and one final wave which washed us onto shore and unfortunately soaked P's camera. Luckily, we had brought mine as the underwater camera, so it became our last remaining camera for the rest of the trip.

Inconsiderate Tourists

The guest house we stayed at was lovely, and even included breakfast the next morning. As it is pretty much the only operating guest house in town, we met lots of people coming in and out, including the judge of Tonga! He was actually on our flight. There is no judge living in Ha'apai so he flies over every couple months to sit all the cases that have accumulated. We also met a few people surveying buildings after the cyclone, and others who were just family or friends of people on the island. According to the Polish cafe owner, we were only the second tourists she'd seen since Cyclone Ian. The first couple didn't even know that the islands had been hit by a cyclone before they arrived! Lesson to all- do your research right before you travel. You never know what could have changed since you booked everything.

In any case, we were enjoying the time to relax and snorkel, but were starting to feel a bit in the way. We had arranged with Finau to leave at low tide which wasn't until 2pm. However, we had to vacate our room earlier to make room for then next guest. All the people we had met the day before kept asking if we were still going to Uoleva. They seemed skeptical and to be wondering why we were still sticking around. We had tried to explain that we were coming to help out, not just vacation, but to be fair we hadn't done much yet (except deliver two boxes of much appreciated food). We went for another swim in the morning to get out of the way and enjoy our last hours of freedom/boredom before heading to Uoleva to get to work. :)

Ha'apai at last

It was still dark when we drove to the airport on Monday morning and we were the first to check in for our domestic flight to Ha'apai. The attendant took our passports and handwrote our boarding passes as another attendant weighed our bags. We had the two 20kg boxes of food donations, plus our own travel bags 5kg each. After weighing our bags, we ourselves had to step on the scale! I thought it was a joke at first, but when I saw the plane I understood why. They didn't hassle us about our weight at all, even though I also had my purse in addition to my 5kg overnight bag. Technically I wasn't allowed a personal item, but after looking around at the locals I decided that me and all my bags (even the 20kg donation box) still weighed less than most of them. 

 

We sat down across from the check-in counter and waited until they were ready to board our flight. When it was time, they simply opened the doors and we stepped out onto the tarmac and climbed into the plane, taking our seats right behind the open cockpit. No security, no prohibitions on liquids, overall a very relaxed (and pleasant) flight. Much smoother and quieter than I was expecting, especially with such a small plane.

When we landed in Ha'apai, we couldn't find our bags at the pick up counter. One of the other passengers on our flight had already picked up their bags and hopped in their car and were on their merry way, but there were a few other passengers waiting near the counter as well. P took our baggage claim tickets to the counter and they took the tickets and walked away with no explanation. Finally, another passenger asked if we were waiting for bags too and explained that some of the bags had been put on the next flight. Apparently they had been warned of this back at the mainland, but we were told nothing! 

Our hosts Finau and Talanoa arrived to take us into town and we explained the situation with the bags. They explained that the sea was too rough, so we'd have to wait until tomorrow to go to their place on Uoleva where we were meant to be staying and helping clean-up/rebuild. They dropped us off at the guest house in town and arranged to pick us up again to collect our bags, which went off without a hitch. We left the bags with them as that was their intended purpose and Finau was very grateful for the help. 

Since we weren't leaving until the next day for island clean up, we had plenty of time to relax. Luckily there was a cafe right beneath the guest house, so we ordered some lunch and chatted with the Polish lady who owns it. She directed us to a beach on the opposite side of the island that might be a bit calmer than the seas on our side/in the direction of Uoleva. We waited until after high noon in hopes that it might cool down a bit and then gathered up our snorkels and suits and headed to the beach. It took less than the 20 minutes we were expecting and we arrived to find our own private beach, with beautiful low tide and calm seas. It was a beautiful sand that felt heavenly between my toes, but the sea was full of coral and plenty of fish! We tested out our brand new underwater camera case and managed to snap a few good shots of tropical, colourful fish- the kind I'd been missing in New Zealand's colder waters. Oh, and did I mention the water was warm? It felt like a bath! What a beautiful way to spend the afternoon.

 

We headed back into town and took a welcome and refreshing cold shower. Then we grabbed some beer and cookies from the local China shop and watched the sunset from the wharf. Not having much else to do, we crawled into bed soon after the stars came out and untied our mosquito net to let it fall over the bed- did Erin explain any tricks for using these in her blog? It seemed to get in the way of my head unless I stayed toward the middle of the bed (if you know me, I move around a lot in my sleep) and I wasn't confident that I had sealed all the gaps along the bottom and imagined swarms of mosquitoes flying up into my net in the middle of the night. I was pleased to wake up in the morning with no noticeable bites.