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Showing posts with the label Tonga

Unexpected Destinations

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  We were now sailing 2,300 km North of Auckland, New Zealand, making good daily distances around the North of the Tongan archipelago, somewhere South-West of Tongatapu, a small group of islands that formed the Northern most islands of The Kingdom of Tonga.   I awoke to the mainsail and genoa flogging. It sounded like Valhalla had become becalmed. I rolled out of my bunk, tired after a disturbing night of tacking into north-easterlies with the north-westerly ocean-set catching us side on and pushing us west. We had set out from Fiji and were heading for Apia, Western Samoa. I climbed up the gangway, into the cockpit and rubbed my eyes, the horizon was just visible, dawn was not quite breaking. Graham had deserted his watch and gone below and was fast asleep and Howie was asleep at the helm. I grabbed the wheel and brought the ketch to a point where the light breeze caught the main, she healed slightly to starboard and the flogging stopped. “Any sight of land?” I asked the yawning helms