Oh okay so it's actually not that bad really....

The Other Side of Sailing in the Pacific

And yes, that is Lilly in the distance, it was a tough call as to which home was drier really

It's not always sunny in the Pacific you know

So we've been 3 weeks in Tonga now pootling around the Ha'apai's and having a pretty crazy old time. We've had really strong winds (so Kieran got to go for a surf!) and we've been trying to find shelter behind various different islands with varying degrees of success! We've found shipwrecks a plenty, heaps of snorkelling and roughly a million pigs on the beach but man it's been windy! This is our first anchorage where the sand was amazingly white.....

And the sea was amazingly blue.....

And a few more anchorages later me and Kieran and Azumut (the dinghy) found our idyllic deserted island....


However, the wind brought the clouds and with the clouds came the rain and it's been a wet few weeks as well. But if you didn't laugh you'd cry so we've filled our water tanks with the best free water going, bathed in the dinghy's, washed clothes, ran around the deck like fools, got sore ears from rain so strong it's like someone throwing handfuls of nails at you and generally got very very wet....

However, amidst the cloud and the rain we had a perfect sunny day on this incredible island where we played volleyball on the sandsprit that joins the two and where you can see and hear the sea either side of you. A truly magical, special place which lifted everyone's spirits and dried out a few of our clothes.

From here we went to Lifuka, the main port of this area, it's been described as 'pleasantly soporific' and I can't think of a better description, more pigs than people and just a beautifully calm and gentle place where no-one's in a hurry to do anything. We spent the day tracking down fresh veg, which was more complicated than you might think, especially here, and even the local cafe seemed pretty impressed that we found any at all!

I also found my van, I'm not sure what it was doing here, or quite where it will fit on the boat but I'm sure we'll find a way....

We headed off overnight in rough seas to the Vava'u group and made a spectacular entry into Neiafu in such blinding rain that you quite literally couldn't see, we like to do things in style, although we are all starting to wonder if the rain has done something a little strange to our Captains mind as it becomes increasingly difficult to believe that he doesn't like pink....

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

Errrrmmmmm.....Sorry....

Okay, so this is a pretty stupid thing to admit but I've only just realised that you've all been leaving lovely comments on the blog and today is the first day I've even noticed or read ony of them!!!!! Sorry..... haven't meant to ignore you all, I have a very long and pretty convincing list of excuses which I can send to you if you want, mostly to do with the incredibly complicated nature of technology these days and absolutely nothing to do with me being very slightly spoon shaped. Anyway, this wasn't what any of you have asked for but here's a lovely picture of the still very proud new owners of Lilly and I'll get you some images of the interior very soon
(ermmm okay, so that's not working, but here's Kieran working instead, just in case any of you ever wondered if he did any)
Blimey, that's not working either, hmmmm, back soon.......

Il pleut comme un vache qui pisse

We are now fully crewed up with the addition of 2 kiwi guys, Harry and Pete, from the south island who were headed for the Solomon Islands and Australia but took one look at Lilly and decided they wanted to be pirates instead. Plans have also changed as sadly Mike and Bess can no longer come but we have another Pete on board, not crew Pete, or Pete on the boat next door but a whole new Pete, who sails boats, which is helpful.

So life is rapidly changing as everyone moves on board and me and Kieran adapt to lots of people being around all the time, it's a huge change when it's been just us for the past 2 months but it means that our departure date is getting close and if the weather forecast is right we could be off next weekend....yippee!!!

Back to sailing

So anyway, one day amongst the sawdust and wood shavings we decided that we should really go out for a sail and take our crew with us. We had perfect wind and went like the, umm, well, like the wind really (that's not me in the hat by the way)

Since then we have painted pretty much anything that stayed still long enough, I've rediscovered my very questionable talent as a seamstress, bunks have got longer, sails have got more sturdy, showers have got more intermittent and we've discovered that even after several nights of torrential rain, the only place that Lilly appears to leak really badly is in our bunk....last night I collected a very useful puddle of water around my collar bone which we have yet to find a use for, I'm sure we'll think of something