Lastest Update from Carina and Tim at the Tonga Trench

Our Sailing Passage From New Zealand To Tonga

Yes, we are back in Tonga. We went to New Zealand on the 11th of May 2009 to buy a sail boat for our whale and dolphin research project. We have traveled through the whole country, from Auckland to Bluff and back to Auckland to eventually find the right one in Napier, Bay of Plenty. It took us three months to turn "Mawingo“ from a pleasure craft into a research vessel.

We did a lot of maintenance work and added heaps of equipment. "Mawingo“ is a strong, ocean going, 35foot steel sloop, was built in the 80's in a back yard and is still in good condition.

On the 22nd of October we finally set sails towards Tonga. Since Tim and me have not done much sailing before, we decided to sail the passage with a skipper, who would leave us in Tonga.

The weather forecast was good, 1 to 2m swell for the next days, and of course wrong.

Approaching and passing East Cape we experienced cross seas with 4 to 5m swell. An interesting environment to learn how to sail. However we recognized fast how strong our boat is and how much faith we can have in it. It was a good school since south Tongan seas can be pretty much the same.

After three days the sea got calmer and we started to relax and enjoy. Twice we found baby squids on the boat in the morning, already dried by the sun. After three days in a flat sea we passed a front and experienced again 4 to 5m swell, but at least only from one direction. One big wave hit us from port side and rolled over the whole deck. Tim and me, sitting in the cockpit, found ourselves half way under the tiller, our skipper, Greg, sitting on the toilet had a shower caused by water entering the boat through a durade (ventilation opening). It was an exciting day.

After twelve days all together we safely arrived in Nuku'alofa, the capital of Tonga. It felt so different than entering the country by plain. We first saw 'Eua island, which is the island where we live on, then Kalau. Both islands came closer and closer during the last day and when we arrived in Nuku'alofa it was already dark. We anchored out of the harbor opposite to Vuna Road and felt like coming home.

The passage took a bit longer than we had expected since we had to tack almost all the way and had only very little wind at all during the last four days. However, all these different conditions we have experienced taught us a lot about sailing and the harsh oceanic environment which we are going to research. But the passage has also proven that our plans are realistic and that we like like sailing even more than we thought.

What have we done last week? 15/12/08

During the last three days of the week we got alot rain. So we decided to take the ferry to main island Tongatapu where more than 20 parcels with research equipment were waiting for us in the Nuku'alofa post office. The challenge in this issue was to convince the Tongan government that we are doing research for a non-profit organization, the Institute for Polar Ecology at Kiel University in Germany, to get around the duty and consumption tax. This is important for us since we don't have any funding yet and therefore finance everything from our private money which is quite limited.

After weeks of fighting for that we finally succeeded on Friday. When we saw the parcels we realized that some of them were damaged. It would have been easy to take things out of it but obviously nobody did. We were impressed by this since many Tongan people do not have much money and we are absolutely sure that in many other countries half of our equipment would have been stolen. Many thanks to the Tongan post and customs service.Last but not least we wrote two new webpages which will be available soon.

What have we done last week? 10/12/08

We saw dolphins every day: pantropical spotted dolphins on Wednesday and spinner dolphins on Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday the spinner dolphins were close enough to get some good identification pictures of the dorsal fins (fin on the back) there were plenty animals. With these pictures we are able to distinguish between different individuals since the shape of the dorsal fin varies a lot between the animals. This gives us the possibility to find out if we always observe the same individuals or if group composition changes.

Unfortunately there are scars caused by fishing nets on a high proportion of the spinner dolphins which we have seen. These scars are used for individual identification of the animals, too.

On Saturday we saw the same spinner dolphin group socializing and foraging at different times of the day. Additionally another single humpback whale was seen by the manager of the Hideaway Resort, last week. Of course we are also still working on our webpage where you will find information about humpback whales and blue whales soon.

This week we were not only successful with the research but also with organizing our food. Imagine there is not as much food choice on Eua as e.g. in New Zealand, Australia, Europe, Canada or the U.S. There is one single kind of cheese, milk, ketchup, flour, sugar, salt, yeast, rice and noodles, one kind of oil, two kinds of vingar, onion, carrot, tomato, some root vegetables like jam, kumara and taro, bananas for cooking, cabbage, cucumber, beans, bread, fish, there are eggs, some cookies, coconuts and lots of fruits which is great. But we are always happy when we find something which we do not have every day. This week we got a whole basket full of corn and have already started enjoying it.

What have we done last week? 01/12/08

Since there were strong winds blowing from east in the beginning of the week all the nutrition's and food obviously gathered at the west coast of the island.

On Tuesday and Wednesday we saw lots of brown boobies fishing in the morning. When it became midday a big pod of spinner dolphins appeared and started foraging, too. When the animals came closer we realized there are not only spinner dolphins but also pantropical spotted dolphins in the school.

All these dolphins stayed for almost three hours which means we got lots of data about their foraging behavior. In the evening the pantropical spotted dolphins showed up again but disappeared as fast as they came.

On Wednesday we observed both dolphin species again. Additionally,humpback whales were around Eua on both days which we have not expected at the end of November. Humpback whales spend the winter in tropical and subtropical regions to give birth and to mate. Since the cold polar waters are rich of food in August they start moving towards Antarctica. These two days were really exciting for us.

In the evening we put all the new data into the computer, So if realize we have forgotten to protocol something or did a mistake we are able to correct it.

During the other three days we worked on a new web page which will appear soon.

What we also do when we are not standing on an observation platform is the maintenance of our research equipment. We cleaned the camera, got the bikes ready, solved some computer problems and fixed our hats.

What have we done last week? 24/11/08

At the moment we are facing the beginning of the raining season. Strong rain fall and wind influence our work, mainly the observation work. However we had four days of field work which means we stood on the observation platform of the Hideaway Resort in 'Eua and scanned the water surface for whales and dolphins.

We saw spinner dolphins in pods of up to 20 animals and we saw pantropical spotted dolphins. Each time we see a dolphin or whale we record which species it is, how many animals there are, what they do at which time, to which direction they swim, how far they are away and we use a compass to measure the angle to the dolphins. So we have to be very quick because we record all these things each time the dolphins come to the surface.

If we are not at the platform and people in the Hideaway spot a whale or a dolphin, they ring us and we come down as fast as possible. That was the case on Saturday. One of the guests saw four dolphins. Unfortunately when we arrived in the Hideaway they were already far away. We saw them jumping, we knew to which direction they swam but we could not identify the species.

The other two days we worked on the web pages. You probably have already found the new information about biology and anatomy of the cetacea (whales, dolphins, porpoises). We hope you like it.

Well, since we live in a remote place we also face other challenges than the weather. Our bikes got punctures one week ago. It was not a big deal to repair them because we bought plenty patches and glue on the main island some weeks, ago. But our pump doesn't work anymore. The damn seal is corroded and we need our bikes to go around the island, to reach the different observation points and to do the shopping. In 'Eua not many people have bikes and even less have pumps for them.

Additionally there is no equipment for bikes available for sale on the island. Luckily the Hideaway Resort have a compressor, so we can pump up our bikes today. Walking takes a lot of time which we could better use for our research.