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We are on our way to American Samoa after spending a wonderful week in the Vava’u Islands of Tonga. The people of Tonga are called the Friendly Islands for very good reason. We were welcomed warmly wherever we went and met some incredible people. Unfortunately our stay there was much too short.

Yesterday we spent a very unsettling day at sea. After a midnight departure and motoring for an hour and a half to get out into open waters, we experienced some strong 23 knot headwinds. Unfortunately the winds were coming directly from the course we were taking and so we had to steer West of our intended destination with the waves slapping at our starboard side. Throughout the night the winds were all over the place and eventually died down to 7 knots, causing us to drift much more to the west than we wanted.

Throughout the entire day everyone was feeling a little under the weather. Part of it may be because of a small flu bug that Eli seemed to have caught in Tonga and has spread around to the other sailors on our boat. The other part is the rolling waves which are not as bad as we have experienced in the past but that combined with heading into the waves rather than gliding along with the waves may be the cause. Until now we have always sailed long distances with the trade-winds and waves. Going from Tonga to American Samoa however is typically sailing across the winds but the weather forecast was for Easterly winds rather than the hoped for and typical South East winds. Because we are heading North East that provides us with an unfortunate opportunity to spend a few more days at sea (which we would rather avoid).

This means that with upset stomachs and nobody feeling like doing anything (including move), the boat is a little less tidy that we would hope. Actually I’ll be honest, it is more like a big mess. Zakary’s orange piece projectiles and other food splatter is about the only thing anyone cleans up out of necessity, especially after feeling the gooey texture under foot. It seems that when he is no longer hungry, throwing his food off of the tray is a clear message to everyone else that he is done. We don’t always realize it until someone has already stepped on it or walks by.

With a groggy crew, it took constant reminding for the laundry that was hanging when we left, to make its way from the dining-room table. If nobody takes laundry, blankets, etc to their room within a reasonable amount of time the next best option is to just toss it over the railing so that it lands in front of the door of the bedroom for that person. That way it is out of view but a bit of an obstacle for the person to whom it belongs. The hope is that the pile will not stay there long. I’ll let you guess who in the family will allow the pile to remain there the longest and who never has a pile because they put their laundry away.

At the end of the day, a mediocre tidy up job was done and everyone was lounging around waiting for night to come.

Because of the strong winds we initially had, we were able to make a respectable travel distance of about 90 miles in our first twenty-four hours, but that has slowed substantially. I just downloaded an updated weather forecast and rather than having the winds switch to South East with 12 knots as initially forecast, it looks like we will be experiencing 6 knot winds from the North East, argh. I hope our 2.5 day sail to American Samoa does not turn into 5 to 7 days. We really just want to get there!