[password] pilot25041
[position] 15 56.44s 173 46.11w
[status] Sunday 9th September late afternoon and again very soon beer o'clock ........ in Niuatoputapu, a small island in the Niuas group of Tonga.

So, after a pleasant evening ashore with company from Complicite crew & Aussie Nick, eating at The Edge the marina restaurant and following up with drinks at the Samoa Game Fishing Club, we retired quite late for us, particularly with the early planned start ........ Barry went ashore for the 06.30 clearance paperwork pick-up and after some discussion as to when we would actually be leaving ...... "we're just having some quick breakfast and leaving" was not exact enough! But "we'll be gone by 07.30" stated twice was sufficient to finally get the signed paperwork in our hands!!

So we had our breakfast, checked the engines over, before starting them and raising our anchor ....... there was barely a breath of wind so we motored for a good hour before raising any sails, in the mean time ever hopeful Dirk had again deployed the fishing lines ...... after another hour or so, there were shouts of joy as he had finally caught a fish ........ and very nice it was too. We think it was a Spanish Mackerel and around 7kgs in weight, certainly enough for 4 meals for the 3 of us on board and just reward for all the broken hooks and lures we've had on this trip. So last night we had raw fish sashami as a starter followed by fresh fish for main course ...... it certainly tastes better when you've caught it yourself!

Anyway, we've basically had to motor the whole 180nm here, only occasionally getting some wind assistance to our endeavours, the small volcanic island of Tafahi just to our north and initially very prominent from 20nm away regularly disappeared in the rain & clouds. In fact we lost Niuatoputapu in the mirk and we were only 1 1/2nm from the pass ....... after some consternation about how long the rain and gloom would last, we eventually spotted the two entrance outer markers and then as the weather brightened a bit more the lead in marks too. After that it was a straightforward entry through the pass, particularly as the chart plotter and all the marker posts corresponded perfectly! There are 3monohulls and 1 Cat anchored in this idyllic bay, tomorrow we will visit customs, there are no shops here and the supply boat only visits 3-4 times per year, so another amazing and remote location to spend a few days!

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