Monday, August 14th

Tonga

We made yet another crossing to the Kingdom of Tonga. We sailed for two days and nights and made it to Niuatoputapu Island. The most Northern of the Tonga Chain. The crossing from Samoa was pretty normal we has seas around 5-7 Ft and winds 15-20 kts. We picked up a new crew member in Samoa. Chad Huston met us in Samoa and will be with us for 3 weeks in Tonga. Chad is a pilot for Southwest airlines. We just cleared customs, three gals and one man came out the boat. We have learned that if you give a gift they will treat you very well. One of the gals who was in charge kept eyeing Chad. The customary in Tonga, if someone asks you for something you have to give it to them. The large Tonga woman asked for Chad so we gave him to her and we passed customs with flying colors. Chad went screaming and kicking, all we could see was this large gal carrying Chad over her shoulders like some piece of meat. I guess later we will have to go to shore and listen for Chad's screams to save him.

I will report later tomorrow what we find as we explore the island. I will not be able to post pictures until we get to Fiji which will not be until early October. The last post took about 8 hours to download all those pictures. Samoa's internet was very slow. We are very spoiled with all the high speed internet that is available to us. Please be patient and the photos will come.