Footnotes from Water Music

Position: 18.41.26S, 174.07.56W

Early 5am start to make the 70 mile leap from the Ha'apai group to Vava'u. First challenge was the anchor: the roller bar which had snapped off the night before and the overly-stretched, rusty anchor chain meant that it kept jumping off the windlass meaning that we lost about a metre for every metre lifted- probably time for a new anchor chain?? (dad will probably delete this before posting) After navigating through the reefs and out of the lagoon, we were off. Pretty rolly sea, but up to 30 knots on the beam with a semi-furled headsail and 3 reefs in the main we were making around 8 knots most of the way. Cracking sail, enjoyed by everyone on deck. There were some occasional squawks coming from down below ('Stephen I don't like it') but this was put down to a rusty gimble in the galley (or the hand-brake was stuck again). No fishing today, after the tuna 5 way extravaganza everyone was feeling in need of a break. Saw a few yachts crashing into the weather in the opposite direction, and the highlight of the day has to be 2 or 3 whales breaching less than 10 metres from the boat just as we were lowering the sails. We set to weaving our way into a volcanic lagoon on Hunga island. We were promised the narrowest harbour entrance in Tonga, and several bars and restaurants by Ken (our pilot guide writer). The first was delivered upon, two rocks which opened up into a beautiful woody lagoon (all navigated without any bumps). Unfortunately, Hunga did very little to fulfil our hunger, the only sign of any tourism was a 'resort for sale' sign. Anchored up in the North Eastern corner, close to the metropolis of Hunga island, and an extremely steep concrete road up to it. We went on a little explore of the village, and found more smiley children called John, pigs and piglets, and a game of football. Charlie insisted we move on fairly quickly before he would be made to kick a ball, while Fergus' attempt to pass a wayward ball back on to the pitch smacked directly into a young child's face. It seemed this happened fairly regularly and the child was still smiling and waving. Rum punches, mushroom, spinach and bacon risotto and an early night. An early morning run was promised by Ferg and Charlie.