Tall Ship Soren Larsen Sailing adventure for all ages

Tall Ship Soren Larsen 2006 ~ South Pacific Sail Training Adventure for all ages

Tonga and Vava'u and downwind to Fiji
Nick Sambrooks describes a whale of a voyage.

Bula! (Hello/How you doing/Cheers/Thanks etc in Fijian)
So here we are, Fiji, home of kava, man skirts, resorts, op shops, Chinese and Indian shops, Fiji Bitter and lots of Fijian people.

This leg of the nautical mystery tour that is the Soren Larsen experience began when the new voyage crew joined the ship on Monday the 21st of August on a drizzly morning in Nuku'lofa, Tonga. The crew, freshly scrubbed (well some of them) and fully recovered from the last end of voyage party (a refined evenings spent drinking flaming sambuca shots) greeted their new ship mates with a bamboozling garble of commands, beer fines and nautical jargon. We like to call this training. Once the necessary formalitites where out of the way, the most important being lunch, the windlass was started, a deckhand was shoved into the locker below to flake the chain and the Soren Larsen parade was away.

Like a lazy humming bird, the ship fluttered between the northern islands of Tonga engaging in the royal pursuits of swimming, snorlkeling, whale watching and sight seeing. After visiting the island of Unonukuhahaki for an Australian traditional feast we proceeded to the island of Ha'ana which seemed to be run by pigs, chickens, dogs and horses. Luckily they were friendly animals and they let us escape without turning us into their slaves. We sailed onto the town of Neifu for a short stop to become slaves of a different master. Slaves to the shackles of civilization. Everyone enjoyed what the town had to offer thou, be that shopping, calling home, checking emails or a nice cold beer or shot of the local firewater, vanilla vodka.

We couldn't stay long thou because, as was once said, “in port ships rot and men go to the devil!”. I guess women would too, so we took off and headed to a place called Malo where a Tongan family invited us into their home for a traditional meal followed by traditional dancing. I'd just like to take the chance to thank all the succulent crabs, lobsters and other crustaceans who gave their lives so that we could enjoy ourselves. I thank you from the bottom of my belly.

Our time in Tonga was up so we sailed back to Neifu to refuel the vegetable locker and check out. Along the way we did a lot of sail handling and most of the crew got a chance to play captain during tacking maneuvers and got to yell out “Helms a lee!”. We think the purser was the loudest! Sailing into the town we encountered a few yachts, so to show them our naval supremacy we pelted them with a broadside of water balloons.

Then we were off to Fiji! The passage took 4 days which passed in the usual sea time regime of watch, eating, maintenance, reading, sleeping and on with the cycle again. The highlight of the trip was one evening where we sailed through a sea of floating pumice that had been spewed up from some local under water volcanic activity. Thou it was evening it was still quite a remarkable experience as it sounded like we were sailing through ice.

Not long later, there was Fiji. We came alongside and tied up to the wharf at Levuka and spent 2 days wandering round town and doing maintenance on the ship. Knowing Fiji had much more to offer than one town we sailed off the wharf in a display of seaman-show-off-ism in search of more adventures.

We found them on the island of Dravuni. The original plan was to stay for the day and leave that afternoon but after a relaxing day on the island walking, swimming and hanging out with the locals followed by a Kava ceremony we were enticed to stay. Luckily the Fijians put away their war clubs, stopping launching their boats over the bodies of virgins and drinking Kava out of their enemies skulls a long time ago. We stayed for a feast the following evening that took a bizarre twist and ended up turning into a council meeting of sorts. So we made ourselves scarce. A big thank you to the people of Dravuni for their hospitality.

Next on the list was the island of Beqa where the annual Soren Larsen/locals sporting extravaganza was to take place. It took a while to determine who was on who's team. The teams were mixed because we didn't really want to play skinny white fellas verses the locals as we all know what the outcome of that match would have been. Soccer and rugby were the games of choice, the field showing more resemblance to a lunar landscape than a sports field, but none the less good fun was had by all and congrats to those who managed to get through both matches uninjured. Being a friendly mob the locals invited us back to the village in the evening for a kava ceremony and some dancing. We tried to sing them a song but their stereo suddenly turned on by accident while we were half way through, mmm funny about that. Thank you also to the people of Beqa for their hospitality.