Minerva Reef greeted us with glittering, sparkling calm seas. We arrived at the reef pass after a day and a half crossing from Tonga, mellow except for the drama filled killing of a hitchhiking venomous centipede named Ted.

Minerva Reef is a remote place and famous among cruisers. It is a three mile diameter coral reef in the middle of the ocean, disappears at high tide under the sea and you can anchor on it. You can anchor in the middle of the sea. The first time I heard about this place was a year ago, I met SV Migration on an airport shuttle in Baja and they told me they had their wedding at Minerva Reef. They celebrated with reef lobster and invited all the cruisers who happened to be there too. They waited for low tide.

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