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Waiting for Mari to arrive in Tonga

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Holly and Deb have arrived in Nuku’alofa, Tonga to wait for Mari to sail across from New Zealand. We are having a hard time managing to while away the time.

This is the island where the rally boats are due to arrive in the next few days (we took a tiny ferry over for the day, I mean really tiny, not much bigger than our tender)….

So far we’ve had to put up with earthquakes in the middle of the night, fish jumping out of the water to attack Holly (it was terrifying, Holly was walking along and it just flew out of the water a good 2 metres and didn’t want to be rescued despite her best efforts. She made it away with only a small injury…) and dog fights and church bells (both at all hours it seems).

Deb and Holly

Tuna for lunch!

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Greg has been a very keen fisherman as conditions permit and today he hooked a meter long tuna who make quite a spectacle as he struck the lure!

This was followed by a magnificent tuna salad prepared by Michelle.

(**Note: Tuna hooked and tuna consumed not guaranteed to be the same fish.)

Great sailing after a bumpy start

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We’ve had some exciting but uncomfortable sailing since the engine was turned off early yesterday. Last night we experienced a sudden (but expected) wind shift to the SW which brought some strong winds which moderated to the W.

We adjusted heading accordingly and sailed comfortably all night in a moderating sea.

Conditions at the moment are pretty well perfect! Broad reaching on port tack with winds at 10knots from the W. We have put away the main and mizzen and are on genoa and mizzen ballooner achieving 6.5 knots boat speed in 12 knots true wind. Very comfortable!

With the water maker back to full capacity, it will be showers all around today.

One problem to report is that on Thursday night (1am Friday actually) we tried to restart the engine, but all it went was click, click…. After some time spent in the room of pain (ie. the engine room) and trying to make sense of the manual, we decided that the problem related to a safety switch that prevented the starting of the engine while it was in gear. This was “bypassed” and we managed to kick her into life around 2am. Phew! The idea of sailing through channels to our anchorage in Tonga did not fill me with joy.

But, all is good today (well, at this moment!)