TO TONGA
It was hard to leave such nice people, fresh fish and abundant coconut water, but again we weighed anchor and set off 350 miles to an island that bore the namesake of its discoverer Captain James Cook, Cook Island. With English the official language communication became easier. The layup was welcome after three days of sailing but we still had a long way to go to reach Tonga. We broke up the passage with a stopover at Beveridge Reef 450 miles to the west. Often called ‘the loneliest anchorage in Oceania’, uncharted, it’s little more than a horse-shoe shaped atoll bearing no land and no life above water. Overnight Paje was wracked with cruel 65knot gusts and we had to engage the engines lest our anchor pulled free, dashing us onto the reef like the rusting wreck of a fishing vessel we saw on arrival.
