The next day, Frank came by to let us know Tahina was sailing back to Neafu to get ready to leave to another island group. We had decided to stay in the Vavau group until leaving to NZ, so after several weeks of gunk holing around Tonga with Tahina, we split up. We agreed stayed in touch so we could meet up in a few days as Tahina was getting ready to leave.

We stayed in Hunga for a couple more days. We didn't leave the boat except to do some snorkling or work on cleaning our boat's hull. Dana did a bunch of organization and worked on repairing seveal tears we had noticed in our main sail. Mark cleaned a bunch of algae off the waterline and then waxed the area near the water. He hadn't been able to wax those areas in Papeete because of the waves, but Hunga was perfect for being able to finish the waxing job. We also both worked on cleaning and applying protectants to our stainless, especially the bow of the boat, which had developed a number of rust spots.

We heard from Tahina they had finished their preparations and going to be on their way after stopping in Euakafa where we had anchored several weeks before. They wanted to take another shot at finding the Queens Tomb now that we had better directions. We pulled up our anchors (we had set another one to make sure we didn't swing into a large coral found while snorkling) and motored over to the island to try the hike with them.

This time we found the tomb after a short hike involving alot of climbing. As we had read, the tomb had been opened and was empty, but it was interesting nonetheless to see one of the few archeological sites on these islands. It was getting on the late side so we didn't continue on the short distance to the top of the island; if nothing else, the midgies would be coming out in force before long.

On the way back, Frank noticed a very large coconut crab and we had a chance to watch ramble across the path. These crabs are able to claw their way into coconuts, which is pretty impressive if you've ever tried to open a coconut yourself. We did not mess with the crab.

We went back to our boats to get food together for dinner on Tahina. In celebration of several great weeks hanging out with our friends, we contributed our third and final Heineken beer mini-keg. It wasn't a late night since they were leaving very early next morining. We hope to bump into them in NZ when we both arrive.

Tahina left the next morning and later in the day we sailed back into Neaifu. Normally, we would have motored for all of a short trip such as this. But we were short on water and needed to run our water maker in places with deeper water and hopefully less sediments to be filtered out. We can make 160 liters/hour and usually need around 100 liters each day (we can use much less, but then have to work on conserving). Slower was better and sailing into the wind gave us an extra couple of hours. Also, it was good to get some practice sailing in confined places. Our usual practice is to only sail when well away from land and try to avoid changing sail configurations, sometimes going days without any changes. So it was good practice.

Coming back into harbor, we checked email and came ashore for a bite to eat. The next couple of days were occupied mostly with Mark catching up on some work and an occasional bike ride. We met up again with Whorllwind and went to a new (to us) restaurant to have a brick oven pizza. They were big into Geocaching (a cousin of Letterboxing) and we learned about their experiences with that. There was even a Geocache near the very restaurant we were at and Mark was encouraged to look around. There were some smiles as Mark looked around the street outside the restaurant, not realizing the cache was feet away from where he had been sitting. And even then, it wasn't really there because Whorllwind had given the cache to the restaurant owners to dry out, so Mark was poking around for something that wasn't even there.

The crossing to New Zealand may be our first encounter with rough weather since we crossed the gulfstream on our passage from Hampton VA to the Caribbean, so planning our timing is important. It looks as though there may be a weather window for the crossing in the next week or so. We are thinking of going during thisill window, so it is time to start planning on filling up on fuel and checking out of Tonga. Though we should still get another few days to explore the outer islands, we'll still miss this place after finally leaving.