From Tonga, a quick and truly wonderful sail took us north from Tonga about 350nm to Uvea- Wallis Island. The sailing was as good as it gets, a beam reach in 15ish knots of wind with dead flat seas and reasonable temperatures for 3 days. We couldn’t go over 5.5 knots and still arrive in the daylight, it turns out that sailing slowly is very pleasant. We were on starboard tack as well for the first time since leaving home, which is Kuaka (and our) preferred tack. The reasonable temperature was left behind when we arrived at Wallis to flat calm and scorching sun.
Wallis is another French colonial possession in Polynesia, inhabited historically by relations of the Tongans and named after the first anglo explorer to sight its shores- Samuel Wallis on the British ship the Dolphin, a few years before Captain Cook (a few of the Dolphin crew signed on for Cook’s first voyage).
We came in through the pass just after first light as the wind died and were greeted by greenish blue clouds (reflections of the lagoon on the cloud bottoms) and idyllic desert islands. It looked like we should stumble on an episode of survivor.
The main town, Mata Utu, is a bit over an hour motor through a labyrinth of reefs up the lagoon. While referred to as a “high island,” that’s only relative to the atolls to the north. Picture Bora Bora but after Tane or Maui (Polynesian Gods) sat on it for a while. It has the same barrier reef and crenulated coast with motus (small islands) scattered around, but not quite so pointy as the Society Islands. It also has a similar history of French colonialism and US military presence during WW2, but no active war.
After our motor up the lagoon and requisite delicious post passage breakfast, we assembled the might MV Sea Tomato (our small red inflatable dinghy) and braved the ride into the pier. We were greeted by super friendly customs officials who summoned the national police to stamp our passports. They even let us do the paperwork in their air-conditioned office. To say that it was sweltering is an understatement. It was truly brain fryingly hot, although after Kiribati, we wonder if we would still find it quite so desperate?
The island has numerous huge churches, the largest that we’ve seen anywhere in the Pacific. It also has some of the friendliest people, nicest anchoring, and by far the fewest cruising boats of anywhere we had been thus far.
After checking in and a brief explore we moved the boat at the request of the Police. It turns out that we were anchored in front of the King’s house and he likes his view kept clear. In the earlier picture of the pier you can just make out Kuaka and our friend Barry from Ma Kai anchored to the right of the palm trees.
We scooted over to a truly idyllic anchorage between two small islets about a mile from the main pier. This afforded us ample swimming (86 deg water), good beach exploring, and relatively secure anchoring.
Unfortunately we knew that our time on Uvea was limited due to the beginning of the southern hemisphere hurricane season. In fact we were already pushing it and wanted to get north as quickly as we comfortably could. So of course we did what any reasonable cruiser would do – headed to the air conditioned supermarket. On the way I saw this very cute fire hydrant. I can’t think of seeing a single other fire hydrant in Polynesia, other than maybe Papeete. That’s the kind of place that Uvea is – they have fire hydrants and we only encountered one mean dog!
Being a French possession (not the official term, but that’s pretty much how it feels), the grocery store of course has all of the normal French staples, like duck, brie, puff pastry, chanterelle mushrooms, a large selection of charcutterie, etc etc etc. We loaded up and a very nice French gendarme gave us a ride with our spoils back to the pier. It all survived a verifiable 1 nautical mile ocean crossing in the MV Sea Tomato back to Kuaka’s anchorage.
We spent another week exploring around the island, sweating, swimming, and generally enjoying things. This part of the Pacific has basically two lines of convergence zones (sort of like the doldrums but with big gnarly squalls, lots of rain, and more wind). We were waiting for the South Pacific Convergence Zone to move to the south of us, so in the meantime, while it was directly over us, it rained and rained. We went for a nice walk in the rain and encountered a garrison of French army folks training local Wallisians. This Tiki was watching them march back and forth, I thought that he looked amused.
Wallis / Uvea also has a large after school sailing program for kids, and very active outrigger canoe culture. Every evening there were kids sailing around and a wonderfully diverse group out canoeing. Our final day on the main island we treated ourselves to a French meal that we hoped would use up our remaining CPF (the currency of French Polynesia and Wallis and Futuna). It didn’t but we were so stuffed that the idea of eating more was less appealing than leaving the island with a few francs.
And then, just like that, it was time to keep rolling and flapping our way north. Out the pass we went and set sail for Kiribati. We had pushed our luck far enough with the southern pacific hurricane season, we had sweated thoroughly, we had found another cruising boat to trade our francs with, and as usual, we were a bit antsy just to get moving. We even thought that the South Pacific Convergence Zone was comfortably to the south of us. But more on that in the next exciting episode.
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