Peter J.
11/03/2007, somewhere in between Tongatapu and Minevera Reefs

My bags showed up, so we left Tonga a little after 1330 local time Saturday. So, here we are, sailing our arses off in around 15 kts of wind making well over 7kts over ground... Heeled over about 25 degrees to starborad, and I'm inside typing and trying not to puke all over Morgan's laptop.

Weather has been pretty good, although the winds were a little light coming out of NukuAlofa, so a long motor-sail was in order... but at least our batteries got nice and topped up.

Winds are mostly cooperating for Mostly Harmless, and we have been able to maintain a rhumb line course to the Minerva Reefs.

We caught a nice little tuna yesterday; looking forward to cooking that little bad boy up.

Anyhow, hope all is well back home; next report should be from Minerva.

Peter.

(and Morgan says "hi", too)

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Peter J.
10/31/2007, Tonga - Nuku'Alofa - still

Not sure if anyone is reading this, but I'm having fun figuring out all the cool electronics on Mostly Harmless... this HAM email system is really cool...

Today was mostly sightseeing around the island of Tongatapu... Morgan has already seen most of it (he's been here for around 3 weeks now), so he humored me and showed me all the cool stuff... A Tongan version of Stonehenge, some big ass bats (same wingspan as a seagull), blowholes (according to the locals, if you whistle and make noise, the blow hole gods get angry and spray water even higher), a few caves, a totally deserted white sand beach, and the place where Captain Cook made his landing on the Island.

Oh, and good news / bad news about my bags... they found out where they were (good news), but they won't be here until Saturday (they think) (bad news) ... :^/

If they do show on the Saturday morning flight, we'll probably be weighing anchor and continuing south to New Zealand that afternoon... I'm looking forward to my first offshore sailing...

- Peter J.

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Peter J.
10/31/2007, Tonga - Nuku'Alofa

I arrived in the Kingdom of Tonga yesterday.

The flights were mostly uneventful... right up until the time I went to claim my luggage in the Tongatapu airport. Unfortunately, even though I made it fine, my bags did not... neither of them made it here on my flight... :^(

Anyhow, Morgan was there to pick me up, so we went back to the Mostly Harmless (anchored & stern tied in the main harbour), and I put on a pair of his shorts and his baby blue t-shirt that he said was big on him... well, needless to say, it was a little tight on me. Stop laughing, Kevin.... At that point, I thought what the heck... was better than the jeans and shirt that I'd just spent the last countless hours sitting on a plane in.

But at least my bank card worked so, I withdrew some Tongan money (Panga?) and went down to the local market to do some shopping... thankfully I met Morgan on a leg of the journey where the indiginous folk are somewhat "rotund", so most of the clothes that they had on hand were actually a little big on me... on that note, I saw the first 6XL t-shirt I've ever seen in my life yesterday, too...

So, a pair of flip flops, a fake chinese knock off tommy bahama shirt, and a couple pair of shorts later, island life was starting to look a little better.

Although the weather here is actually not all that nice... winds are blowing 25-30 kts, overcast, rain. Kinda like at home, only it's 26C.

We are going to do some sight seeing today, harass the folks at the airport about my luggage, and run some errands. Assuming my bags get here in the next day or two, we are probably going to weigh anchor and depart for New Zealand on Saturday or Sunday. Morgan's been here for a few weeks now, and I can see he's going a little stir crazy, so I think a change of scenery is going to do him good.

I'm really looking forward to stopping at the North Minerva Reef and doing some snorkeling... Google it if you get the chance... here fishy fishy!!

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