Somehow even after all this time I still fail to calculate passage times realistically. We gave ourselves a week through the Ha'apai island chain then we left a day late. What we -- okay I -- failed to count was the following:
* One full day 65 NM day to get to Ha'apai
* Another full 60 NM day to get from Ha'apai to Tongutapu
* At least two sails of > 25 miles to move from place to place within the islands
* We MUST be in Tongatapu by Thursday night if we want to check out Friday
So instead of leisurely visiting some pretty, isolated islands in paradise, we're actually just doing a passage which happens to include a few stops. We have three stops here in Ha'apai, one in Tongatapu, one on Minerva Reef, and then we'll be in New Zealand. The entire trip should take about 3 weeks.
*sigh*
I mean that... not just a relaxed gentle sigh but a major, asterisked and punctuated *sigh*. I should probably even capitalize it.
On the upside, the girls don't do school on passages so they are delighted.
~ Toast
19 45.79S 174 20.75W Foa Island, Ha'apai, Kingdom of Tonga
Oct 3 2011 18:00 UTC (Oct 4 at 7am just to confuse things)