19:56S 174:42W

 

Our Timaru friends Gerald and Susie Morton flew out from Pangai this morning – they caught a water taxi from Uoleva with Craig who runs a great little shacky beach bar there.   We had a barbecue ashore that Craig and Kristen prepared for us.   Craig was here during January’s devastating hurricane when 150knot winds whipped through the northern Ha’apai group causing chaos.  Optimistically, Craig and Kristin have built a fantastic open sided bar/kitchen and we wish them well in their business and hope fellow yachties try and support them.

 

Before we visited the Ha’apai group we’d heard about the hurricane. While there has been devastation ashore the beaches/coral we have seen hasn’t been damaged and we’ve had some fantastic beach walks and snorkelling.  From a a cruising perspective the only effect of the hurricane has been in the lack of availability of locally grown fruit. Banana and papaya crops were wiped out on some of the islands.  However we have plenty of bottled fruit and our green papaya and bananas are lasting well.   Why cruisers would miss cruising the Ha’apai is a mystery to us as they are definitely right up there on our list of “best” places.  We are enjoying them even more than French Polynesia – for their stark beauty and lack of other cruisers – although we miss baguettes and brie!

 

Tomorrow we plan to keep moving on down the chain towards Tongatapu.