Tonga now!

Later than envisaged we are now on a mooring buoy in Tonga in the Vava'u group of islands off the main town of Neiafu where funnily enough there is a Moorings charter base just up the road from our World ARC office!

We left Bora Bora on 16 May for our passage to Tonga via Suwarrow then Niue. The first leg of the passage was around 700 miles to Suwarrow and not much wind so a lot of motoring. When we arrived in Suwarrow the weather advice was that a depression was forming and a weather system delayed our departure by two days. The anchorage is deserted as no one lives on the island and it is a National Park but the wardens do not arrive until 1 June so it was very quiet and unspoilt. The sea was flat calm when we arrived but the anchorage did get really swelly and the boat was like a bucking bronco so much so that we decided to re anchor away from the shore. It was a tricky operation lifting the anchor as it was stuck around several coral heads so took us about an hour to free ourselves!! Just before Peter was threatening to cut the anchor chain with bolt croppers! Anyway after re anchoring in the dark in very deep water we had a bumpy night with not much sleep. The next day we moved and anchored again this time in shallower water so when we came to leave there was not so much chain to get up. Even so we still had a struggle to free the anchor which came up with a lump of coral attached ...ooh not good.

After Suwarrow we sailed or rather motor sailed to Niue. Niue is lovely and rugged it is a independent New Zealand territory. The island is small enough to tour around in one day. We hired a car with Dmitry and Natalia from Piligrim the Russian boat and spent. Good day visiting all the limestone caves and chasms. The Niue yacht club advertises itself as the smallest yacht club in the world. The Commodore Keith is chatty and friendly. The only drawback visiting Niue is the rolly anchorage and the electric dinghy hoist! So we just stayed two nights in Niue and left for Tonga on Sunday lunchtime. A fantastic good sail to Tonga which is around 240 miles and we managed to sail all the way with no motor.

So now we are in Tonga for a period of free cruising until we meet up with the rally in Fiji on 3 July.

We did lose a day sailing to Tonga as we crossed the date line. Tonga is 13 hours ahead of UTC. So now we have the Skippers briefing at 5pm tonight for Fiji. Tomorrow is the Prizegiving for the last leg and group rendezvous.

Anyway off to the ATM to get sone Tongan dollars so we can go shopping!!