The weather between Bora-Bora and Tonga seems to be quite unpredictable, with frequent squalls and rain. We had a pleasant passage until a big squall hit us. We furled the genoa and had 3 reefs in the main sail and this was done very fast. We were lucky as the amount of rain that was dumped on us was the most I have seen up to now. The winds was blowing 35 knots for about 3 to 5 minutes and then all was calm. It left the sea with confused swells and us having to start the engine to actually move again. This was the only big squall for this passage.
We were heading towards the north of the Vavau group of islands, but the wind changed to a more westerly direction which forced us to sail towards the south of the islands. This delayed our arrival time from during the day to night time. We were very happy with the electronic charts, in some places it is slightly off, but in combination with the radar we had no problems getting into port at night. We took a mooring buoy at 12:15 am on Friday morning 19 August and slept solidly until the morning.
We took our time having breakfast, tiding-up the boat a bit and then headed towards customs and immigration for clearing into the Kingdom of Tonga. No problems with clearing in and we manage to get the banking and some provisioning done.
On Sunday we are going for a traditional Tonga feast, but that will be another posting on the blog.
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