Cyndi and Rich aboard Legacy
November 24, 2012
It’s Saturday here (Friday in the US) and we’re doing some last minute things in preparation for departing for New Zealand on Tuesday if the weather window holds up. So far, it’s looking like it could be a nice sail. Keep your fingers crossed for us! -Rich
November 23, 2012
We had been sure to leave the Ha’apai Group so we could have a secure anchorage for the westerly winds due to arrive on Thursday. Now it was Friday and they hadn’t arrived yet, but looked like they could come in today. The group were all planning to leave around Monday and opted to go to town to check out of the country and provision. We were thinking we’d leave Tuesday or Wednesday and so didn’t need to check out yet. We were concerned about the winds and opted to stay in the anchorage with Legacy and keep an eye on the other boats, too.
I felt pretty silly around lunchtime when it was still and beautiful and we could have been in town enjoying internet access, coffee drinks, and really nice lunches at Friends Cafe or Escape Cafe. We were below reading around 2pm when Rich said, “Did you hear that?” I had subconsciously noticed some noise and now paid attention. It was the wind, picking up very suddenly. It ended up getting quite blustery very quickly! It probably blew 20 knots or more. The people who had gone to town were pretty horrified to see the conditions when they got back (Jim even put out a second anchor), but this is a good anchorage and the boats all held fine.
The winds blew through the night and into the next day, but it had lessened to the point we were comfortable going to town. It was a rather wet ride in the dinghy to Big Mama’s, and then we had to make a beach landing because they had taken the docks up (a common practice anywhere when it gets very windy). But with the promise of cappuccino in Nuku’alofa, we would practically have been willing to swim ashore!
I don’t have photos of the anchorage in the windy weather, but I have some really nice photos of it when it was calm; so here they are. -Cyndi
November 22, 2012
For so many years, I have dreamed of being away in a tropical locale for Thanksgiving dinner. Finally, this dream was coming true as it doesn’t get much more tropical than Big Mama’s! Some of the cruisers were having a potluck, but my vision never including trying to figure out how to make a Thanksgiving-worthy dish for ten people with ramen noodles and a can of olives (pretty much what I had on hand). It did, however, include sitting in a thatched-roof, open-air restaurant by the sea, being served a wonderful dinner, drinks, and having no dishes of any kind to do. I will admit the vision did include something more elegant than fish and chips for dinner, but I wasn’t going to be too picky.
We did have a lovely meal by the sea. I wouldn’t say it was our most festive Thanksgiving dinner as we were virtually the only people in the restaurant, but it was still nice. And on the way back to our boat, we stopped by the potluck (taking place on Morning Glory) and were invited aboard to have some dessert with the group. (We felt bad as we had nothing to contribute, but that didn’t stop the pie from tasting great!) Overall, it was a very nice Thanksgiving. -Cyndi
November 20, 2012
We made to to the southern Tongan island called Nuku’alofa. We got here yesterday and are in the “big city” today. At least it’s a big city compared to what we’ve become used to with 300,000 people living on this small island. We found two great coffee shops – yea!!! It looks like we’ll be waiting here a week or so for a good weather window to sail to New Zealand. We’ll post more soon. -Rich
November 21, 2012
Two of the standouts of Nuku’alofa (aside from the coffee drinks) were a beautiful church building and an especially beautiful tree. They don’t have anything in common except that there wasn’t room for their pictures in the previous blog post (we try to keep it to 6 or 7 photos max); so I’m giving them their own post here. -Cyndi
