Henry and I arrived right on schedule on August 21 to the Niuatoputapu airport, landed on a grass airstrip and were greeted by Sam & Nancy! Since the flight arrives only once every 2 weeks, many Tongans were there to greet their friends and family members as well. We got a ride to the village where Havili was anchored and got all of our gear into the small rubber dingy and motored out to the boat. We were in the beautiful Niuatoputapu harbor with the backdrop of Tafahi, an extinct volcano, in the distance. Some have likened Tafahi to Bali Hai, the volcano of fictional importance in South Pacific.

We spent some of the day and a half snorkeling parts of the magnificent reef that protects the harbor. Amongst beautiful and immense coral heads were tropical fishes and the occasional ray and reef shark. Most amazing was to hear humpback whales singing when we dove down underwater. Tonga's waters are famous for viewing humpbacks that migrate here to cave and mate in the southern hemisphere spring. We saw whales breaching and spouting in the distance.

We also spent time exploring the village of Falehau while looking for the falekoloa (local corner shop) and the trail up to the ridge (which we never found despite asking multiple times for directions). Thanks to Henry's excellent Tongan language skills we managed to procure some wonderful local produce of bread fruit (mei), plantains (hopa) and Tongan yams ('ufi) - all of which we have been enjoying as part of our meals. We would have liked to climb Tafahi, but due to a weather system coming in we had to start our voyage to the islands to the south on the 23rd.

It is now August 24th and we finally have some time and calm seas to write something for the Blog. Over the past 36 hours we sailed from Niuatoputapu to Vava'u, a passage of about 160 nm that will be best described in person. This was Henry's and my first overnight sailing passage and we were indoctrinated into the club of night sailing, preparations for squalls, and keeping watch. This included trying to get accustomed to the constant and sometimes very rough motion of the boat, and catching catnaps in the salty and sweaty clothes that we had been wearing for the past several days. The stars were magnificent, including the Southern Cross, the Northern Crown and Scorpio. Sam and Nancy have been at this for over 9 months so they are pros, calmly doing what needs to be done, and then some, because old H & D can only sit in the cockpit staring into the constant churning sea, trying not to get seasick. On such occasions one wonders if there are more stars in the sky or molecules of water in the ocean. The four of us came to divergent conclusions on this matter, but it was interesting to think about Nancy's offering that there are more trees on Earth than stars in our Milky Way Galaxy.

We are now anchored at the North Shore anchorage on Vava'u where towering cliffs meet the sea and our anchor is caught on solid ground in about 80 feet of very clear water. We all went snorkeling immediately upon arrival and enjoyed the exercise and opportunity to enjoy relative calm after last night's passage. We were greeted by tropic birds flying over coral cliffs and diverse bird songs from the tropical forests. This evening, fruit bats (flying foxes - �"peka�") are flying to and fro in the forest canopy. How lucky we are to be here!

Sam has cooked up a delicious dinner of braised Raiatea chicken (Jenny Cheng style!) and Bora Bora tuna (he and Nancy caught a 100 lb yellowfin on their way to Tonga). We'll have fresh sprout salad and some of Darcy's famous cabbage coleslaw to go with them. All for now. We'll write more later. xoxo