Bora Bora provided a beautiful backdrop for the fleet as we departed French Polynesia en route to Tonga via  Suwarrow and Niue in the Cook Islands.  The fleet has been split into two groups for this leg due to the small sized anchorages that we are heading to. We are in group two and we were hoping to benefit from some predicted favorable winds, alas…. the winds are light and shifty and not making it easy.

Suwarrow is reportedly a quintessential island for those who would like to live alone on a deserted Pacific island. It is an atoll and a New Zealand man did in fact live there as a hermit for 27 years and wrote a famous book about it, “An Island to Oneself “. We are hoping to stay there for only 24 – 72 hours to break up the passage and not become hermits. The book is out of print but we will try to track it down somewhere along the way. This passage is 680 very slow miles and  should take 5 days.

From Suwarrow we head to Niue a mere 480 miles. We will be anxious to get to this small yet unprotected anchorage. Niue was visited by Captain Cook in 1774 and became part of New Zealand in 1901. It is now self-governing and has a population of 1700 people. Fuel and provisions and some amazing snorkeling and diving await us there. This should also be a brief 24 – 72 hour stopover.

Tonga is only 240 miles from Niue and is the other side of the International date line. 

This is our first crossing with Starlink  aka Darkstar or The Future, which is providing us with some lovely if expensive Wi-Fi. It has made life on board so enjoyable being able to stay in touch with those at home and watch the nightly news every night. We will see how well it works when we try to livestream our nephew’s wedding in Ireland. The wedding will be live at 3:00am next Wednesday so I will definitely be volunteering for the 3:00  – 6:00am shift on that night. 

Group one has just arrived in Suwarrow and their entry is being blocked by a warship. Not sure who’s warship but hoping it gets sorted before we get there.