We started the morning with an early motor over to Tonga Island since Silver Fern got a head start on us the previous night.

My crew went ashore to check out the golden beach at Onetahuti while I stayed onboard to fulfil my chief mate duties of making water, charging batteries, restocking the fridge and having a nap(only a short one…..).

Once they were back we accompanied Debbie and Les for a romantic RIB ride to Tonga Island and across to Shag point to have a nosey at the seal pups. We also saw what I excitedly thought was a penguin but soon discovered it was a shag once it extended it’s neck(duh). There were lots of awesome nooks and crannies to explore around shag point and I made my crew get the paddles out so we could turn the outboard off and enjoy the serenity. We are hiring the outboard at the moment while ours is being repaired so I also had an ulterior motive of not wanting to crunch the prop on the rocks.

After lunch we went back to the beach and met up with a customer from the last trip who happened to be doing the Abel Tasman! I was ready to settle onto the beach for a swim and book reading session in the sun, but after a suggestion from old crew mate Luke to walk around to the Awaroa Tavern, we decided one more adventure for the day wouldn’t be too bad. With a stupid dare to walk with no shoes on and wanting prove I was a hardened Kiwi, I proceeded to tiptoe my way for the 3.6km across the track in the hopes that Macca would cave before me. I also stupidly agreed to help Dave try and go back to his daily routine of doing 100 pushups a day. We started with 40 which was about my capacity……..let’s see if we(when I say we I mean me) can improve over the next week!

While we galavanted off into the bush to the Awaroa Tavern, watch C kindly left one of their watch members behind to pick up the slack and cook dinner(thanks Nick!)

After a full day of activities everyone was in bed pretty early and there was a cacophony of snoring coming from the bunk room. Let’s hope those elephants don’t get up too early tomorrow.

Till next time,

Jess :)