Position: 18 degrees, 49 minutes south; 170 degrees, 31 minutes west
Wing and wing heading for Tonga
We left Niue today at 1445. The wind was forecast to be a bit high, but it goes to nothing on Tuesday and it’s a two day trip (250 miles) to Tonga, so today it was. It’s actually turned out so far to be pretty standard. 20 knots wind and 3 meter seas. It should ease tonight into tomorrow down to around 16 knots and 2 meters. Right now we’re DDW flying the jib on the pole, furled about 20% and main on the other side with two reefs. We’re doing about 6-7 knots and rolling a lot in the somewhat confused sea. There’s a clear dominant swell right behind us, but there are also several other wave trains from the left and the right, probably due to the island, although it’s now about 40 miles behind us.
Daylight has turned to darkness, but what was 70% cloud cover today has turned to 100% clear tonight. The Milky Way is shinning directly above us from south to north, cleaving the sky into equal east and west hemispheres. It’s a beautiful night.
We’re headed to the Vava’u Group of islands in the Republic of Tonga. Neither Ann nor I have a clue about what to expect. We have a bunch of electronic guides that we need to read and a Lonely Planet guide, but having read none of the above, we no idea what we’ll find there. All I know right now is how to get to the place where we check into the country. I set a “route” in the GPS, so I know the total miles are 250, and I know once we get “inside” the islands there are a few navigation aids. Few is the keyword here. There are two buoys that mark a narrow pass, two ranges that we pick up to thread the pass-the first being “red over red” and the second, marking a right turn is “white over white”. We then have a single green buoy (you leave green to starboard in this part of the world, exactly the opposite of in the US) that marks the final pass into the anchorage. That’s it on paper anyway, real life we have discovered can be quite different which is why we only enter these areas in the light of day.
OK, time for me to get some sleep. Ann’s got the first watch. 2200 to 0200, then I’m up till sunrise, more or less.
Maybe we’ll catch a fish tomorrow.