Underway from Niue to Neiafu

We had an easy last day on Niue on Saturday. Our Samoan friend showed up on the dock early and after we finally found out his name, Metu (last weekend he told us but we couldn't understand) we came out to the boat. His wife couldn't join him unfortunately. He was a bit surprised at what we had on board and he said if we get to Samoa he would love to out sailing with us. He will be back there in 8-10 years I think. He has a job with Reef Shipping and they send him around to different islands for a periods of years. He has two years left on Niue then on to Rarotonga in the Cooks for 5 years. Before I took him back to shore we went over and visited the big ocean canoe from the Cook Islands. Pretty impressive. Ian, the president of the association was on board and toured us around. Pretty basic accommodation in the hulls, 8 on one side, two in a deck house cabin and 6 in the other hull. No mattresses, just camping mats. Ian was trying to work out how to use a new sail that that got from some Hawaiians in Samoa to maybe help them go a bit more upwind. I gave him a bunch of screws and a couple of shackles to get it working. I hope they have good luck getting home. Apparently they are going to try for Palmerston then Aitutaki then Rarotonga.
We started out for Neiafu in the Vava'u Group of Tonga Sunday morning just after 04:00 and motored for a few hours until we cleared the lee of Niue and got into a bit of wind. The winds have gradually built to 15 knots or so and we are running dead down wind with just the mizzen and headsail poled out. We are comfortably making between 5 and 6 knots with the occasional 7. At this rate we are going to arrive way to early but we will deal with that later as I don't want to slow down just yet. My philosophy is sail while you can; you can always heave-to once you get close to wait for daybreak.

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