Coronation Week

Last week I travelled to Tonga’s capital, Nuku’alofa, to check out all of the festivities surrounding the coronation of King George Tupou V. I had a wonderful time and I will try and go over everything that happened, starting with the trip down.

Tuesday, July 29

I spent Tuesday morning packing and running around town buying my boat ticket and food for the boat trip. I decided to take the Olovaha, one of Tonga’s inter-island ferries/cargo ships, to save money. I was able to get a “Coronation Special” round trip ticket for 81 pa’anga (about $45 US). To fly round trip it would have cost me more than 300 pa’anga. Unfortunately it takes the Olovaha 22+ hours to make the trip while it takes the plane about an hour.

The boat is to leave at 5:30pm. I have all of my stuff packed and ready by 2:30pm and head to the Peace Corps office to meet another volunteer, Shannon, who will also be making the trip. About this time I get a call from my Peace Corps supervisor that the boat has not yet arrived and should make it to Vava’u around 8:30pm. It will take at least three hours to unload cargo from its previous stops and load new cargo that will go to Nuku’alofa so we are looking at an 11:30pm departure.

We sit at the office reading books until about 7pm when we decide to head down to the waterfront for dinner and to wait for the boat. I have a Hawaiian pizza and three Ikales. We sit and wait for the Olovaha.

Around 8:45pm I see lights coming into the harbor. It’s the Olovaha, even more beautiful than I remembered. I can’t wait to spend 22 hours rocking back and forth on such a wonderful ship. We wait another 30 minutes then head down to the wharf to get ready to leave.

The wharf is BUSY. There are people everywhere, some trying to get stuff off of the boat, others trying to make sure theirs gets on. There is more cargo than usual to put on the boat as people are sending stuff for the coronation. There are huge quantities of root crops as well as a lot of pigs. We meet up with Miles, another friend who will be making the trip and decide to go ahead and board the boat so we can find a good spot. This is about 11pm. We claim a few benches, get “comfortable”, and go to sleep.

Wednesday, July 30

I wake to the sound of the Olovaha’s diesel engine. I check my watch, it’s 3:30am. I peek out the window expecting to see nothing but ocean but instead see the same thing I saw four and a half hours earlier: the wharf. Everyone else is asleep and quite a few more people have crowded onto the boat. We finally set sail a few minutes later. I go back to sleep.

I get up around 10am and head to the top of the boat. I can see a few small islands in the distance. We are now entering the Ha’apai island group where we will be making our first stop. I look down and see dozens of Styrofoam instant noodle cups flying off the boat into the ocean. These are sold downstairs in the small falekaloa (store) that blared top 40 music all night. I see two humpback whales jumping around about 200 yards from the boat.

We pull into Pangai, Ha’apai’s largest town, around 11:30am. We should be here at least two or three hours so we decide to take turns watching our bags and getting off of the boat to stretch our legs.

Shannon and I go first and head to Pangai’s only restaurant, Mariner’s Café, where we run into Grant, a fellow volunteer from our group. Grant teaches English on one of Ha’apai’s outer islands and we haven’t seen him since our last trip to the capital in April. We have lunch and Grant tells us he will be flying down to Nuku’alofa later in the afternoon. He will beat us by at least 12 hours.

We head back to the boat so Miles can take his turn. We leave Pangai around 3pm loaded with even more people, pigs, and root crops. I decide to head up top on the deck where it’s cooler.

A couple of hours later we make our second stop at Ha’afeva. I had previously never heard of Ha’afeva until learning that we would be stopping there on our way to the capital. Ha’afeva is part of the Ha’apai island group but is even more isolated than the rest. I hear that a volunteer or two may be sent here from the new group arriving in October.

After spending an hour or so in Ha’afeva we depart. I chat with a Tongan guy who works for TCC, one of the local telephone companies. He just finished working in Ha’afeva working on their telephone services there. He tells me he enjoyed his visit but is ready to get back to Nuku’alofa where he can go out and drink beer.

After watching a beautiful sunset I head back downstairs and go back to sleep. This is at around 8pm. Not much else happens until around 2am when everyone starts shuffling around getting their things together. I look out the window and can see a few distant lights coming from Nuku’alofa. We’re almost there.

We are finally able to get off of the boat at 3:30am. We take a cab to the Peace Corps office where we immediately go back to sleep. It’s been nearly 30 hours since we first stepped onto the Olovaha.