See the gallery for new pics of our last couple of days... full story as soon as the flakey crew writes their assigned blogs!

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The last week or so has been a whirlwind of activities with some high highs and low lows. Follow You enjoyed the ambience of Nukualofa for a couple of days, then plotted our escape back north to Vava'u. Unfortunately the weather had other plans, as our proposed passage to the Hapa'i group of Tonga was cut short by 30 knots of wind on the nose and short sharp 10 foot wind waves that made Follow You shudder every 6-7 seconds as it fell off the face of each wave. After an hour of steadily increasing seas, we turned tail and headed back to the comforts of Big Mama's Yacht Club on the lee of Pangiamoto Island, just above Nukualofa. After checking with the weather gods and windguru.com, we decided that we were going to *have* to leave the next day as the conditions were deteriorating further. The only saving grace was that our path to Vava'u would keep the seas roughly on our beam, as opposed to directly on our nose. I steeled the crew with the warning that the voyage would be very uncomfortable to absolutely miserable. In short, the weather did not disappoint, as we had one of the most miserable sails to date, with 10-12 foot wind waves and underlying swells of 8-9 feet that kept the boat off balance for most of the 26 hour journey North. The entire crew except Rina took turns at the leeward rail, feeding the fish with the meager contents of our stomachs. The only comfort was the plastic side curtains that we put up on the windward side of the boat to keep the 30 knot winds and wind driven waves out of the cockpit. And even with the side curtains up, sheets of water would hit the top of the dodger and bimini and find a way into our little cocoon. The entrance to the fjords of Vava'u could not come soon enough. Next up.... Vava'u Regatta, a MAJOR friggen party.

The pic above is Big Mama's Yacht Club

ps. Mom: Rina, Phil and Josie *promise* to do a blog entry soon....

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Phil and Josie, our newly appointed sherpas, brought an amazing collection of replacement parts, critical items that we were convinced we could not live without, and several bottles of sweet nectar to celebrate both our anniversaries in early September. In a reprise of sorts of our "cruising cockpit" game of several months ago, a week on Follow you to the person who guesses the most items in the above picture correctly....

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Brother Phil and wife Josie arrived in Tonga yesterday morning after 21 hours of flying.SFO to LA to Western Samoa to Tonga. Rina and Josie squealed like little girls, having seen each other for the first time in almost 9 months. this after they have been daily walking partners for the last several years of our land-based existence. They came loaded with 4 bags of "stuff". As Stephanie, John, Alyssa and Megan all discovered, we missed no opportunity to replenish critical spares and supplies from the U.S. After Rina and Josie's ritual espresso shots, we began catching up and unpacking. More on this adventure in our next blog...

In what must be a record, we fixed a major issue with our generator in 4 days. On Sunday, our generator died and upon investigation, I found that the wires from the "run" capacitor had chafed on a heat sink. As I had played around with the capacitor, moving it around while inspecting the genset, I can only blame myself for not positioning the wires away from the danger. With the help of Alan on LoveSong, we confirmed the capacitor was toast, so I began strategizing for a replacement. On Monday a quick call via Skype to Mastervolt tech support in Florida confirmed that the capacitor would likely be the only problem, so we sourced replacements at Southern Cal Marine in San Diego, shipped them overnight to Bair Island Marina in Redwood City. Phil picked them up on the way to the airport and after a nap yesterday, we installed the replacements and the genset fired up the first time. YES!

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Nope. How about:

The night was black, the wind tense and the seas annoyed. Our night ride to Vava'u was fast, in short following seas that snuck up on us in the darkness and sucker punched the boat, like getting unexpectedly bumped from behind on a crowded New York street. Winds were steady at 28-32 knots, so the boat in general and the rigging in particular were taut, making for a loud, stiff ride. No moon and a deeply overcast sky ensured we would see nothing around us other than the white froth of breaking waves behind us reflected in our white stern light. Sleep came only when we were so tired that the conditions no longer mattered and we fell into our sea berth without a care.

We arrived at daybreak and navigated the 10 mile passage inside the fjord-like confines of Neifu Island, listening to the morning VHF net, (including commercials!) to arrive at the customs dock, where, upon seeing our yellow quarantine flag, four officers from customs, immigration, health, and quarantine descended on the boat. It was just before lunch and we were aware of stories of cruisers being exploited by officials for extra fees. We were advised to have soft drinks ready, so upon introductions I offered a Coke to each, but upon searching the fridge, found none. Unfortunately Rina's late night tactics for staying awake included plenty of Coke, so we were at risk, especially as Mr. Health started talking about how it's lunch time and extra fees may apply. Uh-oh. we quickly rummaged through a cabinet to find some old Pepsi Max from Tahiti that Rina didn't like. Pepsi Max and ice distributed to each officer helped avert extra charges for checking in during Mr. Health' s lunch break and a little light bantering with officialdom helped move the process along. A couple of questions about fruits and vegetables, firearms and the meager contents of the liquor cabinet satisfied their urges, and after 45 minutes they all departed.

After a lunch of buffalo burgers and locally brewed Ikale beers at the Aquarium Café we secured a mooring ball and moved the boat to a ball near a grove of trees infested with birds and frogs, who's chorus awakened suddenly at dusk. Rina and I sat on the port coaming of the cockpit listening, and stared at the developing sunset for an hour, watching the clouds traverse the color spectrum from red through burgundy, bright copper, bronze and finally a deep brown before disappearing. The frogs joined a frenetic mating song punctuated by lilting bird calls we have not heard in the South Pacific until now.

The waters are now pond-calm, with bright reflections from the shoreside lights, the sounds of a local rugby team practicing, and dinghies slowly motoring to the many bayside restaurants. Over 75 mooring balls are populated by many of our cruising friends, whose company we will enjoy over the next 3 months in this sailing mecca. Meanwhile, a good night's sleep will be had, contemplating it all.

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We skipped forward a day today, crossing the International Date Line between Niue and Tonga. A minute ago it was 15:08 on Tuesday, 18-August, now it is 15:09 on Wednesday, 19-August, going from GMT -11 to GMT +13. We're still 4 hours ahead of the west coast, just on a different day.

Otherwise, a pretty uneventful crossing so far. The seas are calmer out here than in the Niue anchorage our last night, so we slept well, sailing all night. Prevailing winds took us a little South overnight, so we motorsailed in light winds this morning to charge the batteries and get us further North. This will set us up for a nice beam reach as the winds move to an expected ENE later tonight. Rina and I are brushing up on Tonga and Vava'u, re-reading the cruising guides and etching the locations of previously uncharted reefs into our minds and chartplotters.

Day 1 Overview: - 140 miles covered in last 24 hours, 116 miles remaining to the anchorage in Neiafu Bay - 4-8 foot seas, much less than expected - 15 knot sustained winds, gusts to 23 - 5.8 knot average speed

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Gallery has been updated with our pics from Niue...

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Rina and I have enjoyed our week on the *very* relaxed island of Niue. We knew we were not in French Polynesia anymore when the customs office was in the same building as the duty free liquor, which they provide an allocation to cruisers upon arrival (one case of beer, 4 bottles of wine, or 2 liters of liquor per person, per week) and then allow unlimited purchase upon departure. The prices are refreshing after French Polynesia, at the grocery store, as well as duty free. There were exceptions of course... a quart jar of best food mayonnaise was $22.50 NZD.

We have been in good company, with Kalalau, Victory Cat, Brick House, Bagheera, Tender Spirit, Wayward Wind and Quiver from our travels in Bora Bora. We also met cruisers from Dosia, Crazy Diamond, Amikuk and others in this small community.

We day-tripped the island in a rental car with Dosia and Honeymoon, seeing the windward side of the island and climbed many a trail into limestone and coral caverns, got swamped with waves in caves, and had lunch 100 feet down a chasm near the shore.

Later in the week Rina and I decided to head to the only hotel on the island (24 rooms) for a rare night off the boat. It has been 8 months since we slept off the boat, and it's a good thing we did as the swell shifted to the South, keeping all the boats rocking back and forth all night. Nobody slept in the anchorage. Our remaining time on the island was filled with local sightseeing, reading, potlucks with Honeymoon and Dosia and just having fun.

Oh... the whales... did I mention the whales? Try sleeping with the whales talking to each other every night, or lazily making their way through the anchorage. We're talking huge humpback whales too. We'll be sitting in the cockpit or down below and hear a huge breath outside, look over the side and see whales not 10 feet from your bow. "They mostly come at night...mostly" (movie reference time) which is why we didn't get a ton of pictures of them, but by the end of the week we were all getting a chuckle about how blasé we had become about the whales around us all the time. We need Donna to slap us back to our senses again!

Weather has been so-so lately, with overcast or significant cloud cover most days. Sunday was non-stop rain. While the air temp was still low 80's, the water temperature has plummeted from 80 to 72, so there's not much swimming or diving going with this fair weather crowd. Those that did dive took quite a while to get their temperatures back up, given the 3-mill suits they have been using.

We're off today to Vava'u, in the Tonga group to find some sun and a non-rolly anchorage. Short 250 mile, 40 hour passage in pretty benign conditions. We'll be hosting brother Phil and his wife Josie in late August. It'll be nice to have visitors again.

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