"Located in the heart of the South Pacific, the ancient Polynesian Kingdom of Tonga is one of the most scenic and unspoiled of the Pacific island nations. There are 176 islands (only 40 of which are inhabited) scattered over 700,000 sq km of ocean. Located just to the west of the International Date Line, southeast of Fiji and south of Samoa, Tonga is the first Pacific nation to greet the new day. Tonga is the only Pacific nation never to have been controlled by foreign powers and is the last remaining Polynesian monarchy....king included.

Tonga has a variety of scenery seldom matched elsewhere in the world with dramatic volcanic landscapes, low lying coral atolls, pristine coral reefs and lots of sandy beaches. Tonga is divided into four main island groups. In the south is Tongatapu, 160 km north is the Ha'apai group and another 10 km further north is the Vava'u archipelago."

We spent most of our time in the Vava'u area as there were at least 40 or more different anchorages. The Moorings Charter Company has a small fleet in the Vava'u group and they have done a wonderful job providing information on the different anchorages. They have provided a great deal of details on their chart. Getting into some of these areas is not butt puckering but does require good lighting and careful eyeball navigation. We spent about a week going to several anchorages and most often we were either by ourselves or with only a few boats. They were never crowded but were exquisite. In one of the anchorages we had a bit of weather and spent the night up in the cockpit making sure Always Saturday stayed where she was anchored. The wind gusted up to 50 knots and we had lots of rain which makes it very difficult to see what is going on. We were with three other boats and everybody stayed put but two of the boats snapped their snubber line (which attaches to the chain for the anchor and allows stretch in the line to dampen shock loading). Of course you can hear when that happens and then the problem needs to be addressed immediately as the chain in now taking all the shock loading and can easily pull out the anchor or overload the boat's hardware. It requires deck work in the dark and wind and rain....no fun! Glad we didn't have that problem because we had just upgraded our snubber to heavier line with lots of anti-chafe as we had heard that several other boats along the way had the same problem. It always pays to listen to other boaters tales of woe.....always something new to be learned.

Of course we had some boat task to complete before leaving Tonga for the BIG trip to New Zealand and then is was just a matter of waiting for a weather window to sail to Minerva Reef which is a 450 mile sail and took us about three and a half days. Minerva Reef is truly in the middle of the ocean with a surrounding reef It which can barely be seen at high tide. The entrance through the reef is well charted and we were one of twelve boats waiting for just the right weather. It is also a great place to stop for repairs. We had to replace a set of bearings on the mainsail in-the-mast roller furling and put a new raw water pump on the main engine. We were lucky as we did not have to deal with these repairs underway which sometimes can be very hard and challenging. We spent about three days at Minerva Reef and then headed out for Opua, New Zealand on Sunday November 2 along with several other boats that had the same thoughts as we did.

More to follow about the trip that has been hanging over our heads. They say you can really get "pasted" if you don't have good weather because of the highs and lows and the convergence zone and all that weather stuff. We took the trip very seriously and got the sea anchor out ready to deploy if necessary. It would be very difficult but not impossible to do all that in 50 knots or more of wind but why not be ready ahead of time. We have been on deck in 40 knots of wind and I can't imagine what 50 or 60 knots would be like.