The morning Cruiser's Net promised another windy and cloudy day with possible rain showers. That's been the standard for most of our time in Vava'u. Each morning the Cruiser's Net has a time when people on boats and around the islands are given the opportunity to make contact with one another. During the contact portion, Larry from The Ark Gallery in Tapana contacted us. After the Net concluded, we chatted briefly about a problem he was having and how we might help. Since we planned to be in his Anchorage that evening anyway it was decided to discuss it further upon our arrival. With a number of destinations still unvisited, though, we set off for Tapana, aka Anchorage 11, hoping to make a couple of day stops along the way. As we motored out of the lee of Vaka Eitu we discovered that the southeast trades were still very strong, and, oh by the way, Tapana is east southeast of Vaka Eitu. Its a well established fact that one can predict, with 100% accuracy, wind direction on the Chesapeake Bay by first finding out Hurry Sundown's (our Catalina Morgan 440) destination for the day. I had hoped, since Tonga is south of the Equator, that the reverse would be true here, and we'd always have a following wind... NOT! Since our intended day stops offered little to no protection from the howling trades, we motored directly to Tapana arriving around noon. Larry met us and gave us a hand with securing Break Away to a mooring ball. Larry and his wife, Sheri, previously cruised the South Pacific on their sail boat. At some point along the way they fell in love with Tonga, sold their boat and built The Ark Gallery, which is a small barge that serves as Sheri's art gallery and their home. As we got to know Larry, he became another in a growing list of very friendly and generous people living in Vava'u.
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