And some other stuff I thought you'd like to see

A fire on the beach for the winter solstice, and yes, that is me in a disco 80's cow outfit, obviously

Lilly on a very blustery day

Kieran trying out some alternative forms of transport

And the day I shrank, it's all about maximising space on a boat you know

Some things we've seen...

The smallest island known to man....
Coconut trees = 0
Vegetation of any kind = 0
Crabs = ten million seven hundred and sixty four

The most beautiful sand spit....

The pinkest skies....

Some things we've learnt....

That pineapples grow like this


That after so long at sea level walking up a hill of any given height is good

That the best way to learn to dinghy sail is to do it on your own by an island full of goats that attack you if you land there (unless of course you wrestle them to the ground by their horns until they give in, but that's another story)


That Tonga has strange and wonderful sunrises

Did I tell you we saw Whales?

Well if I didn't I'll tell you again...WE SAW WHALES!!!!!
It was all part of our spectacularly well orchestrated farewell to Harry and Pedro and as we were on our way to yet another idyllic anchorage in turquiose green water with the perfect desert island ahead, the Whales just came right by....


Me and Edouard jumped in with our snorkels and saw an incredible thing, 2 huge stripey fuzzy white shapes appearing out of the depths below us...totally terrifying and simultaneously awe inspiring, they came out the water about 10m away from us but by that time I was so delirious with joy, fear and water up my nose that I couldn't quite be sure what I was seeing, which way to look, or whether I was going to be swallowed whole and face a lifetime of living on a blubbery whale tongue. Blimey.

So here we are

Well we've been in Vava-u, the Northern Islands of Tonga, for several weeks now I think, to be honest though I've totally lost track of time and wouldn't be surprised if I've accidentally been here several years, which seems to happen to alot of people here, most of the people that own bars anyway, maybe it's the pace of life here, maybe it's the local beer.....
Anyway, the Islands are incredibly beautiful and grouped really close together which makes it really easy to pootle out and about on Lilly then pootle back to Niafu (the main town) pick up a few green peppers (the only vegetable currently available in Tonga) and then pootle off again. We found an incredible anchorage on the far east coast with amazing azure lagoons on one side of the islands and the crashing waves of the pacific on the other. The Islands were made of unbelievably spiky rock built to destroy feet and seriously injure anyone stupid enough to fall on them, clearly my balance is impeccable and only the new scar on my knee would suggest otherwise.
The other exciting thing about this Island apart from the blowholes and the sharks circling the boat (seriously, they can smell pirate blood from 50,000 miles away) was that I walked up a hill for the first time in months, it's amazing how much I've missed height having spent so long at sea level and it felt pretty exciting to walk UP for once!

Here's a picture of Lilly looking pretty low when we reached our top speed so far of 9 knots....woohooooooooo!!!!!!



We've just recovered from a crew changeover, dried our tears and put everything back where it should be, and would like to say a very sad but very fond farewell to Pirate Pedro, the secret vegetarian, and all his failed fish spearing missions...

And to Harry, the Pirate with a blond moustache, whose cooking skills and general ability to make anything out of anything will be sadly missed


We now have two Lahndeners on board, Pete and Chris, and life is good. The sea air is just so good for your hair and skin you know.

And some very very small things

Some really very large things....

(for those of you with dodgy eyesight that is a whale, and in the background is Pedro on a kayak, just to give a sense of scale)