For the last 30 years I have heard about the Kingdom of Tonga and what an exotic place to cruise it is. It is certainly hard enough to get to as you have to sail ¾ across the Pacific Ocean to get here from Panama. From New Zealand it's only about a 1000 miles but even though it is so close to NZ few people other than cruisers come here. This nation is
extending across 350 miles of ocean in a North-South orientation. We arrived to Neiafu, the major town in the Vava'u group from the North. We'll travel south until we jump off to NZ in about a month or so. We can't stay here because it is in hurricane zone and that would be too stressful so we'll summer in NZ.

Our first impressions of the area were impressive. The customs and immigration officers were unusually friendly helpful and efficient. We've run into many officers with attitude problems but not here. The villagers have been happy to help and have been very pleasant. Many New Zealanders have set up services here for the cruisers as this area is a convergence point for many cruisers and I'm told that about 400 boats check in here each year. The boating community supported by the local industry provides a bustling commercial area where you have many choices to eat, tour, dive, snorkel, use the internet or fix your boat. They have a series of radio repeaters spaced though-out the islands here so that you can communicate using the VHF radio with any other cruiser in the islands on channel 26.

The Moorings has it's largest south pacific charter base here and it is easy to see why. The sailing is even more protected than in the British Virgin Islands with probably more than 50 anchorages within 20 miles. The islands are clean easily visible and the water is deep and clear. We haven't seen any sharks and the water is inviting. There is wonderful hiking up the volcanic islands with long desolate white sandy beaches and beautiful crashing surf against the cliffs on the ocean side of the eastern-most islands. The weather has been sunny until today and that's critical because some of the navigating is eyeball only! The charts are sometimes off as much as a half a mile but if the sun is high you can read the colors of the water and navigate among the coral heads safely.

We are cruising with two other boats now so the company is good and there are new faces to meet. We sailed about 3 hours to arrive at our present location on the eastern side of the island group and the water is spectacular with turquoise and deep blue except for the brownish reefs with white surf. We hiked up the mountain yesterday to discover a shoreline as spectacular as California's northern coast. We found caves and a long beach to explore. We'll stay here for a while until we want to move on. There is an annual island sailing regatta starting next week so we want to stay away from the crowds and noise. All is well on Always Saturday. This is what Pacific cruising is all about and it's taken a long time to get here!

We have taken photos but the Internet is still our main problem as it is excruciatingly slow. We have a telephone dongle with wifi but with couldy skies it is worse than normal. We got some great pictures yesterday on our beach excursion.

From the Crew of Always Saturday