Cruise of the Confidence: Port Maurelle Tonga

Fangakima Port Maurelle - Anchorage #7

The weather started to clear and we decided to check out some of the anchorages. So on Saturday we picked up some fresh vegetables and fruit and bread, released the mooring lines and headed to Fangakima. We had a nice easy sail with the Genoa carrying us along at 5.5 knots to the small cove, tucked into a bight on the island of Kapa.

David looks for a good place to drop the hook!

This was a beautiful anchorage and we ended up staying for six days. The swimming was excellent. We could see our anchor quite clearly in 40 feet of water! Sereta and Marilyn were here. So for the first couple of days there were just four us. But word must have gotten out as soon there were twelve!

So I was in heaven, swimming back and forth between boats, swimming back and forth from shore everyday! I cleaned the water line and did another polishing of all the stainless.

We had a fun happy hour on Marilyn one night with Sereta joining us. Good nibbles, good conversation, good company.

But the hi- light was Swallows Cave. We joined Sue and John on Marilyn and headed out one afternoon equipped with our snorkeling gear and my Go-Pro. This was one of the best snorkeling experiences in my life. It was like being in a David Attenborough documentary. There were huge schools of fish, nothing scary. The light from the sun comes into the cave around four o'clock and it is amazing. The cave is about 30 feet and the water is so clear that your can see the bottom at about 40 feet. And when I say schools of fish, I mean thousands of small fish, all following each other in circles and streams. Beautiful!

We were going to head out to another anchorage on Tuesday but then Al showed up on Nauti Nauti so we stayed and had him over for dinner. Then the next day a huge thunder and lightening storm descended on us and we decided to stay put. Two boats had left that morning for Fiji but turned around and came back. At least the 25 knot winds did not come into our anchorage! They will head out tomorrow.

So David spent the day collecting rain water - managed over 10 gallons! And I worked on the blog, finished another book, made a cake and worked on my sweater.