We had a great look around Christchurch. Yesterday we headed over to the Antarctic Exhibition and learned all about the southern continent. It was very educational and interesting. We got to ride on the vehicles they use down there and went through water that was deeper than the vehicle. I thought we would just go along the bottom but the vehicle floated. The driver could maneuver the tracks in the water and the tracks propelled us through the pond.
We saw them feeding the penguins and learned a great deal about them. A bunch of penguins in the water is called a raft and penguins drink salt water and filter out the salt and then sneeze it out. Fish in Antarctica would normally freeze because the water temp. is below the temp of their body but they have enzymes in their blood that allows their blood to flow at minus 2 degrees Celsius (crazy). Mom and I went in a room to experience a snow storm in the Antarctic, once we were in there we wondered what the heck we were doing. Mom figured that she was just getting reacclimatized for Winnipeg on Sunday!!!. I wish I could have convinced Barry to come in because he may have figured that cruising isn't such a bad lifestyle after all.
Today we cultured ourselves. We hit a number of museums and strolled around an arty area that had a number of craftsman shops were you could speak to the artists and buy their wares. Mom had a great time in the quilting, weaving studios and I cruised the potters and jewellery making spots. I manage to resist a $7,900 sculpture of an albatross as well as a gorgeous red wool stole but could not resist a sweater made from possum's wool that was $100.00 off. It will be my NZ souvenir, it should keep me warm in Yellowknife next winter (maybe the waiting list for hips will be very short in the NWT and we will be back by this time next year).
The architecture in Christchurch is magnificent, we visited the Christchurch Cathedral as well as Christ's College. We did not go punting on the Avon although that would have been a great choice today as it is 30 degrees outside. We are planning on attending a Joan Crawford movie on at the Art Museum tonight. Hope all is well at home.
These are some sandstone formations we saw just north of Christchurch. We drove to Gore Bay which apparently is a surfing mecca. Could imagine Trish & Graeme enjoying themselves in this spot.

As promised the Haka picture. Need you ask if we are having fun yet!!!

I actually loved Wellington, or at least the parts we saw. It is situated around a beautiful harbour on the side of a hill. There is a public walkway around the harbour and there are museums, restaurants and theatres all along the path, as well as sailboats and working ferry terminals it is a major port as well. The day we were there was sunny and I could spend the rest of my life there.
We did the tourist thing and took the Wellington Cable Car up to the top of hill. It was a great view from up there. There was a botanical garden there on the hill. You had to walk down the hill to see it though and we had bought a return ticket and Barry did not want to walk down so we said we would meet him at the top. That meant that we had to walk back up the hill, quite a steep climb and challenging for Mom. I had to stop occaisionly so she would and we made it without too much stress. Good thing I have been walking up that huge hill in Opua for 3 weeks.

Check out the waves, the wind was just howling as we crossed Cook Strait. This point in the southern tip of the North Island. Apparently this was a good day to go across, the wind was only 30 knots!!
When we got off the ferry in Picton we took a drive up Queen Charlotte Sound, the scenery was fantastic. I will have to see if I can convince Barry to bring the boat down here.
The further south we went on the South Island the dryer it got. It felt like we were in the interior of B.C. around Kelowna. This is wine country, with Mom not drinking because of her medications and Barry driving we did not stop at any of the wineries.
Salt being extracted from sea water in giant ponds. Don't you just love the colour of the water.

We are about 150 km north of Christchurch. On the agenda tomorrow is going to the Museum of the Antarctic. We have perhaps the worst room we have gotten yet, carpets are worn, chairs have rips in seats and the bathroom had toothpaste on the sink!! Wonder if they changed the sheets??? Oh well, there is a gorgeous view out the sliding doors, mountains with snow on them. I think it has been since May 2007 that I have seen snow!!!

We are in Wellington, NZ at the bottom of the North Island. WE had a great day yesterday at the volcanic area. WE saw gysers, and bubbling mud and there was a Maori presentation. We also saw some live kiwi birds in their habitat as well as a carving and weaving demonstration. It was pretty pricey but we got a 45 min. cultural presentation and then a 90 minute guided tour of the facility. I left with some mud for putting on my face. Last night Mom and I did a mud facemask and then did our impression of the Haka for the camera, lots of fun. I have pics. that I will upload later.
Today we just drove all the way to Wellington, we stopped and saw one set of falls and then Barry stopped at the National Trout Research Centre. They had the biggest rainbow trout I have ever seen just lazing about in the stream there. They started the hatchery in the 1950's, I thought that was pretty far sighted of them.
We also drove across a desert, at altitude. There were no trees, lots of sand, but it did rain the whole way across. We drove into the quay in Wellington before finding a motel. It looks like a wonderful spot to explore.
Mom is going to fly from Dunedin to Auckland on the way home so we don't have to hurry back. The ferry ride return from North to South Island in over $600 so we decided we would stay a bit longer and visit some friends. The trip is too expensive to do twice. All is well hope everyone at home is doing fine.

I wrote a blog all about our adventures sailing from Opua to Whangarei. It is on the other computer and we are now traveling and I did not get to upload it before I left. Suffice it to say Mom is not cut out to be a sailor, stay tuned for more details.
We left Whangarei on Dec 30 and our trusty little car has been hanging in their as we torture it on the windy NZ roads. Kiwis love to go boating over the Christmas holidays.

The first day of our tour we headed to Auckland to go up the tallest building in the southern hemisphere, the Sky Tower.

On the way, we stopped at Sheepworld, when you visit New Zealand you need to stop at Sheepworld. They had an animal farm and then there was the sheep herding demonstration. There were 3 dogs that took turns showing their stuff and then a little 9 week old puppy rounded up the sheep, that was very impressive. There was a demonstration on how to shear a sheep, it was a pretty big one and the guy had a little trouble controlling it but at the end he tickled it under it’s ear and the sheep just lay there.
The Sky Tower was very tall, we were in downtown Auckland, we had a great view of the whole Auckland Harbour and parts of Haraki Gulf where the America’s Cup was raced. It was fun watching people get ready to jump off the tower, you would never catch me doing that.
We headed up the Cormandel Pennisula the next day. We took a tour of a gold mine that was started in the 1870’s. They had a working stamper battery that would crush the gold. It was a great tour and the best bang for our tourist bucks yet. We headed further up the peninsula and stopped at the butterfly and orchard house. The colours on the butterflys were amazing. We drove across the top of the peninsula and went to the Hot Water Beach. At the beach the volcanic water seeps up to the surface. It is really hot, we dug our feet into the water and I almost burnt the tops of my feet. It was New Years Eve and there were tons of people on the beach. They had shovels and dug holes in the sand and then they would sit in the hot water. After, I headed towards Cathedral Cove, one of the most scenic spots on the coast. It was quite a climb up and down.

Today we drove from the peninsula to Rotarua, which is the area where there is lots of volcanic activity. On the way we stopped at an open pit gold mine at a town called Whahai. The pit opened in about 1875 an it closed down in 1952. The Rotarua area is known for its hot springs, geysers and bubbling mud baths. We went to the museum that used to be a famous bath house in the 1900’s. People used to come there to take the cure. They also had a great display about the volcano that devastated this area in 1886. It was rather fascinating to look at pictures of what happened. Tomorrow we are going to stay here and check out the hot springs. I am trying to convince Barry that a mud bath would do his hip a world of good but he refuses to even consider the idea. Mom and I are planning so quality time in the hot springs. We will head to the bottom of the North Island and visit Wellington. We have a reservation to cross by ferry to the South Island on Jan 5. We hope to make it as far south as Dunedin, Mom leaves from Auckland on Jan. 10. The bath house in Rotarua.

Mom has arrived safe and sound. She was pretty tired as she was unable to sleep on the 12 hour flight. We didn't do much the day she arrived but have been touring around ever since. The day after she arrived we went to Russel and visited the oldest chuch in New Zealand as well as an old Caltheolic tannerty and printing shop. That was pretty interesting, they had a guide that demonstrated how to set type and print a page in very old printing press.

Yesterday we took a bus tour up to the very northern tip of New Zealand. We drove along 90 mile beach, the bus zooming along the beach as the tide was coming in. There were spots where fresh water streams emptied into the water and the bus would slow down and then plow across the water. I am glad we did not decide to take the car up there as I do not think Barry would have attempted some of the spots the bus went carooming by. At one point there were a couple of car skeletons that had gotten stuck in the sand on the beach and they were still there.

At the end of the beach we drove up one of the rivers and then we stopped and went sand tobaganning. The sand dune was really steep and I was a bit worried about flying down the hill. If it had been snow you would have been out of control going down the hill but the sand had enough friction that the sled did not go too fast and I had so much fun I climbed the hill twice.
We headed up to the northern tip of the country from there. There was a path down to the lighthouse there and you could see where the waters from the Tasman Sea collided with the Pacific Ocean. There was alot of upheaval and current in the water and I would not want to get my boat anywhere near there!!
We stopped off at several beaches and view points after that and ended the day at a shop where they made furniture and carvings from Kauri wood. These trees were logged extensively at the beginning of the centure so the wood they are using now has been found in swamp land that has been drained. The wood is as old as 45,000 years old. It is lovely strong wood that was used in ship building and making spars for masts, there are few knots in it due to the way it grows. There was a table and 6 chairs for $20,000 NZD!!!!!!! I would have to buy quite the house to put that in.
Today we are planning to go and look at the one of the oldest building in New Zealand as well as a waterfall and the mission buildings.

Bold Spirit in the sunset. We were within VHF range for 7 out of the 10 days so we had someone to talk to and they could report our position to the Ham net we were following.

Sunset near the Tropic of Capricorn




Repairing the radar, notice the fishing tape around my arm. I must have shoved that thing up and down the mast about 10 times before it finally worked.


My morning walking buddies.


Hilly, hilly New Zealand.



Saturday afternoon saling for the juniors at the Opua Crusing Club. They take their sailing seriously.



We went to a Santa Clause parade in Kawakawa about 20 minutes away. This train is a big tourist attraction.




Santa New Zealand style.




We bought a little car to get us around. It is a Daihatsu, a Japanese car and it is called an Applause. It is a 1995 and it has 200,050 km on it, but it seems in pretty good shape. We only paid $1000 NZ Dollars which we figure is about $750 Canadian, a pretty good deal I figure. And yes I am sitting on the correct side of the car. Whenever I am driving I have to think, outside shoulder to the middle of the road, so far it has worked, but sometimes I really have to think about it!!!

Hi there, I have been having a break from the blog. I have just not had the energy to do much of anything since we arrived. Our passage was a pretty good one as crossings of that stretch of water go. Reading the log entries, we had a bit of everything. We had calm winds and seas where we motored and then we had seas we had to beat into where the boat was bashing to weather. At those times it was hard to sleep because it felt like the boat was going to come apart it was smashing into the waves so hard. The calms and the bashing bits seemed to alternate quite nicely though so we were given time to recover from the bad bits during the quiet times. The last day and a half the wind moved around to the north and we had the wind behind us blowing us into New Zealand. We were in short sleeves and shorts enjoying the sunshine as we sailed into the Bay of Islands. It was a marvelous way to end our trip.
We were very happy to arrive, it was a huge relief after all the horror stories we had heard about sailing here. It took me about a week to get my head around the fact that we were here and that we had to figure out what to do now. Everyone kept asking what are your plans and where are you going and when??? I just wanted to tell them to quit asking me questions and when I had anything figured out I would let them know. Barry has been very busy getting repairs done to the boat, he knew what he had to do and I just watched him do it.
The marina had a welcome to cruisers week the first week we were here. There was an open house at the chandlery and the sail loft as well as a bus trip to Whangarei. We ordered a new genoa and got a bit of a discount at the sail loft and took the bus trip to Whangarei, which is another port south of here where we going to leave the boat when we go touring with Mom. New Zealand is very hilly, the roads are extremely windy and narrow and there is something different around every corner. The hills are grassy and have sheep or cattle grazing, most of the land is fenced as well. We are staying at the Opua Marina and have a slip here for a month. It is nice to just be able to step off the boat and access all the businesses that cater to boat repairs. The only trouble is that it doesn’t have much else. There is no grocery store, only a small convenience store, one restaurant and one coffee shop.
Our buddies on Taran have bought a car and they have very generously taken us shopping a couple of times. The other day they were going to a bigger town near here and we went along. We replaced our camera which was one it’s last legs after being smooshed when I fell on it in Apia and I finally replaced the sheets the laundry lady in the Marquesas lost. I got my glasses adjusted so they no longer drop off my nose as soon as I look down and Barry got a new pair of fake crocs after he discovered a hole in the pair he has been traipsing about in.
Barry has been working away at all the small jobs that need to be done in order to get the boat back into shape. He has packaged up the ham radio to send it back to Canada to get it repaired under warranty. I spent about five hours hanging half way up the mast trying to string the new cable for the radar. We finally got it done and the electrical guy is in the boat at the moment trying to connect it and then Hallelujah we might have a working radar again!!! (If you want details ask me when you see me, I can’t believe how much work it was.) Barry took the water maker out today and took it in to see if they can repair a small leak which it had developed. I made a huge list when we were under way so I guess we need to look at it to see what else we need to do. Barry was going to put a replacement part in the head yesterday to stop it from flooding and when he went to turn off the sea water inlet the inlet flange broke, so we no longer have a head that works. Good thing there is a small washroom that is fairly close. The plumber is supposed to arrive today to have a look at that; I sure hope he shows up. That is our life so far, I will try to keep more up to date.

It is 5:53 PM Pacific time. Ann just called and they are in the Bay of Islands and will be at customs in a few hours. They have a following wind and a following sea and they have been sailing the heck out of it to get to their destination. The wind is 20 knots on their beam and it is sunny. They have had some cold weather with the wind in their face. They have had to bundle up to keep warm. They are really happy to finally be there. They have come 1023 nautical miles on this last crossing from Tonga. There are lots of rocks and green hills that they are looking at. Ann sounded excited. I know what a great sight land is after a long crossing.

Once again they are without wind and motoring. It is nice and sunny there now. They have been motoring all night and on and off today depending on the wind. They continue to make good headway as you can see and expect to arrive on Sunday morning(it is Thursday there as they have crossed the date line ). Ann indicated they need to keep going as every so often some bad weather comes up and grabs them. They are expecting the winds to shift so they are not heading into them. The forecast is for the winds to move around to the west and then the north. All is well and they sound in good spirits.

Just spoke to Barry. They are currently getting wet. They have just put the sails up but have been motoring since 5 PM yesterday. They caught a fish, a Wahoo. Very good eating. Barry said they can't catch too many more or they will have to toss some of their supplies overboard when they get to New Zealand.

Ann and Barry are currently in 25 knot winds with a triple reef in the main and the stay sail is up. Winds are from the SE and they are beating into the wind with a speed of 6 knots on a course of 180 degrees magnetic (due south). There is a front coming through and there is some rain. It does not sound like they are having a lot of fun at the moment.

Wow, they have gone a long way in 2 days. There is another boat they are in touch with that is on about the same course as they are. They are able to get weather reports from them. They are traveling at 190 degrees magnetic (just west of South) at 3.5 to 4 knots. They were beating into the wind at the time of the phone call.
Being curious I asked their destination. It is Opua. It is the red ballon at the bottom of the page. I also asked if they were stopping at the islands that are 1/2 way. The islands are 100 miles of reefs and Ann and Barry are not stopping.

This is Bob. Ann's brother. I was Helmsman Bob on the last big voyage but I am not sure if that name applies now that I am no longer on the boat. Ann called a few moments ago and was very excited. They have departed for New Zealand. For all you sailors out there they are travelling at 6.5 knots with a wind from the east at 15 knots. I have a map with their current location. If you double click on the map you will get a much larger view.

I have to tell you about the rat. It is not our rat, but Bold Spirit’s rat. They think they acquired the rat at the dock at Big Mama’s here at Pangaimotu in Nuku’alofa. The rat joined their ship by jumping on their dinghy at the dock, riding out to the boat and crawling up the lines from the dinghy to the boat.
Well the good folks on Bold Spirit, Cathy and Jeff were petrified that the rat would get below. They shut up all their windows and their companion way, leading to very uncomfortable conditions below due to the heat. They very discreetly asked around for a rat trap, you don’t want everyone in the anchorage to know that you have a rat!! We supplied them with one and they put out peanut butter laced with boric acid and sweetened condensed milk with boric acid. The rat imbibed and left droppings during the night so he was there.

Today we dropped by to see if they had caught the “dirty rat” (a la Jimmy Cagney). We helped them put up their main sail to see if the rat was hidden in the folds of the sail. I was perfectly prepared to scream at the sight and everyone watched with great anticipation while the sail went up, NO RAT. The suggestion was then put forward that the rat could have possibly gotten into their water tanks because they had the tanks open when they were catching water the other day. This idea was quickly squashed by Cathy, perish the thought, some rat swimming around doing his thing in your water tanks, YECH!! We left after Jeff had surmised that the rat may have jumped ship, he was not happy with the boric acid snacks!
We went over to visit Tin Soldier, anchored about 100 meters behind Bold Spirit. Lo and behold they had seen “that dirty rat” aboard last night. Man who would believe it, the bugger had swum over and climbed up their anchor chain, Maybe, maybe not, we will never know! The saga of the rat continues stay tuned for updates.


Pictures are from a tour we took around the island of Tongatapu last Wed. The picture of the tree is where Captain Cook landed in 1777 and they say it is part of the same tree that is growing there, pretty neat. The rocks are huge and were brought here from another island and erected in the twelveth century. How did they do it???
We are hoping to leave for New Zealand on Wed. or Thur. this week. My brother Bob has agreed to do updates for us on the crossing so look forward to hearing from him.

There is supposed to be a picture here, it is in the Ha'apai Group. I wonder if it will show up. Well I put the picture in twice and it won't work, I give up. I will try sending them to Trish and see if she can put them on for me!!!
Ask and you shall receive Mom. Great pics

Four boats left this morning for New Zealand and five more are about to leave, the lemming effect is in full force!! We have decided that we will wait at least another week before leaving. We had planned to wait until about the middle of the month before leaving as we have been told that the later you leave it the better because it is less likely that you will get a winter storm from the New Zealand area. We have decided to contact a meteorologist in NZ and have him do our weather routing for us. He will send us a detailed set of co-ordinates to follow to go around the lows and the highs and hopefully we will have a passage without too much trauma and some wind, this sounds like a good plan to me.
Last night we had the best time we have had in a long time. Where we are staying is at a cruiser hang out that is run by a couple, the man is from NZ and the woman from Tonga. The hangout is called Big Mama’s, they have a restaurant/bar with ping pong tables, dart boards, volleyball nets, etc. It is on an island that they own, given to them by the king, and they also have some fales, or small thatched cottages for non-sailing guests. You can walk around the island in 20 minutes and there are lovely sand beaches most of the way around.
It was the owners’ 60th birthday and Big Mama threw him this wonderful party. She didn’t do anything for him when he was fifty but she promised him if he lived another 10 years she would do it up right, and did she ever. She invited all the cruisers to a traditional Tongan dinner, all you had to pay for was your drinks. They engaged the guys from the Nuku’alofa police band to play. There was 4 guitarist, 3 horn players, and a drummer. 2 palangis or white people (cruisers) joined in. on fellow on the sax and one on harmonica. It was marvelous. Everyone danced, the people that served the meal, the bartenders and all the cruisers, a cross cultural blast. I have a picture of Barry dancing with this beautiful young island girl, she was gorgeous. We took a picture of all the Bluewater Cruising Canadians that were there and believe it or not there were 7 boats and 21 people in the picture, then we all danced to Take It Easy. The Tongans let loose and danced up a storm, what fun.
We are planning on taking the water taxi into Nuku’alofa tomorrow to check out of the country and fax off our “inward” report to New Zealand. They are the strictest country that we have entered so far. There are all sorts of food you are not allowed, such as fresh fruits and vegs, fresh meat, eggs, honey, any thing that might sprout, they will examine your flour and pastas to make sure you don’t have bugs and on and on. Planning our food intake for the crossing will be tricky. We have contemplated motoring up and down in front of the customs dock and stuffing ourselves with whatever we had left and telling them we would dock as soon as we ate all the food we couldn’t bring in!!! Ah Well. We are also hoping to take a tour of Tongatapu so we will do that sometime next week.

The last few days we have been sailing around the Ha’apai Group of islands in Tonga. This group is the undiscovered gem of the South Pacific. There are 100’s of islands, many which are uninhabited. Many of the islands are small, some you can walk around in an hour. The outside of the islands are covered in beaches and the interiors are covered in palm trees, breadfruit trees and other luxurious vegetation. There is a thorn in this rosebush, which are the reefs. They are everywhere. We do not have paper charts for the area and our electronic charts are about 200 meters out, so we navigate by eye. When we are sailing we are constantly on the lookout for light blue water, the lighter blue the water, the shallower it is. The other giveaway is breaking white water, you don’t want to be surprised by that. This is all a bit nerve-wracking and for the first few days I did not enjoy our sails at all. We do not travel at night and if it is cloudy we stay put because you cannot see the reefs if it is really overcast. Fortunately we have been blessed with really settled weather since we have arrived so have not had to hunker down and stay in one spot because of weather.
We have stopped at 5 islands so far, we are heading south all the time. Yesterday Barry rowed the dinghy ashore (he has been rowing for exercise lately, I swim back to the boat for mine) When we hit the shore we beach combed for about an hour. We found some lovely shells; the island was off the beaten path so the shells had not been picked over. Barry battled with some coconut trees trying to get them to give up their fruit. No luck, he whacked and whacked with a long stick but the coconuts refused to fall. On the other side of the island he was in luck, and once he had gotten one to fall he took out his knife and cut it up and we slurped the coconut juice out to satisfy our thirst. It is hot work, strolling along a beach on a deserted island in the blazing sun!!! Back on the boat he hacked away at it some more and we ate the fresh coconut for a snack.
As the sun was starting to set a couple from a boat that was anchored about 3 kilometers away came over. They introduced us to Una, a Tongan who was living by himself on the island next to where we were anchored. They invited us ashore to have a fire and munchies at sunset. When we arrived having safely dodged the reefs in the dying light; we sat and watched the sun set. Then Una went night fishing to catch our dinner. He had a light and a spear gun and away he went. While he was gone we got the fire going with coconut fronds and shells and some wood. When he came back the fire was almost perfect and he cooked the fish that he had caught. We sat around and shared our stories and ate very fresh fist to our hearts delight. This was the experience we had been looking for when we came to this group. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, and then set off for a new adventure this morning.

I have some lovely pictures but will load them later, this computer is slower than molasses.

We are safely in Nuku'alofa, the capital of Tonga. Nuku'alofa is located in the Tongatapu Group of islands and is the furthest south. We are anchored about a mile out of town at a spot called Big Mama's. You can get a ferry into town from there and we checked in today and wandered around until we found an internet place. There is no WIFI here unfortuneatley so our access to computers will be somewhat limited. I have a blog back on the boat about our time in the Ha'apai Group and will upload that later. People are leaving tomorrow for New Zealand but we will wait until the next window to go, or maybe the window after that. We are in no rush and want to explore this spot. There is a big shipwreck near where we are anchored and I want to snorkle around there. More later.

We are in the Ha'api Group of the Tonga Islands. This is the middle group of islands. We plan to cruise these islands for a week or so and then head south to the Tongatapu group where we wait for a favourable weather window to make our passage to New Zealand. The weather and when to leave and what route to take to New Zealand is the topic on all the cruisers minds. Everyone has their pet theory on the best way to make the passage. We are expecting to have some bad weather somewhere on the passage and we are not looking forward to that. The boat is in good shape and should be able to take anything providing that we give her a chance to handle it so we just have to keep our wits about ourselves and we should be fine. Barry will make sure that I keep my aggressive instincts in check and I will make sure we move along at a good speed so we have less time for bad weather to find us, so we should do well!!
We had a great anchorage for a couple of days when we arrived here. The snorkeling was some of the best we've had, the visibility was fantastic and there were quite a few different fish that I hadn't seen before. The coral was alive and there were many different varieties in the anchorage. I walked into town with some other cruisers and was surprised to see crops of sweet potatoes ready to pick. Tonga is a fairly poor country, the people to not have much but there is lots of fruit to eat and the fishing is pretty good. This village was well looked after, neat and tidy with yards with lovely foliage(sp??).
Barry and I have been passing the time playing Scrabble lately. I broke up his three in a row victory the other day but succumbed to his superior skill yesterday.

Hi Everyone,
Ann and Barry made the crossing from the one group of islands to the next with no issues It was a bit of an uncomfortable journey due to a funny wave angle but they are settling in and I am sure exploring their new surroundings. I had problems trying to load in a Google earth map so I will update later.
Hey Mom,great photos of the cave, that looked like a great adventure.
Hope you all are well.
Trish

We are back in the harbour in Neiafu after being out at different anchorages for about 10 days. The weather has not been great with a lot of very windy days and rain. When the wind is up we don’t like to leave the boat when we are at anchor in case the anchor drags. We managed to get in some visiting and attended several dinner parties, playing dice and other games into the wee hours of the night. There hasn’t been nearly enough snorkeling or swimming for me, but Barry is happy to just stay in a safe spot.
We are planning on having Thanksgiving with Toketie, our Canadian buddies from Victoria, we have a turkey purchased. I bought a pumpkin so I can make pies and menus are in the works. We are not quite sure where the dinner is going to take place but hopefully Toketie will decide where they are planning on going soon, we said we didn’t care so wherever they feel comfortable with will suit us.
Barry had a cane made for himself. It seems to be helping him out particularly going up stairs and hills. He is looking for a rubber bottom for it. I took the dinghy the other day and headed for one of the caves that are in the area.
It was quite stunning, I entered a high tide and the sun was shining in. The water was so clear that the sunlight cast a blue reflection inside the very spacious cave. It was at least 6 meters high and there were several large caverns. The birds that nested in the roof were flitting about inside, Barry wouldn’t come with me as the dinghy ride was fairly long and he now finds it uncomfortable to sit that long in the dinghy.

One of the anchorages was on the far eastern side of the islands and when I climbed the island to the windward side the ocean waves crashing into the shore was quite spectacular. We are still planning on heading to the next island group further south, the Ha’apai Group and then to the mostly southerly islands, the Tongatapu Group. After that it would be just waiting for a good weather window and then about a 10 day sail to New Zealand, weather depending of course.