It wasn’t exactly flat, but it wasn’t exactly uncomfortable either at our roadside anchorage at Onotoa. We laid low the first evening and the next morning we were welcomed by a massive squall with lots of rain and winds from the South. We rode it out and the rest of the stay was pretty pleasant.
Satellite image of Onotoa
We were visited by two local policemen who were dressed in a very official manner and who were extremely professional and polite. We invited them aboard, offered them some cookies, and basically told them the truth. We were headed to Funafuti and had planned to stop in Tarawa, which is the only official port of entry, but the wind was good, so we kept going, and now the wind is not good, so we needed to stop. They took down our passport numbers and told us we could stay and even gave us permission to go ashore to the village. We knew they would likely report us to the officials in Tarawa, and after that they might have to tell us to leave, but since it was Friday afternoon it was likely nothing would happen over the weekend, so we could relax for at least a couple days, and hopefully there would be weather to leave by Monday.
Tim and Brenden took them up on their permission to go ashore, and they met some very nice people and were given a tour of the village. Brenden said, “they had an *amazing* rope swing!” During our couple days there, Tim was invited spearfishing with a couple of the local men, some of the boys came out to Exodus to play, and Alex and Brenden tried to surf the reef break near where we were anchored. Under different circumstances we could see ourselves staying quite a bit longer there. On a bit of a down note, we lost the blue paddle board when we left it in the water at night. The boys noticed it was missing, and they tried to find it, but being parked roadside, it was long gone far out into the Pacific. This was really disappointing, but *spoiler alert* we will end up coming very close to losing the dinghy during our final visit to Tonga, so in hindsight losing a paddle board isn’t too bad.
A view of the village at Onotoa
Surfing the reef break
We ended up staying a total of three nights at Onotoa, since by Monday morning we had a favorable forecast to head south. Just as we had made the decision to leave, two men from the village came out to the boat to say hi. They brought us some coconuts and asked if they could take some photos, since they’d never been on a yacht before. For good measure, Tim ended up fixing their outboard, so needless to say we got a bit of a late start.
Gresham Family Exodus 