We next sailed south from Vavau, Tonga to the islands of Haapai, Tonga. After a restful night in an anchorage at Haano we proceeded on to Pangai, Lifuka Island. This is the only town in Haapai that has a restaurant and a few stores. Otherwise the islands are all very rural. The people are very friendly, and spend most of their time working on their small plantations. The islands are all low, green, and with surrounding reefs and occasional ground down white coral beaches.



From Haafeva Island we had a nice view of Kao Island with its impressively symmetrical volcano, the highest point in Tonga. Our last stop was Kelefesia Island with beautiful colorful cliffs next to a bright white beach.



We then continued on down to the capital of Tonga, Nukualofa on Tongatapu Island. Here we anchored off of Big Mamas Pangaimotu Resort, along with about ten other boats, waiting for a good weather window for sailing down to Minerva Reef and on to New Zealand.



Carole, Phil, and I took a tour of the island and were impressed by a considerable number of blowholes through the reef along one side of the island, and with the fruit bats, AKA flying squirrels or flying foxes, flying around and hanging in the trees on the other side of the island. One pair of bats was fighting and punching each other for better position on the branch they were hanging from....





Carole flew back to California after a few days, but then Sasha and Jenny, who we had met in Vavau on their boat Levana flew down from Vavau to crew for us on the way to New Zealand. Sasha is a retired computer specialist from Slovenia who speaks five languages including Chinese. Jenny is from China and turned out to be a whirlwind doing chores, cooking, and everything else imaginable on the boat. While waiting for good weather to sail to Minerva Reef we battened down the boat, shopped for provisions, and cleaned the bottom of the boat as required before we would be allowed into New Zealand waters.

Finally the weather calmed down. After checking out at customs and immigration we went into the harbor at Nukualofa to get duty free fuel. The wharf was suboptimal with rusty bolts and other hardware hanging off of it and no fenders.... Adding to the difficulty were strong winds which fortunately were blowing away from the dock. Phil was in the dinghy using it as a tug boat to slowly push Southern Cross toward the dock. We had Jenny on shore with a taxi driver to catch docking lines. Sasha was on Southern Cross and threw the docking lines ashore. I maneuvered the boat very slowly toward the wharf, and after getting the lines ashore we gently eased the boat to within about three feet. As intended, the offshore wind kept the boat away from the dock and we did not sustain any damage to the hull. After fueling up, Sky Blue Eyes came and side tied to us to get their fuel. And after that, Phil, a German ornithologist and single-handler, side tied to us on his boat Parotia and took on fuel. All preparations completed we then headed for Minerva Reef.