A Week Aboard S/V Sabado: 6/15/2025 – 6/22/2025 

Happy Sunday, folks! Watch our latest YouTube video here. 🙂 Enjoy this weekly recap:

Last Sunday was Father’s Day, and it would be crazy not to acknowledge the essential role my dad played in my life! I used to be so shy— I couldn’t even speak to a server at a restaurant; it was nearly debilitating, but my dad never gave up on me. Throughout the years, he enthusiastically embraced every dream and wild idea I had. He taught me that nothing is that scary because, if it didn’t work out, I’d still have him in my corner, no matter what. My dad taught me to be brave, and man, is that an incredibly handy life skill! I would not have the joy-filled and exciting life I have now if it weren’t for my dad. He’s also resilient, hilarious, smart, and has excellent taste in wine. I really hit the jackpot. I love you, Dad! Can’t wait to see you in New Zealand! 

Sundays are a day of rest here in Tonga. So, we lay low. I organized my video files and made some delicious sourdough naan while we listened to the church bells ring throughout the mooring field. We took the dinghy to shore on Monday to complete our domestic clearance. This is an annoying formality, but we found the process relatively painless. There was no line, paperwork, or additional fees. We handed over the form we received when we checked out of Niuatoputapu, and they checked our passports. It took us longer to find their office than to check in. Afterwards, we strolled through town. 

We stopped at a coffee shop, a small chandlery, and popped into the various general stores that lined the main street. They carried a hodgepodge of stuff, and we had fun poking around. Like most islands we’ve sailed to, we noticed a strong Chinese presence here. Many shops and passing taxis were marked as Chinese-owned and operated. I read that in the 80s and 90s, Tonga allowed foreign nationals to apply for residency based on business investments. This, in combination with a lack of immigration enforcement, became the pathway for many Chinese migrants to relocate. Once they set up shop here, they could sponsor other Chinese migrants to establish residency and import goods directly from China, allowing them to set their prices at a rate local shops could not compete with. The locals seem to have mixed feelings about this: on one hand, there is resentment toward these shops for dominating over local businesses, but on the other hand, there is value in these stores carrying goods that local shops cannot source, and being open longer hours than those that follow Tongan cultural customs. We saw this in French Polynesia as well. In the Caribbean, we saw hospitals, airports, and main roads/street lights built and maintained by Chinese migrants. It’s an interesting dynamic; we support local shops whenever possible. We visited an outdoor market and purchased some fresh fruits and vegetables at a fraction of the price we’d grown used to in French Polynesia.

We had a fun date night at Mango Cafe, the waterfront restaurant overlooking the mooring field. The owner is super friendly and really goes out of his way to help sailors. He told us we could drop off our laundry and empty propane tank, and he’d have it taken care of— a massive weight off our shoulders. I had a BBQ chicken plate, and Ray had a burger with bacon, cheese, and a sunny-side-up egg for dinner. We drove the dinghy home in the dark and were surprised to see thousands of jellyfish in the bay!

I learned that this is called a jellyfish bloom, which occurs when warmer waters and excess nutrients cause dormant polyps to suddenly produce large numbers of jellyfish. Although it was spectacular to witness, there can be negative environmental implications, like disrupting marine food chains and clogging intakes for cooling systems in power plants/desalination facilities (and boat generators/ACs/watermakers). They were still around come morning. 

We returned to Mango Cafe to pick up our laundry and propane tank, then walked to the deli to pick up our meat order. Finding good quality, responsibly packaged meat in the islands can be difficult, so we were excited to see the local deli offer house-made sausages, frozen minced beef, chicken thighs, etc. We placed a large order through WhatsApp to restock our freezer, since it’s been about a month since we’ve grocery shopped. Unfortunately, when we went to pay, an island-wide network outage shut down all the ATMs! I felt so guilty; our order took up a large chunk of the small shop’s storage space. I assured the owner we would pick it up as soon as Digicel was back up and running, and if that took several days, she was welcome to sell our order off to walk-in customers. She said she didn’t care about the payment timeline or storage space; she only cared about us having what we needed! She encouraged us to visit her husband’s restaurant if we were hungry; he could hold our tab until cash was flowing again. I assured her we weren’t going to starve, and there wasn’t a weather window in sight for us to leave, so we weren’t in a rush to reprovision. Everyone here is so caring! Luckily, the ATMs were back up and running that night, and we picked up our order the next day.

A storm rolled through on Friday morning. I sat in the cockpit, watching as the raindrops fell, sending faint ripples across the water, lit by the low morning sun. A rainbow appeared off our port side. I sipped my coffee while Ray played Jack Johnson over the speakers. Slow, calm mornings like this are my favorite. 

Ray changed the oil in our engines, and I cleaned the interior. It’s starting to get a bit chilly, so we dug out our jackets and did what we could to revive the corroded zippers. We ended up at happy hour with 10+ other sailors, which turned into cheesecake for dinner and learning the frog dance from a Swedish gal to celebrate Midsummer Day. Life is good here in Tonga! 

We hope you had a great week. ❤️