Trip report

Left after clearing customs Wednesday around 11am in calm conditions but ran into rough, confused seas offshore from the bad weather the night before. We motored in improving conditions for a couple of days but all of us felt a bit nauseous especially Thursday. Friday saw the winds steadily increase from the SW so we were able to sail for the next 3 days. These winds were as much as 32 knots with just one squall thrown in. The last 24 hours saw the winds steadily lighten so again we turned on the 110hp yanmar. Overall, the six days were quite rough but we ate very well after we got over the initial couple of days. We caught a couple of tuna on the Friday so ate them that night. The mahi mahi that we caught on the Sunday was saved for our arrival dinner along with a bottle of champagne to celebrate our successful voyage.
Speaking to some of the crew that sailed with us on the 40 odd boats in the NZ Island cruising rally here, many were sick and 4 boats had to turn around and go back to Opua because of breakages. Normally boats have to go into Nukualofa harbor to check in here and the officials come aboard, but we tagged along behind the rally boats and were able to check in at "Big Mama's" with them.
We chose to do 2 hours on and 4 off for our nighty watches so I ended up doing the 8pm to 10pm and 2am to 4am shifts.  During the day we each napped at different times.
Most of the time while I was on watch and even during the day, I listened to music, did Sudoku puzzles and read a book on my Nook.
Our fruits and vegetables lasted well over the week with a cabbage, half a lettuce and some celery left along with some apples. You are not supposed to bring in any to Tonga so we made sure that we only bought enough for the voyage. There is supposed to be a good market here in Nukualofa so I will restock our supplies of fruits and vegetables hopefully today.