We were sad to leave Niue just as the 3 weekly supply ship arrived. We missed out on the fresh food it would have unloaded.
Unusually for us and by coincidence, we made the 260 mile crossing to Tonga in the company of S/V Surface Interval and, throughout the passage, we were never more than 3 miles apart. It was fun to have a buddy boat and to share landfall photos of both yachts under sail. Thanks Kris and Mark.
Half the passage was directly downwind in a confusion of swells (some quite high) and coming at us from all directions. It was during this part of the passage that our 12 volt power panel failed depriving us of our propane solenoid and, in turn, the ability to boil a kettle. It was too rough to go hunting for the electrical fault and so we were deprived of hot food and fresh coffee for most of the passage. Definitely a first world problem!
On the second half of the passage the wind backed to a broad reach and Shimshal took off and flew through the flattening waves. Surface Interval, an Outbound 44, flew with her and both were tied up on Vava’u’s Customs Dock just minutes apart. Good boats those Outbounds.
Tonga is a cruiser’s crossroads as it marks the end of the ‘Difficult Middle’ and the convergence of the ‘northern route’ with the ‘southern route’. The bars and restaurants that evening were full of familiar faces each with their own story of exotic, off-piste encounters with the remotest Pacific Islands.
Now we are in Tonga we can change down a gear to pottering mode as we cruise this independent Kingdom. Our next big passage will be in about 6 weeks when we point the boat south for 1,000 miles to New Zealand. But, before then I have an electricity panel to repair and the flow of caffeine to restore. The supply ship we left behind in Niue gets here tomorrow and so the shops will soon be stuffed with fresh(ish) produce to power us south. We have propane tanks to fill and engine checks to do in readiness for the challenging voyage south to the New Zealand summer.
Oh, I almost forgot, somewhere between Tonga and Niue we lost Wednesday having crossed the International Date Line!
