Nuku'Alofa, Tonga

Nuku’Alofa, Tongatapu,Tonga (October 15 to October 22)

Lardo did an overnight passage from Vavau to Nuku’Alofa with 20 knot winds and of course, bumpy seas.  Along the way, Dennis caught a lovely Dorado that fed us for three nights and MaryLee had a whale siting.  Poor Mari laid comatose in the cabin praying to Neptune for a speedy recovery from sea sickness.  Both Gary and Dennis were up all night as we had to dodge the many islands of the Ha’apai group; the guys did an excellent job piloting Lardo through the maze of islands.

We anchored off of Pagaimotu Island –an awesome sandy anchorage close to Nuku’Alofa, the capital city of Tonga. There were many sailboats from all over the world, including U.S., Canada, France, Italy, Australia, Hungary, Holland, Germany and Finland.  An added attraction to this anchorage was that it is next to Big Mama’s Pagaimotu Island Yacht Club Resort complete with beach, coconut palms, island style thatch roofs and an outdoor restaurant right on the waterfront.  We could take the island ferry easily into Nuku’Alofa to explore the city and to shop at the bakery, produce market and grocery store.

Mari and I spent our final days in the South Pacific walking, kayaking and snorkeling around the island while Gary and Dennis spent most of their days getting the boat ready for our upcoming passage to New Zealand, discussing strategies, and working with our weather router Bob McDavitt to determine best weather window/route to New Zealand.  Fortunately, they kept a few hours open each day to do a little napping on the boat & to simply absorb the lovely tropical view of the island from our boat.

Towards the end of our stay, our departure date for New Zealand kept changing due to revised weather forecasts.  But while waiting out some nasty windy weather over Tonga, we all somehow managed to simply enjoy hanging out at our last stop in the South Pacific - Big Mama’s tropical resort on Pangaimotu Island – before taking off for New Zealand on October 22nd.