Position: 18 degrees, 42 minutes south; 174 degrees, 02 minutes west

Since we’re on the theme of one year, here’s a year plus a day. We left our nice little bay on Hunga and spent the day out fishing and making water. We were almost out of water, so that was the priority. We went five or so miles west of Tonga out to sea to try and find some fish. We did find some but they won. The first fish hit the handline and broke the leader. I was trying a new swage kind of thing and it didn’t work. OK, I’m going back to basic knots. The second fish was on the pole, but we never heard anything. We just saw the damage when I reeled the lure in. Half of it was cut clean through. Whatever did it missed the hook by an inch and cut as clean as a knife right through the side of the lure. I’m thinking wahoo, but it could have been a shark.

So after four hours and some change motoring around to charge batteries and make water, we came back into the Vava’u Group of islands and are now anchored in a delightful little spot just between Nuku Island (uninhabited) and Kapa, which has a couple of little villages. We plan to spend just a day or so here to do some snorkeling, then head in to the main town of Neiafu to provision for the next couple of weeks of island hopping as we move south toward Tongatopu, which is the southern-most Tongan island and has the largest city. From there we check out of the Kingdom of Tonga and make the jump to New Zealand.

In the meantime, we’re enjoying the peaceful setting here. We’re anchored in the sand, just behind a reef which is providing protection from the SE winds and waves. It was one of those wonderful anchorages where you come in from the dark blue water (deep) and find the water getting lighter and lighter until it’s turquoise and then ice blue. Ice blue is usually less than 20 feet over sand and that’s when you drop the hook and back down. It’s very tranquil. After over a week of clouds, we may even see some stars tonight.

Nice.

Our guide named Raha took us to see his farm in the jungle on Hunga

Heading out...

Raha grows and makes what he needs. Here he's weaving a basket to carry papayas he picked for us

The almost finished basket. We kept it and used it to go to market a few days later

Heading back after a nice day. Very serene and peaceful in the jungle

Sometimes you get lucky. Or maybe you make your luck. Either way today was a lucky day. As you’ll note from this blog, it also marks exactly one year that we’ve been cruising, having left Berkeley, California a year ago.

The lucky part was sitting at coffee this morning when we noticed a dugout canoe approach Orcinius who is the only other boat in this bay and who is anchored next to us. John was talking with him for quite a while and then the canoe paddled away. A few minutes later Lisa called on the radio and said that the man in the canoe offered to give us a tour of his town as well as his “plantation”. Would we like to go? You Bet!

1030 was the agreed upon hour to meet at the small wharf. We jumped in the dinghy and motored in and were warmly greeted by Raha. He’s lived here all his sixty-six years. A delightful man who speaks good English; he proceeded to head off through the small village toward his plantation. Now, a plantation on the island of Hunga and indeed in all of Tonga consists of the 8 acres that you, as a male are deeded when you turn 18. Raha has his 8 acres and helps tend his grown son’s 8 acres even though he is in Australia working on a container ship. His brother also has some land nearby.

Part of the delight of the day was the simplicity with which he and his community live. On the whole island, there are somewhat over 300 people, yet they only have one television. It is set up in the town hall and the only channel they watch shows rugby! No politics, no commercials, no soap operas, no sitcoms- just rugby.

It was also a delight to watch him gracefully and with bare feet, guide us through the country toward his plantation. There is only one paved road here and it only goes a couple hundred yards up very steeply from the wharf up to the center of the village. It stops abruptly (probably where they ran out of cement) and turns into a red clay path that they continues through the island with many offshoots to other family plantations.

After walking a mile or so, we came to Raha’s plantation. It had a single strand of barbed wire around it “to keep the horses out”. He has developed a series of crops that give him some money as well as feed him and his family. Vanilla beans are his commercial crop. Highly labor intensive, but a good market provides him with some cash. The rest of his crop includes bananas, coconuts, taro, tobacco (of a Tongan variety), sweet potato, and tapioca (some of this he also sells). Anyway, a well-tended 8 acres that he has owned since turning 18. He had promised that he would trade us for some fruit, so while on his plantation, he brought half a dozen papayas and a large banana stalk. How to carry these back the mile or so we walked? That was the other fun part. He just sat down in the middle of the jungle and started to weave two baskets out of coconut palms that we used to carry the fruit back. The bananas were too heavy? OK, he cut down a sapling tree and stripped off the bark to make handles for one of the baskets and then cut the sapling further to put over his shoulder to carry the basket. We almost couldn’t believe our eyes, how right there sitting on the ground, he made the implements he needed to complete his task.

We couldn’t have had a nicer day spent with a more congenial host than our day today with Raha. We ended up trading some items we had that he needed including some rope, rice, powdered milk, reading glasses and a couple other things in exchange for all the fruit and his half day spent as tour guide taking us through the jungles and plantations of Hunga. What a delight!

After getting back to the boats and doing some miscellaneous work (Ann did the “by the numbers” blog, I inspected the hammock on the foredeck while John on Orcinius donned diving gear and spent more time cleaning the bottom of his boat), Lisa called and asked if we wanted to dinghy down to the little resort across the bay. There’s a spot we’ve seen that as it turns out has about four bungalows for guests. It’s best known for deep sea fishing. In fact, the co- owner (with his wife) is named Steve Gamble and he seems to be fairly well known in fishing circles. He is a speaker at the Miami Boat Show, which is the largest in the USA. Anyway, he also tends bar, so we had a good time chatting with him while enjoying a couple of sundowners.

We finished well past sundown and ended up dinghying back to the boats-upwind-in the dark about 2000. Ah, one year out and still having exciting adventures. Made it back without getting too wet and then whipped up some tortellini and a salad for dinner.

I could get used to this!

Wow! A year ago today we pulled away from the dock in Berkeley. The year has flown by. We have been to places that I was unaware existed before our departure. Probably most of you were unaware of small countries like Niue too! We have encountered glorious vistas, enchanting local residents and made some incredible friends over the year. There were moments of fear (for Ann more than Bob) and moments of elation as we sighted land after long passages. No one has been required to walk the plank. Many incredible memories have been stored for us to enjoy in our old age (when we finally settle back on land!).

I thought it would be fun (being the accountant that I am) to review the year by numbers. (How many of you are asking why Bob hangs out with someone who thinks numbers are fun? – Wait and see!)

The Year by Number:

7,745 miles traveled! I really wish there was some kind of frequent sailor program that allowed us to redeem these miles for airfare home!

7 countries/island groups visited (Mexico, Marquesas, Tuamotus, Society Islands, Cook Islands, Niue, Kingdom of Tonga)

57 days on passage

42 Mooring balls versus anchoring

3 Mediterranean style moorings (all in Rarotonga)

2 side-tie anchoring (thank you Orcinius!)

21 books read by Ann during our passages

10 fish caught (does not include the whale that got away or the lost lures)

4 hats lost overboard and one given to an island chief

14 batches of cookies inhaled

24 games of cribbage played, 13 won by Ann

3 times grounded (going into Aitutaki, at anchor in Aitutaki and leaving Aitutaki) But the really amazing part of this statistic is that we would love to go back to Aitutaki! Put it on your travel list.

9 cases of wine consumed

6 cases of rum consumed (we entertain a lot and that means treating our friends to a Charisma)

518 seashells collected (including the lovely “Environmental Elements” gifted at Christmas)

9,623 photos taken/collected. Seriously – there has been a lot to document. Please let us know if you are interested in the full slide show or an abbreviated version.

332 blog posts

Not able to quantify – the cases of beer purchased (it disappears too quickly)

Not able to quantify – the number of times we’ve counted ourselves fantastically fortunate to be able to make this trip.

So there you have it, a year of sailing on Charisma. The adventure continues……

Position: 18 degrees, 41 minutes south; 174 degrees, 07 minutes west.

Ann and Lisa went out for a kayak

We sailed west in the Vava’u Group today and now we’re anchored at one of the western-most islands; the island of Hunga. After leaving Vaka’eitu, we went through the reef between Lape Island and Langito’o. Pretty narrow. We were carefully watching the color of the water change on either side of us signifying shallow water/reef. The pass looked to be about 30 yards wide. Once through, we turned right (west), set the genoa for a broad reach and ran with the SE wind down to Hunga. Step one in getting to where we’re anchored is going between the south end of Hunga and a reef/awash rocks about ¼ mile offshore. Sounds like a long way, but a little nerve-wracking to see white water on both sides of Charisma. I prefer the deep blue water all around. Once through that area, we hardened up and sailed north for about a mile along the west side of the island. After about ½ mile you can see a very narrow cut. If you blink you’ll miss it. Once you see it you almost wish you’d missed it because it is little more than a 30 yard break in the cliff and there’s a rock sticking out of the water right in the pass that you leave to port, making the actual entrance much narrower. Compound that with the reef on the inside that narrows even further and at its deepest part at high tide showed 11 feet on our depthsounder. OOH, shades of Aitutaki. Fortunately though we made it through with nothing but some minor psychic damage to my nervous system. I was very aware of the bottom of Charisma’s keel since I started the morning scrubbing it.

John and Lisa on Orcinius (who accompanied us to Hunga-we are the only two boats here) were nice enough to loan an extra BCD (scuba gear), regulator and tank, so I could spend the morning underwater scrubbing Charisma’s bottom (just for the record, I think she liked it). Rumor has it that New Zealand will require boats that have “stuff” on their bottom to haul and power-wash the bottom. They are very concerned about bio-security. It’s all rumor, but makes sense and in any case, it’s never a bad idea to keep the bottom clean as it adds to boatspeed. Anyway, armed with scrub-brush and a metal scraper I bled the air out of the BCD and descended all of six feet to get to the bottom of the boat. The paint is still working pretty well, so there’s mostly only some slime to brush off, but it’s 37 feet long and six feet deep, so a lot of area to work. I also knocked barnacles off a few spots, cleaned the propeller and put a new zinc on the propshaft. The old one had been used up and fell off a few weeks ago. No way I could have done all that with just a mask and snorkel so a big thanks to John and Lisa for the scuba gear.

Back to Hunga. This looks to be a volcanic crater that has filled in. There’s one entrance and except for a small reef area in the south, the rest of this little bay is a round rim about 200 feet high. The bay is about ½ mile by ¾ mile and since it’s isolated from the ocean, it’s very calm in here. A nice change from the roly poly anchorages we have been in since Mexico. Once we anchored and got settled, Lisa and Ann wanted to go snorkeling. John also did the bottom of his catamaran, so he was as tired as I, but actually this area is so beautiful we had to go. Into our dinghies we went and motored back through the pass (which still felt very small even in the dinghies) and out into the ocean. The wind is SE and the shore is West, so it was pretty protected other than some ocean surge. We went out the pass, a little south and dropped a little grapnel anchor about 40 yards off the cliffs in 15 feet of very pretty blue water. Gear on, tumble over the side backwards and we were immediately rewarded with some beautiful views of pinnacles of coral and lots of varied fish. It was kind of like swimming through a small version of the Grand Canyon. A delightful afternoon swim.

Back to Charisma and after all the exertion today; It’s hammock time! So that’s where I’ve been this last hour. Ann’s working on getting ready to have Orcinius over for a “trading party” tonight. She came up with the great idea that now that we’re all winding down the season and are close to the last long voyage, this one to New Zealand, we don’t need to have a lot of extra ships stores when we get there. In fact, they confiscate a lot of stuff-again, in the name of bio-security (mostly) so you don’t want to end up with things like tinned meat/fish, nuts of any kind, veggies, fruit and we’re looking into what else. So Ann has been actively trading with other cruisers. We’ve already traded ½ pound of walnuts which we have extra of for four rolls of toilet paper which is expensive here and we are getting short. We gave Orcinius some extra coffee and a few other things and they in turn have promised shaving cream (which I’m running out of) and some other stuff.

There you go-the free market is alive and well in Tonga!

Part of the path across the island

What is this strange thing hanging in the jungle?

...oh, I see. If you can read this it's too late.

That’s what it said on the chart; “Secluded Beach”. With a name like that, we had to take the hike. So, in the dinghy, motor to shore. Once there we found a fairly new hut, but it had a lock on it and no one around. The chart said no one lived here, so we’re thinking this is a copra shed. We hiked all around looking for a trail but couldn’t find it. So, we headed down the beach. Went to the end of the beach-about 200 yards, but nothing. So, back to the dinghy. We decided to try the “other” side of the beach-about 50 yards of beach. Bingo! A trail! It took about 20 minutes to hike to the other side of the island and the famous “Secluded Beach”. We got there and guess what? There were some people and a dog. OK, so it’s now “Almost Secluded Beach”. Once we got to the people we introduced ourselves and…they were from Beausoleil-the only boat in the fleet from Mexico that we haven’t met up with yet. We had some fun trading stories but they won-they have been cruising for 15 years and are headed to New Zealand as their last stop.

Anyway, we had a fun day hiking (I got a coconut so we’re having coconut dipped in Nutella for dessert and we found a papaya tree and knocked off a nice ripe papaya for breakfast). Now we’re finished dinner (eggplant chutney on top of fresh/frozen Mahi that John and Lisa on Orcinius caught a week or so ago and gave to us.

We plan to stay in this anchorage for another day or so and snorkel some more of the reefs around here and then move to a new spot TBD.

Oh, yeah, one other thing. Ann was doing an inventory on our stores the other day and realized that we have a lot of some stuff and not enough of other stuff (that’s the technical description of the situation), so she’s been doing some trading with other cruisers. So far, we’ve traded some walnuts that we have extra of for toilet paper (it’s really expensive down here) and we gave John and Lisa some ground coffee we have from Mexico (appropriately sealed) and Gatorade for shaving cream and who knows what. Should be fun-we’ll see tomorrow when we get together to finalize our trade with them.

New Zealand is very strict about what they allow in the country so we’re all drawing down things like nuts, canned meat, fruit and other stuff that they just won’t let into the country. Trading is one way to equalize what we have for what we need in these last weeks before sailing there. Good thing Ann has such an accurate inventory!

Position: 18 degrees, 43 minutes south; 174 degrees, 05 minutes west

We got to the island for the feast and first thing, they gave us leis. Nice touch.

As we wondered around the island we found the men cooking the pigs

...and in many of the houses the women were making the side dishes.

We weren't disappointed. The food was pretty yummy.

We had to do one more feast. After going to feasts several places in the Marquesas, we were pretty much feasted out for a while. However, here in Tonga they do them a little differently and the one on Lape Island is known as a good one, so we decided to go.

Yesterday we moved from Kenutu, which is an uninhabited island on the eastern stretch of Vava’u. In fact, when we hiked across the island (not much more than ¼ mile) we came to cliffs overlooking the ocean-it’s so far east there’s no more Tonga, just ocean stretching back to where we had come over this past year. Once we got the anchor up, we threaded out way back through the reefs that make Kenutu less visited than a lot of the other islands in the Vava’u group. It’s a little tricky getting there and many just don’t want to have that much “adventure”. Our decision to anchor in the middle of the pass when the visibility dropped in the squall was reinforced when we saw on the way back out the number of reefs that were right in the area where we stopped. Had we kept going we would have surely hit one-they are just not visible without a little sunlight.

After threading the reefs, we set a route through the island chain over to the west side of the group to an island called Vaka’eitu, which is where we’re now anchored. It’s about ½ mile from Lape Island where the feast was, so with our friends on Orcinius, we dinghied over. We weren’t disappointed. As this is getting toward the end of the cruising season, something like 65 people showed up from around the neighboring anchorages. Lape is very small and they only have 26 people who live on the island (half of those are children), so you might imagine they were working hard to feed that many. But they did a good job. Before the feast we walked through the village and found one group of men tending the pigs which were spit-roasting over an open fire. Further on we came to a house where the women in it were sitting on the floor (Tongans don’t use much furniture) making many of the side dishes which were too numerous to mention, but delicious.

You might wonder about doing the dishes for such a large feast. Aside from the forks that they fortunately provided, the dishes were each hand-carved out of a banana stalk. Yes, one of men was sitting under a tree with a machete and a knife. He was slashing the banana trunk into 14 inch long sections. Each section then “broke” into half cylinder shaped sections about ½ inch thick and 5 inches across, which were the basis of the plate. Then he took his knife and decorated the edges with a serrated look. A lot of work for dishes that were only going to be used once and then burned or possibly fed to the goats and pigs. The Tongans are very good about using everything since most of them who live on the islands away from the main towns, live off the land and don’t have jobs.

Anyway, a good feast and a good gathering of folks, many of whom have become our friends as we have crossed paths along the way for these past thousands of miles of ocean.

Today also brought some sunshine, so we went snorkeling. Near here there is a spot called Coral Gardens. It’s a long reef with waves breaking on it, but outside the break it drops off to a magnificent reef “garden”. The coral is so colorful and varied that’s really what it looks like. A little tenuous getting across the reef into the deeper water-you go at high tide, but even then the water is very shallow where the waves break and the coral underneath is very sharp. You only have about 10 inches of clearance through a stretch of about 30 yards. The solution is to wait for a lull in the waves and then swim fast. We heard of a couple people yesterday who were bloodied in the process, so we were not taking it for granted. A beautiful swim. Lots of fish, lots of color and the water dropped off deeply giving an eerie blue abyss kind of glow.

A snorkel, a feast and oh yeah, I got to spend an hour or so in the hammock up on the foredeck. What more can you ask for. A haircut you say. Yup, got that too. Thanks Ann!

The little sand island off Kentu

The view of the other side of the sand island. That's all there is, and at high tide it's gone!

Wow, what a night. It rained about nonstop and blew 24-25 knots all night. Note I didn’t say 15 gusting to 25. The anemometer hardly budged from 24-25 all night. I can tell the wind speed from the howling sound in the rigging and I can confirm the anemometer was spot on. Even though I knew-rationally-that the anchor dug in well when we set it (I felt the distinct “thunk” of the anchor digging into the sand), the first night in a new anchorage is always a test. You never really know, so you worry. Thus, I didn’t get a great sleep knowing there was a boat downwind of us. But Charisma held well and the boat downwind left so there are only two other boats here and they are not near us. I WILL sleep well tonight.

Besides the wind, the rain continued to be monsoonal. We hardly ever put in the companionway boards (the clear plastic boards that take the place of the louvered doors), but last night it was necessary. The nice thing about putting in the boards is it’s so quiet. The downside usually is it’s hot. But last night it was so windy, the dorades (air vents on the cabin top) kept us cool enough.

So, today we explored Kenutu. (Actually, before we left Charisma, Ann made bread. Rosemary, sea salt, olive bread. Yum. An undeniable treat!) OK, back, to the island exploration stuff: Kenutu is an uninhabited island. It’s pretty overgrown, but there was a trail to the east side where the cliffs meet the sea. Spectacular watching the ocean crash against the island. A lot like Big Sur, but without the traffic. Of course our side of the island is quiet and calm and there’s a nice beach. We also walked down the beach enjoying finding pretty seashells along the way. I found a spider conch, but it was occupied, so I left it.

After our day exploring the island it was getting on to 1600 which was an hour from low tide. There is a sand mound about ½ mile off the island surrounded by the reefs that I noticed yesterday as we were coming in. It’s about 75 yards wide and is only visible at low tide-the rest of the time it is covered by water. I said to Ann, “Let’s try and go there”. She was game, so off we went. The wind was coming up and darkness was not too far away, but we forged ahead in our little dinghy dodging reefs along the way and finally came up on the mini-island. Turning off the outboard as we approached the shallow water, we coasted ashore. “We claim this Island for Berkeley Yacht Club!” The only problem was we couldn’t plant our BYC Burgee as we traded it back in French Polynesia for a Bora Bora Yacht Club burgee. Oh well, details, details…The island is only visible for a couple hours a day anyway. And now it’s ours. At low tide.

So that was our day. Laid claim to an island, walked the beach. Made some bread.

The school on Ofu

Ann with some of the school kids

One of the two teachers at the school

We ran across some women weaving floormats. Some of them can get quite large

More mat weaving

Here's a picture of the floormat we bought. On top of it is a tapa that they also gave us. Basically paper made from tree bark that they then paint a design onto.

What a day! We just got back to Charisma from a lovely dinner at Gato Go. And we just got back in time as it’s now pouring down rain (again).

OK, rewind the day a bit to yesterday, which is OK because it’s actually yesterday here where you read this (?).

Now that we have that straight-yesterday, we were sitting in the boat around 1600 and it shook for about five seconds or so. We’re somewhat used to that because all kinds of things cause that-sails flapping, wind in the rigging, etc, etc. But, there wasn’t a lot of wind and the sails weren’t up. Then about a minute later someone came up on the radio and said, “Did you feel the earthquake?” Why yes, we did thank you. And thank you also for explaining this unusual sensation. Very weird to feel an earthquake through the water on your boat.

OK, on to today, which is still yesterday where you are, but that’s another story altogether. Today, it’s been raining like a monsoon and we got stuck in it while going between islands. It became a little sketchy when it hit because we were in the middle of a tricky pass. Very narrow with jagged coral reefs on both sides and NO channel markers. How did we do? I’ll explain in a minute.

First, I have to say that before we were dumb enough to move to a new anchorage with the threat of heavy rain we decided to go ashore on the island where we were anchored. And we’re so glad we did. The people there were delightful. There’re only a dozen or so families that live on this particular island (Ofu. Ha – wondered what that meant in the headline?!) We walked past the school where we met the two teachers who are teaching 21 kids in multi-grade setting. The kids were so fun, they all streamed out of the class to say hi to the Palangis (white people). The teachers were fine with it since it was a “cultural experience”. We took pictures of Ann with the kids. They all squealed with joy when they saw their digital images on the camera and all wanted to see themselves. We had so much fun we went back to the boat later and brought back a box of pens we had bought for just such an occasion. Then we continued our walk. No road, no cars, just a path. All the houses were built along the beach and there was a path along just in front of them. This island has a subsistence economy. They fish, make some crafts that they usually sell in the market on the main island and they have chickens and pigs roaming everywhere until they are needed for a feast. Then, well, let’s not talk about that.

Anyway, on our walk people would wave from inside their houses and say “hi” and we would say hi back. In several cases, we noticed it was women inside weaving something and we’d walk over and see what they were doing. Two or three would be sitting on the ground weaving Pandanus leaves into very intricate and beautiful mats and clothes (they wear these wrapped around their waist). It often takes one person several weeks to make one and they are handed down from family to family over generations. We have admired their mats and wondered out loud whether anyone on the island might sell one and to our surprise we were pointed down the path to a small hut. We walked down and found (surprise) three ladies and one of their daughters weaving mats. One thing led to another and you guessed it, we are now the proud owners of a 12 foot by 6 foot floor mat. It is gorgeous and as we told the ladies, we will treasure it since it is not only exquisite, but we also know who made it and where it came from. We have pictures and hope to be able to post them in a week or so.

OK, the monsoon. We decided to move to another anchorage as Gato Go called us on the radio and offered an inducement-chicken curry dinner on their boat-if we would come over to their anchorage on Kenutu. It was actually not very far from where we were, but there was a very tricky pass that winds through the reef that we had to traverse to get there. We decided to give it a shot as we had some GPS coordinates to help us through the reef. On a sunny day when you can see the colors of the water, this is not too bad, but today was grey and rainy. Thus the water was grey. Hard to see the shallow spots unless the waves were actually breaking-which they were in numerous places. Anyway, we were game and things looked OK, if not great (how often do you really get “great” anyway?). So, we plunged into the pass, so to speak. Things were going well and we were progressing nicely until the sky started to go from grey to very grey and then very dark grey. Uh oh. It had been raining all day, but mostly sprinkles that you get used to out here-but this wasn’t looking good. We were about ½ mile, maybe a little more, from exiting the pass and making it to the anchorage when the skies just opened up. And I mean opened up. It was raining so hard the visibility went down to 100 yards of so. We completely lost our view of anything. This is not good when you have coral reefs all over just waiting to tear a hole in your boat. The good news is it wasn’t too windy so when the visibility went to nothing I choose the just drop anchor right where we were in the middle of the pass. We were over sand, so the holding was good. It was the safest thing to do. So, anchor down. It held. I put out a “Securite” call on the radio telling anyone who might have been behind us that we were now anchored and blocking the pass. And we sat. Well, I sat. Ann took the opportunity of having tons of water pouring down to take a shower. We had buckets sitting out catching water so a shower wouldn’t lower our supply. And that’s where we sat for the next two hours while it rained, and rained and rained. I was starting to think we might have to spend the night anchored right in the open when the storm broke long enough for to us to jump up, haul the anchor (not too hard as we were just in 25 feet of water) and make the last ½ mile into the island. Once we got there it was abundantly clear that we made the right decision as there were very shallow reefs all over that we would not have seen in the rain.

So, earthquake, monsoon and Ofu-all in a day in paradise.

As seen in Tonga...dog taking pig for a walk

We heard that on the radio this morning. We’re out anchored by ourselves at a little island about 10 miles out of town, but we can still hear the morning radio net. One of the items was Monday Night Football at one of the restaurants. Who played? Who won? We are clearly out of sync.

We spent most of today doing “in-boat” stuff. It was an overcast, almost rainy kind of day. It ended up not raining, but it looked like it all day. It’s making up for not raining now, as it’s been raining since about 1800. Ann worked on cleaning out our food lockers and updating her inventory system. It’s really been somewhat of a miracle as the spreadsheet she developed on her iPad is still pretty accurate. So, we now know (for instance) that we have 7 rolls of toilet paper left. Also, we know we have 2 tins of tuna, etc, etc. This way we can get to New Zealand without buying expensive goods out here in the islands. Also there are many good New Zealand won’t let into the country including nuts and canned meat. We can now monitor these and either use them or donate them to the Tongans before we leave if need be.

I did…very little. Actually what I did was time consuming. I finally “processed” about a month’s worth of photos that we’ve been accumulating. Probably a thousand photos that needed to be tweaked for the best exposure and such and then filed. I also had to choose which ones to use to post on the blog and in Facebook for when (if?) we ever get a decent internet connection. We can’t wait to share them with you. I have selected about 100 pictures that help define the trip thus far.

So, that pretty much was our day. It’s supposed to be about the same for the next few days unfortunately. The grey skies don’t do justice to the beauty of these islands, so we are reluctant to move on and leave a place that we haven’t really “seen” in all its glory. However, we’ll need to leave this spot at Ofu tomorrow afternoon and find a more protected anchorage. Some of the weather forecasts are showing some potentially strong south winds, and this spot is really only protected up to southeast. Beyond that we have a reef right behind us that comes into play. So-tomorrow, we’ll visit the island and then look to leave by about 1500 for a more protected spot elsewhere.

And for those food junkies that follow us- we figured out naan bread today. We had it with homemade hummus and sautéed eggplant for dinner. Yummy!

Just remember; Keep clear of the Whiskey Bravos. Charisma, clear.

We’re a day ahead of the US, so today is your tomorrow.

Anyway, last night (which was your tonight, er, I think) was another fairly sleepless night. Not as eventful as the night before, but heavy, heavy rain kept waking me up and I’d hear a wind gust and jump up to make sure we weren’t going to get hit by the boat upwind. We heard a great term for certain boats that come into an anchorage that you just know are going to cause a problem with their boat handling. “Whiskey Bravo”. This is the phonetic for “WB”, which in term are the initials for “Wide Berth”. In other words there are some folks that when you see them you just head the other way because you KNOW they aren’t going to handle their boat or anchor well. Last night we had a Whiskey Bravo anchor directly upwind. I should have just moved, but it was late when they got in, I had dove our own anchor and was positive it was well secured, etc, etc. But…by not just moving, I was up all night worrying instead. They were actually directly upwind of our friends on Adventure Bound and anchored barely one boat length upwind of them so they were most at risk, but we were the next in line if they broke lose. Ultimately nothing happened, but we’ve seen enough to know it can, and when it does there can be some significant damage. So, look out for the Whiskey Bravos!

We left Ano Bay today to start exploring the Tonga Archipelago. There are so many lovely little islands to explore, we’re going to take a few weeks and just move from one to the next, snorkeling, hiking, tide-pooling and just generally getting to know this area. We have about a month until we need to leave for New Zealand, so we’re going to make the best of it.

We left our anchorage right about 1200 and headed for the Eastern Islands, which are the hardest to get to. There are some gnarly reefs you have to thread your way through to get over here. Fortunately we had some GPS coordinates from another cruiser who we trust, so I put those into a GPS Route Plan and off we went. Even though we had the route, it was a little hair-raising. You never know absolutely for sure if the coordinates are accurate, so you’re using them plus navigating visually-and by visually, I mean, you can see the water change color right in front of you from “deep” color to “shallow” color and you can see exposed reef on either side where the jagged coral sticks out of the water. By “deep” and “shallow” colors, I mean blue and turquoise, but these are blunt navigation tools. When does “turquoise” become too shallow? It’s a constant judgment call and we went realllllly slow through the shallow spots.

But we made it and we’re now at a spot that is affectionately called #28. It’s funny, but that’s how the charts mark the islands around here. At first it seems impersonal, but after a while you get used to it and it’s easy to tell people where you are. “Number 27”. Much easier to say than; “Kakautaumai”, for instance. Actually in our case, right now we’re in “Ofu”, so that’s not so hard to say.

It’s still cloudy, but has stopped raining for the first time in two days, so that’s progress. It’s supposed to be nice for a couple days before another front rolls through bringing more rain and wind. So, we’ll look to spend a few days exploring and then find a solid place to hunker down for the next storm episode. Hopefully without any Whiskey Bravos nearby.