TONGAN TERROR
by Cpt Sean Blaise
Working at any job, for a prolonged period of time one can develop complacency. Like a metastasizing cancer, it grows slowly deep inside until ultimately, an event happens, a close call perhaps, that makes you aware of it. Unlike cancer, thank God, you can change complacency.
I remember one such close call, while I was delivering a 157’ motor yacht between Fiji and Tahiti. We had just had a brutal passage from Fiji to the Island of Tonga in the South Pacific. The yacht was basically way out of its league in this huge blue water, and going the wrong way against the seas as we were traveling from west to east. We were averaging about 15 foot swells, with a just short enough period that we were able to substantially bury the bow on pretty much every wave. I remember lying down in my bunk, watching my stomach rising and falling as the yacht flexed beneath us and wondering if we were going to make it without breaking apart. I would, in all honesty, have given anything for a 50 ft steel sailboat at that point!
Well when we arrived in Tonga, we were relieved to say the least, and we need some R &R before the next passage to Tahiti, which promised to be rougher still and longer at around 5 days. We went to the local bar, “Tonga Bob’s” I think it was, and we had some cocktails while listening to Jack Johnson on the radio no less! We gave them a t-shirt of our yacht, since there were hundreds hanging on the walls, and we wanted to insert our little slice of posterity amongst our friends in the industry. Then we called our deckhand on watch and got a pick up in the yacht’s tender.
Once we got back to the boat, we noticed that the yacht next to us was having a party. They were playing loud music, and it just seemed like a really good time. So a couple of us got into the tender and drove over to visit. It was a really sweet Nordhaven 78’ motor yacht, that had just completed a journey of over 6000 miles directly from Hawaii! Now our celebration from our 3 day passage seemed a little inappropriate, but we forgave ourselves and partied along with our new friends anyway.
A couple hours later, more than a little inebriated, the drunk people decided in that infinite wisdom we all get after a few rum punches, that swimming in the crystal blue water would be a great idea. Before long we were all jumping in the water, and splashing around and having a grand old time.
I remember pulling myself up on the swim platform when I turned around to see an old native man rowing by in what looked like a dugout canoe. I turned and gave him a smile with the innocence of the blissfully numb, however, he looked quite grave. I was confused and he pulled his boat up alongside, and I thought he was going to complain about the music being too loud or something, when he said.
“No good, no swim here at night. Many sharks.”
I was no longer smiling and told the deckhand about to jump in the water to wait.
“Sharks?” I said.
“Many many sharks” he replied. “Just one week ago, a tourist tried to swim across this bay and she was eaten”
Now I took this with a grain of salt, as most local legends form, sometimes the accuracy is a little lacking .
“You have lights?” the old man queried pointing a bony bent finger downwards.
I turned to our new friends, and asked the yacht’s captain if he had underwater lights. He went inside to find them, while my deckhand was yelling for permission to jump. I told him no again, in a more stern voice having heard this story now.
And like that ray of sunshine that hits actors in the movies, the underwater lights exploded on over thirty sharks, swarming in a circle directly underneath the boat. Even the old man gasped as he looked down with a toothless grimace. 
“No swim.” he said again as he pushed his little boat away.
I remember sitting down heavily on that teak swim deck, and looking shocked at how close we had come to disaster. The sharks were no doubt attracted by the splashing and loud erratic heartbeats of us having a good time, and who knows if they ever would have attacked. But I sure am glad for that old man, smacking some sense into us.
