Passage to Vava'u Tonga
Position 18: 39.12S 173:59.15W Date 1110 (UTC -11) Tuesday 27 May 2014 Distance run – 248nm over the ground, 249nm through the water Time from Bora Bora – 1 day 18hrs Actually it is Monday 26 May 2014 as whilst we have not actually passed the International Date Line Tonga has repositioned itself to align with its trading neighbours. A challenge with distances such as this is guessing a planning speed and achieving it so that you arrive at a sensible time. In this case it was intended to be in the morning so that we had plenty of the working day to clear in with customs and immigration and the other interested Tongan officials. I must have got something right as my planning time was 1 day and 18 hours. We did have to sail some of the way with heavily reefed sails to keep the speed down. Having done that, of course, the wind then became perverse and we had to motor sail the last four hours to arrive at a sensible time. Approaching the main dock in Neiafu Alongside awaiting customs and immigration clearance The mooring field at Neiafu |