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.