We had a lovely night and day of good weather. Unfortunately the wind was light and almost dead astern. We sailed port tack, starboard tack, wing and wing but always slow and changing. We had to keep an auxiliary involved so that we would make Tonga by sunset. And we did.

We sighted Vava'u, the cruiser haven and charter destination in Tonga, around 2PM. This was our signal to move the calendar forward. Tonga wanted to be in the same day as their trading partners in Australia, NZ and Fiji so even though they are only 174 degrees west they are +13 hours on Greenwich. So we have no blog for the 9th.

We got into the Vava'u group of islands near sunset so we made our way down to the anchorage where O'Vive was hooked up. It is a lovely little spot. We had to anchor twice to get a set, which is a singular event with our Rocna. Dave indicates that anchoring in Tonga is challenging, lots of coral and rock bottoms.

Tomorrow we will snake our way into the deep harbor of Neafu and pay the overtime vig for clearing in on Saturday (shouldn't it really be Friday?). We are happy to be here and look forward to exploring what looks to be a gorgeous group of islands.