Tonga tonga tonga!!!!

We made it!! And here's a picture to prove it....and if you count you'll notice that we managed not to lose any crew along the way, which is always the sign of a good passage


The journey was amazing, I got off pretty lightly with minimal 3 days seasickness where I seriously reconsidered my sea based pirate styled life choices but I soon forgot about all that as the weather got warmer and the sea got bluer. You really can't imagine a more incredible color than the pacific, she is a beautiful deep endless blue and totally mesmerising.

She is also very wet as we all discovered in a varying array of spectacular ways, up the leg, down the neck, full body dunking, or, if you're really silly, then a bowsprit net shower seemed to do the trick (look closely, that really is me in there)

We also had a day of calmness when we stopped the boat and swam in the sea, a pretty awesome experience when you think how many miles of ocean are beneath you, and what lies below (actually, probably better not to think about it too much....!)

We had big seas when we left and much soggy bottomedness and a whole variety of weather along the way but Lilly sailed like a dream through big swell, squalls, sunshine and mighty waves. It's very difficult to imagine what life is like when permanently tipped sideways but I can tell you it requires you to be alert at all times whether asleep or awake and even the simplest task requires the utmost care and attention to avoid a painful tumble to the other side of the cabin or deck. At times this is totally infuriating as mugs are only ever half full of tea and you start to wonder if having one leg shorter than the other would just make life infinitely easier but the experience of being out there beneath the stars, watching the sun set and the moon rise makes it totally worth it. We even saw a whale! It was probably after some of the crew's fabulous baking....

7 days in we stopped at Minerva reef, a crazy huge ring of reef in the middle of nowhere where we snorkelled and saw reef sharks (well we think they were reef sharks, they were definitely sharks...) turtles and an incredible array of beautiful fish. It's a pretty strange experience to step off the boat and walk along reef in the middle of the pacific....

We saw hardly any other boats so despite much eating of pirate stew, and swaggering around in a pirate like fashion and even hoisting a pirate flag we failed dismally to plunder any booty and went back to saying 'aaaarrrrrrr' quietly in our bunks

We're now off to the Ha'Pai's in search of white sand palm fringed beaches, it's a pretty tough life....I'll keep you posted