We had a great 10 days in the Vava’u group in northern Tonga, jumping around from anchorage to anchorage in this tight little group of islands. Highlight of the stay was probably our day excursion to go swimming with the whales. At one point it looked like we might be their first trip of the season to miss out, but late in the day we found a group of 3 whales hanging around that we could swim with. It was very impressive. It’s hard to capture in words, so we have posted a video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDpzWmAB6eQ.

It was also in Tonga that we ended up closing the sale of “Por Dos” to an English couple, Richard and Dawn. I had found Richard through a newsgroup I sometimes posted to, and it turned out our boat was the one they were looking for. They’ll fly out to New Caledonia to do the final survey, and assuming all goes well, close the deal, and then we’ll sail their boat to Brisbane as crew, with them along learning as much as they can. It works out great for all of us. They get a nice learning experience/handover of the boat, we get all our stuff delivered to Brisbane, and neither of us have to import the boat into Australia as they will be continuing on cruising into SE Asia after a year or so.