We are anchored off a beautiful sandy beach in the Ha’apai Group of islands in the Kingdom of Tonga and will be here for a few days as Rod says we’ll not find a better anchorage anywhere in the world in our travels! Our stern is tied to a palm tree on the beach to help steady it in the water. We can jump overboard and swim to shore to go shelling, or walk around the island (4 hour duration), or paddle over to snorkel on a shallow reef. We took the dinghy to an offshore reef the other day for an open water scuba dive – I’m getting pretty close to passing all the requirements to receive my certification as a PADI open water diver. There are an amazing number of different kinds of fish, extremely colorful – Mike spotted a sea turtle while diving but I missed it.

We inflated the inflatable kayak and I went paddling around a bit – quite fun and easy to do. Good for exploring or just sunbathing. Rod and Anouk went scurfing (tow a surfboard behind the dinghy at speed and stand up on it like water skis). Not particularly easy and I gave it a pass!

This is not exactly a restful vacation:-) as between swimming, snorkeling, diving, beachwalking, etc. we are pretty tired at the end of the day. Nothing boring about it – it’s amazing how the hours fill up.

We took the dinghy into town – a 25 minute trip at high speed – and wandered around a bit Not much to see, but we did find this internet cafe so took the chance to send out a letter without burdening the sailmail. Mike stayed aboard Raven to keep an eye on her and believe it or not he is working (like for Rincon Research!). He acquired a Tongan ham radio license in Nuku’alofa and has been working on that – I think mostly he did it because it’s cool (if you’re a ham radio buff).