[password] pilot25041
[position] 18 39.4s 173 59.0w
[status] Friday 14th September in Neiafu, Tonga on a cool, overcast and breezy morning.

So, on Tuesday at 4pm, Allan duly received our clearance paperwork, complete with additional crew member 'Michael' the dentist/health worker/ government employee details inserted and Michael would arrive at 8am in the morning! During the afternoon we had been speaking to the crew of Aloha a Catamaran registered in Hawaii; Jack & Nicole the crew had left Florida 2 1/2yrs ago and have just become engaged, anyway Dirk was invited to go night snorkelling with Jack to try and catch crayfish that live out on the reef. Around 19.30 when it was by now pitch dark, the intrepid duo set off ....... we'll be back within 2hrs ....... watching from Surreal we could occasionally see flashes of light out near the reef but nothing more, then 2hrs later the snorkelers returned, not the most successful expedition with only 1 large crab & no crayfish to show for their efforts ......... but Dirk clearly enjoyed this first nighttime snorkelling experience!

Wednesday morning we were getting ready to leave, when Michael was delivered to the boat, the gribs showed a good breeze from the NE until early afternoon when it would die, before filling in from the South and then going SE during the night, so not ideal winds for an almost due south passage but workable and the 165nm should be accomplished before nightfall on Thursday. Once out of the reef, we had full main & genoa, beam reaching at 8kts in almost ideal conditions, soon leaving Aloha in our wake as they had left an hour before and were also going to Vavau, but of course it isn't a race! Then around 13.30hrs the wind started to drop and we had to put the engines on to maintain momentum, the sea state varied between bouncy and fairly rough, resulting in Michael suffering from mal de mer, this was the first time he'd been on a sailing catamaran, and apart from occasionally visiting the stern rails spent the whole trip recumbent on the port side of the cockpit, wrapped in a bl
anket!

Michael didn't participate in dinner, but thought we were crazy sitting at the cockpit table eating dinner with the boat bouncing around, taking pictures to show his friends later, as the evening and night wore on the breeze certainly filled in and with gusts up to 28kts we put a deep reef into the main at 21.30, by now punching head first into the increasing waves and only making 3kts headway. This continued for a number of hours as we waited for the wind to back more to the SE, so we could get the genoa out and drive towards our destination, which was being hampered by our need to not go westwards to avoid shallow reefs that apparently kick the seas up significantly. At the 5am watch changeover we had 69nm to go to our waypoint outside the harbour entrance, which was looking like a daunting task before nightfall, however, the wind moved a little to the East we trimmed everything we could and 10hrs later, after a rough and very, very wet ride, made it to our waypoint ......
averaging 7kts which we thought was excellent, but upsetting most of the crew in the process!

As we headed up to enter the harbour through Faihava Bay we put the reefed genoa away and a short time after, and just off our port beam (200-300m), we had humpback whales leaping out of the water and turning over, splashing their big fins in the water in the process ....... we thought we were incredibly lucky to witness first hand such an incredible display. A little while after this as we went through the islands (it's approx 6nm from entrance to actual harbour), we had another humpback whale spouting directly in front of us, we throttled back and turned to port, he then broke the surface and as it started to dive, the huge tail flukes came out of the water ...... truly spectacular to be so close to these giant creatures in their wild habitat!

We then proceeded up to the harbour and anchorage area, Michael having quickly recovered from his seasickness and telling us various information about Vavau, then after failing to find a vacant mooring buoy, the place is incredibly busy with yachts, we then finally anchored just after 5pm ....... after quick showers we went ashore, Michael got rid of our rubbish for us and he is going to meet Dirk in Tongatapu on Saturday to help him get from the domestic airport to the international one! We then went to a local waterfront bar/restaurant, had a few drinks, a lovely meal and some proper wifi/internet, by 8pm we were all fairly exhausted from our recent travails so it was back to the boat for an early night.

It is a lot cooler, now that we are further south (over 5 degrees of latitude from our most northern position), necessitating wind proofs for sailing at night and a blanket on the bed rather than just a top sheet covering being too much for us to comfortably sleep, a lot different to just the shorts & t shirts when sailing over the past few months!

Today, we need to visit Customs, go to immigration to extend Allan & Barry's '1 month only' standard visitor's visas, get some outboard fuel, a few fresh groceries and then tidy the boat before Lyn & her friend Pam arrive tomorrow, hopefully the heavy overnight rain will have washed most of the salt off the outside to make our cleaning duties somewhat easier.

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