When we talked to Karen on Red Herring at 18:00 last night it was clear we should take more food to Niuatoputapu as the supply boat hadn’t been for 5 months.  The wife of the beach pub owner drove Mary around to lots of shops to collect bags of rice and flour and change US dollars as we had already used our last Samoan Tala, she even added to the kitty to use up the last of the dollars.  We still only have a small contribution in relation to the 1500 people on the island but hopefully it will bring some cheer.

The wind was in the west when we got past the island and turned south.  Lovely flat sea so we got out the reacher, all 89 m2 of the mast head sail that must be about 170% overlap.  Had a great sail doing 6.5 knots in 8 knots of wind until the wind slowly put us on a beat and it had to come down.  Wind should continue around to the SE overnight to allow us to head directly for our destination.

Position: 14°01′ 172°50′[-14.017,-172.833]  at local 16:00, GMT 03:00 2nd October
127 miles to Niuatoputapu, Tonga. ETA at 6 knots: 15:38 3rd October local  time
Wind: SSW 12 knots Sea: smooth with SW swell 1.0m
Sky:  30% cloud cover