Dreams at Lisa's Beach
A small island in a remote part of the South Pacific delivers dreams I've never had before.
I have been sailing around Vava’u, Tonga for months. Long after most of the cruisers arrived then zipped away for New Zealand, Fiji or Australia, I remain exploring the more than 50 little islands making up the Vava’u island group.
Originally, I wasn’t even going to sail to Vava’u, but a friend convinced me to sail the 200 miles south from the little island of Niuatoputapu, which required tolerance for the confused seas, squally weather and occasional lightening.
The passage was challenging as expected. The moon is just rising as I finally arrive on the outskirts of Vava’u, her white cliffs and mounded islands casting a chiaroscuro of light footnoting the dreamy drama of this place.
Normally, I would never enter an unknown island pass in the lulling darkness, but I am frantic to get out of the weather and the punishing swells.
A friend moored securely at the main town of Neiafu guides me in through the thick darkness over the VHF. The pass is broad and I sail between steep cliffs into protected waters, the sea soothed to a shiny, flat surface. What a relief!
Two hours later I’m tied up to a dock in Neiafu, the midnight hour marking my cheer and exhaustion. I immediately crawl into my bunk and fall in a deep sleep—safe, secure and drained from the sail.
The next morning I wake up, walk into my cockpit and take stock. I’m surrounded by a huge bay with sailboats bobbing on their moorings, the smell of coffee wafting over the dock and the sun warming my face. I’m immediately charmed by the place.
Last night as I made my way into the bay, the owner of a the restaurant Mangos welcomed me to tie up to his dock, eliminating my need to blindly sail through the bay looking for an open mooring. My gratitude for this small gesture is immense and I quickly throw on my shorts and a t-shirt to go and thank him.
He invites me to have breakfast and while I scarf down a full meal of eggs and toast and coffee and fruit —solid food I hadn’t had in days— his gentle voice tells me to not worry about docking fees. Just rest. This former Tongan airline pilot runs this restaurant, doting on his cat ‘Big Red’ and even months later his soothing deep voice always offers some form of comfort either in a meal or a simple beer.
I suppose this kindness and ease is the seductive component which drove me to stay in Vava’u, long past most people who sail here, and make a short stay. The sailing around Vava’u’s island is superb -all the heavy ocean swells are blocked by the coral reefs, creating champagne sailing conditions. Each island holds a mystery and I never get bored finding a new place to drop the hook.
After a few months, I had my favorites islands and I gravitated to them over and over. One had a sweeping sandy beach—the quintessential South Pacific image of soft palm trees and coconuts rimming a brilliant blue shore. Other anchorages sport coral bommies, large mounds supporting all kinds of fish, sea creatures and vibrant coral resting in brilliant turquoise waters.
But my favorite was Lisa’s Beach, or Pangiomotu as the locals call it. To get to this little spot, I have to sail between a coral choke point (as I call it) navigating carefully through a narrow area marked with islands on one side, and sharp coral on the other, then sail up a channel, avoiding another coral shelf as I head into the bay.
The bay itself is small, almost womb-like, anchored by towering jungle cliffs, with a little dilapidated house sitting at the waterline holding court at the head of the little bay. I learn later that an old man lived there before a cyclone ripped his home apart and his daughter is named ‘Lisa’. Now just the structure and her name remains, not picturesque, but a strong reminder of the bite the winds have on this place.
The water here is a captivating green/blue, with a clarity down 20-30 feet below. Often while anchored there I could see huge starfish, Trevally kicking up huge hunting splashes and needle nose fish slicing through the waters with an occasionally a turtle lifting its head to look at me. My favorite little creatures are the cuttlefish. They roam the bay in a stretched-out line, never really grouping up like a typical school of fish.
When I snorkel the cuttlefish often come up to me, their curiosity mesmerizing, their skins dark—the exact color of my wetsuit. They ogle me like curious children wearing coke-bottle glasses. They come close to me, then back off. If another fish enters their investigation they immediately turn the color of the water and disappear!
I swim back and forth across the bay looking for them. One time, a little baby cuttlefish followed me back to my boat and paddled at my swim step, peering up with its goggly eyes, staying there even hours after I had climbed on board.
I was in love!
But the cuttlefish, amazing water and absolute protection from high winds wasn’t the only thing about Lisa’s Beach that had my attention—it was also the only place in Vava’u I had deep and ongoing dreams at night.
Often I would dream about an old lover—we would be drinking an espresso in Rome or be meeting up in Morocco, him approaching me in a cerulean blue smock with unbelievable embroidery. I had dreams of sea creatures reaching up to me in gestures of kindness and dreams of me flying through steep canyons in a plaid shirt. Always the dreams are unforgettable and I remember them with such clarity even weeks later. I have never dreamt like this anywhere else.
And so I would find myself coming back to Lisa’s Beach often, seeking the unknown dream, the adorable cuttlefish and relaxing as I know no matter how hard the prevailing SE winds blow, I am safe.
One day I head to a little beach on the north shore of Lisa’s Beach. I drag my dingy up onto the sand and prepare to hike a trail which will take me to a road where I can hitch a ride into Neiafu for some necessary provisioning.
I start to bushwhack toward the trail when my eye catches something. There, tucked in among the dried up leaves of the jungle is a little puppy, not more than a month old. Curled around itself, she appears barely alive, her fur scarcely there and her skin crawling with fleas. I pull out my water and try to give her some. She drinks cautiously, trying to escape me in her weakened state.
I couldn’t just leave her here. She would most certainly die.
I haul my dinghy back into the water and head back to my boat and grab food, more water and some medicated soap to wash her. If I could nurse her back to health, I know a local who would take her.
Back to the beach I go. I feed her softly cooked eggs and water. She eats voraciously and lets me touch her. I bathe her and wrap her in my shirt. I put her in my dingy and she lays there, anemic, shivering and never taking her eyes off of me.
But like a good sport, she arrives in my cockpit, curls up in my shirt and sleeps. I hover over her, watching her and clean up her mess when she vomits then releases a diarrhea of whatever else she has inside of her. She is sick and weak.
I spend the rest of the day nursing her. I keep her wrapped in my soft shirt and hold her in my arms. She nuzzles her nose into the corner of my elbow and sleeps for hours.
The bats hovering in the trees take flight as the sun sets. I continue to nurse her, feed her, water her. She’s not interested now in food and her breathing is labored. Perhaps I am too late, I think. But regardless, I stay in the cockpit with her. She no longer wants to be in my arms, but curls up in the corner of the cockpit.
The moon rises and casts a blue light across the bay. It’s so very quiet now. Her mottled skin reflects the light across the curve of her spine. She has crawled out of my shirt, seeking the open, warm air.
All of a sudden she yips twice and bares her teeth. Is she dreaming? I look at her in alarm. Saliva runs from her mouth and her body stiffens. She’s dying. Her breath is very shallow, heaves and then stops. I touch her, talk to her. But she is gone.
This sweet little puppy, somehow abandoned, found again and then now lifts off into a death that most likely would have happened anyways. At least she wasn’t alone, I said aloud to comfort myself.
Heartbroken, I wrap her up again in my shirt, her body already growing stiff. I place her gently in a nest in an open bag. I’ll have to bury her in the morning.
I head to my bunk and fall into a deep sleep.
I dream she is in my cockpit, a full formed puppy at least three months old, sitting there waiting for me, her tail wagging. The dream lasts a long time. I watch her watch me, her tail wagging, patiently waiting for me to come up from inside my boat and join her in the cockpit. In the dream I run up the companionway stairs and as I reach the cockpit she disappears.
The next morning I wake early and check to see if I was dreaming she died.
She was dead.
I place her in my dinghy and head around the point to bury her—although I couldn’t bring myself to dig a hole. I survey the high cliff walls of the shoreline. My eye catches on a coral ledge running north and south along the cliffs, offering up a protective shelf.
I paddle over and take a closer look. The coral shelf opens up into a small cavern, rimmed on top with lava formations looking like dripping pearls. The ledge forms a lip, with the bottom of the shelf dropping a bit like a curved arm.
It was perfect. I lift her body up onto the shelf. I notice her mouth no longer shows her bared teeth, and is relaxed as though she is sleeping. Her body is stiff but a lob of her head is noticeable when I pick her up. I gently place her inside the cavern, my shirt tucked around her.
Rest easy, little one.
I paddle away, not really sad, but melancholy. Feeling like this is still a dream or dream within a dream—a hazy story to remember like a dream, coming in and out of focus. A coffee in Rome, a cerulean blue tunic, adorable cuttle fish with coke-bottle glasses and a dead puppy wrapped in my favorite soft shirt, gracing a coral shelf for all eternity.
I’ve sailed to Lisa’s Beach many times after that. Occasionally I would paddle over and examine the coral shelf for her body, but she is no longer there. Likely crabs or birds got to her.
I still dream vividly when anchored at Lisa’s Beach. Unpredictable dreams ferrying me into strange worlds equaling the strange worlds I find myself already in.
Sometimes a local I’ve made friends with will come down to the dilapidated house from her farm up on the cliffs and give me watermelon she grows in her garden. Sometimes she’ll edge herself halfway down the steep jungle covered cliffs and call to me, asking in Tongan how I am.
I answer her in the little Tongan I know; “Sai pē,” I shout back. “Sai pē, fefė?” I’m well, how are you?
She always laughs at my Tongan and I can hear her machete strike the jungle as she makes her way back to the top of the cliff.
I am often now the only boat here, anchored in a small bay in a group of islands surrounded by coral barely making a dot on a map in the South Pacific Ocean.
This is the dream of the dreams I still seem to have here—sailing by myself, anchoring in spots most people never see, always feeling like I’m dreaming and living this dream of where I’m supposed to be.
Beautiful, heartbreaking, and inspiring. <hugs>
Wonderful.