Tonga: 8/23/2015 Sunday
This is a 360 nm passage over 3 days. Wouldn’t you know it-- big wind coming from the south and our passage wind in between 5 and 10kts with growing swells being pushed at us on ahead of the system. More motorsailing. A lot of rolling and corkscrewing thru the swell.
Our bathroom got a nice shampoo one night. The Costco bottle of shampoo lying on its side on a shelf managed to pump out half of its contents as it slid back and forth with the pump hitting the end of the shelf in each roll. Oh, the joys of cruising. No matter how well you pack things; something often manages to defeat your plans.
Looking forward to a good night’s sleep, we arrived at Neiafu, Vava’o, Kingdom of Tonga midafternoon on Sunday. Over the last two days, we had found from the radio that everyone in the area was running for Tonga to beat the system. By the time we arrived, there must have been 50 boats settled in. The next day, the officials had to check in 16 new boats. They are used to admitting about 3 per day. It was a little crazy. Up with the Tonga pennant and the yellow quarantine flag. We found a mooring and settled in to catch up with old friends and make new ones. There are about 60-80 boats that we met in PV, MX for the crossing to the Marquisas where we added another 30 boats that crossed from Panama that make up our cruising family. We all are moving in the same direction so we see each other regularly sharing coffee, cocktails and/ or dinners in towns or on each other’s boats on almost a daily basis it seems.
This will change a bit as some cruisers head for New Zealand, Australia, go north to the Marshalls or find a place to hide out in the islands for the cyclone season which starts in November.