[password] pilot25041
[position] 18 41.8s 174 07.6w
[status] Sunday 23rd September late afternoon in Hunga Lagoon, Tonga, the sun has been shining unabated for the last 3 days and today has been very hot as we've had not a breath of wind all day ........ this cruising life is sooo hard!

The wind and rain eventually abated late on Thursday afternoon and after a fairly quiet night in the anchorage, on Friday morning with very little wind we took the opportunity to replace the broken batten car on the mainsail ...... this was the final task that we had been awaiting spares for, so now the list of jobs to do is mainly for those when Surreal II gets back to NZ. We then departed to see if we could see any whales, so went back out into the islands entrance and after initially thinking we would again be disappointed Barry saw some spouts near the north shoreline in a similar position to when we saw them last Thursday. There were a couple of 'local' tourist boats looking for the whales too and we were then very fortunate to spend probably the next 2 hours watching these magnificent creatures, although we would only see them for about a minute in every 10, when they came to the surface to spout, breech and and get air before they dived down again. Not quite as spectacular as last time when they were leaping out of the water and fin slapping, but a fabulous sight nonetheless, seeing their huge tails in the air! We then continued on and anchored in a bay to the north of Vaka'eitu Island, initially being the only yacht in there, however, a bit later a couple of other yachts arrived. During the afternoon we went across to the coral gardens to go snorkelling, but it was quite disappointing, lots of dead coral debris and breaking waves making it difficult and certainly not good viewing. However, far easier for Pam to re-enter the dinghy from the beach and then on the way back to the big boat, Allan saw a turtle swimming on the surface, as we turned the dinghy to get a closer look, it took one look at us and then decided to dive below the surface. A bit later as we were eating dinner a local man from the village came out in his boat and said there was a Tongan Feast going to be held the following evening ashore and we were invited.

After another quiet night at anchor, on Saturday morning we departed for Neaifu to restock with essential supplies, we managed to sail some of the way there which helped to dry the sails after Thursday deluge and on our way back flew the gennaker for a good few miles to again dry that out too. We then returned to the Vaka'eitu anchorage where there were now 4 other boats, us making five and a Sunsail Cat arriving a bit later, we waited until just before 6pm to go ashore for the feast (the time we were told it would start), all the crews from the other boats were already there ....... anyhow there was plenty of food for everyone, the cost being 50Tongan (about £17UK / 30$NZ) a head. The local family have 11 children, the eldest 3 are at boarding school in Nukalofa and these 'feasts' help to pay their boarding school fees ..... which is very enterprising. We chatted to many other crews and the hosting family, who when we enquired about church today asked if we could take 2 of their youngest children with us, as the church was across the other side of the bay and they were going early to prepare.

And so to today ....... we had an early morning call (circa 7am) from the 'Sunsail Cat' crew (all NZ from Auckland!), they had flattened the generator battery using their windlass, without the generator running ....... so now they couldn't raise their anchor or start their generator and did we have any jump leads and tools to change a battery. After they changed a battery over, they were back up and running, returning our loaned items before they disappeared. So after breakfast and a run ashore to pick up the two young children, we went across the bay and church again, another very pleasant experience and shorter than last week at around 70mins! Back to the boat we then went around the bottom of Vaka'eitu Island to again snorkel the Coral Gardens, but from the other side, as we were told it was a lot better. On the way there Barry put a fishing lure in the water and despite some derision from the 'female crew' ..... 10mins later had caught a fish, not as big as the one Dirk caught, but we have 1.2kgs of filleted fish to eat, of what we think was a skipjack tuna. Lyn stayed on board Surreal motoring around as the depth was over 70m, whilst the rest of us went snorkelling on the coral garden reef, from the far side it was much better, good growing coral, loads of fish etc etc, well worth the effort and certainly far better than a few days ago!

We then motored further up the island, to try and find "Mariner's Cave", this time Pam & Lyn stayed on board Surreal motoring around whilst Allan & Barry tried to find the cave ....... without success, so we then departed for Hunga Lagoon where we are now. After a fairly tight entry to the lagoon, we have picked up a mooring buoy in an absolutely idyllic and beautiful anchorage. No wind, tide, current or other factors to spoil our enjoyment!

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