Position: 19 degrees, 56 minutes south; 174 degrees, 43 minutes west

Sailed about 20 miles today. The only problem was, where we wanted to go was directly upwind the whole way. Since sailboats can’t sail directly into the wind, we ended up having to zig zag or “beat” the whole way. Thus 20 miles ends up being more like 30 miles by the time you take all the back and forth in account. In this case against 20 knot wind and four foot seas. Not bad, but not Charisma’s favorite point of sail. But we’re not complaining, just glad to have got here at Ha’afeva before dark. It looks like a promising place. Nice sand, lots of reefs and we hear there’s lobster in them thar reefs.

Last night was not so fun. First off it rained all night so we had to close the hatches. It gets humid and sticky without the air flow, so that made the night uncomfortable enough, but the kicker was our anchorage. Since it was all rocks, every time the wind shifted the chain would grab a rock and threaten to tear off the bow. It got frightening at one point as we were “short-chained”, meaning and anchor chain had no give to it. It went straight from the bowsprit down and wrapped on a rock. When a wind gust hit and/or a swell rolled through the little bay we were in Charisma would make a terrible noise which was the anchor snagging on the rock and then the boat would shudder and slam. I was very close to attaching a float to the bitter end of the chain (the last bit – 6 inches- of the anchor chain), letting it all out and spending the night hove to offshore. It got that bad. Fortunately just before I was getting ready to do that, it calmed down a bit. I decided to give it one more chance and laid back down (around 0300) and promptly fell asleep since the noise and the slamming stopped. I still was having nightmares about getting the anchor back on the boat given all the noise, slamming, grinding and such, but at least I was now getting some sleep!

Come daybreak we got up (Charisma, The Rose and Orcinius) and got ready to haul anchor. The night before we agreed that although we were going different directions, we would haul at the same time in case one or more boats needed someone to dive on the anchor to free it up. So, at 0800 we three started hauling anchor to see who might be stuck and need assistance. Fortunately, the float I put on Charisma’s anchor chain the day before did its job and kept the chain from jamming on a rock, so our anchor actually came up without too much trouble. Orcinius John and The Rose John both had to dive their chains to untangle them. Each donned tanks and took care of things quickly so we were all out of there in about an hour.

Once out, The Rose headed north, we headed east and Orcinius headed south. We’ll hope to catch up with them in a week, but for now, we’re looking to explore some of the middle kingdom, so-to-speak, of this Tongan archipelago and will be spending at least the next few days just exploring some of the islands.

But tonight, after enjoying shimmering stars and a perfect half moon right above us, we are looking forward to a solid night’s sleep. Sweet dreams.