You know you're really away from it all and unplugged when you don't know the date or what day of the week it is�...a wonderful feeling! We do, however, know exactly where we are because we have to carefully pick our anchorages based on wind direction and weather. A few days ago (I guess it was Tuesday, September 3) we had a beautiful sail from Vava'u before a nasty cold front with 270 degrees of wind shift was predicted to come through the area. We got up at 4:30 AM so that we could get an early start. Over the 62 miles we averaged over 7 knots on a beam reach to the first island in the Ha'apai Group, named Ha'ano. We needed to arrive while we had good daylight so that we could see all the reefs and coral heads that are plentiful amongst this group of low-lying islands. We arrived just 20 minutes after another boat had anchored right in the middle of the anchorage. It was a large catamaran named Zatara and the skipper, Keith, hailed us on the VHF radio. He told us he and his family of 6 were planning on riding out the impending storm system in this anchorage, but he thought that there was room for us as well. So we anchored nearby and enjoyed some snorkeling before a beautiful sunset and dinner. The calm seas were short lived because the wind picked up through the night and the swells started to come in from the northwest. The Ha'apai group of islands provides little protection from winds other than the prevailing south easterlies. Early the next morning while Henry & Sam went off snorkeling, Nancy and I watched as a humpback whale and her calf slowly swam across the anchorage and went within 50 feet off the stern of the boat! Occasionally we could see whales spouting and breaching off in the distance.

The next 2 days were filled with wind, swells and rain. Henry and I did get ashore on Wednesday to explore the villages of Ha'ano and Muitoa where we met the Peace Corps volunteer, along with her �"family�". This was the principal of the elementary school, her husband and children. They sent us off with a stem of ~40 bananas, and the next day they brought us some papaya, coconuts and a sweet dish called fai kakai. We gave them a few fishing lures and hooks in return.

By the time Friday rolled around, we had all had enough of the rolling and pitching. But before we could go anywhere we had to haul up the two anchors that we had set in order to hold us during the storm. The anchor chain had wound around a clump of rocky coral as the boat had turned in the 270 degree wind shift. And we were now directly in front of Zatara and didn't want to drift down into her as we dealt with our 2 anchors. The wind and 4 foot choppy waves were coming fiercely from the west as Sam, Navy Seal-style, dove into the water to assess the snagged anchor. Several dives later plus good boat driving from Nancy and anchor hauling by Henry, we had our anchors up and stowed and were on our way to our next anchorage near the island of Uoleva. The skies were clearing, the wind was due to shift back to southeast and we were looking forward to many sightings of whales as we sailed on.