Ann in front of the "canoes"

Getting ready for the start

Victory! (almost)

Here's Lofi, delivering bread and Tongan "beer"

If you’re ever offered “Tonga Beer”, follow along with this note, but first some updates.

Since we officially entered the country two days ago, we’ve been having a blast. Tonga is a wonderful place. The people are so nice, the prices and availability of fresh veggies and fruit are reasonable and it’s so nice seeing all our friends again as we’re all gathered here getting ready for the last push of the season-in general to New Zealand-although some will head from here to Australia or north to the Marshall Islands for the cyclone season.

Yesterday started off with our “friend” Lofi bringing us fresh bread in his rowboat and “Tonga Beer”. The bread was self explanatory, but the beer was, well, different. It was a bag of powder. I didn’t want to look totally ignorant, so I paid for it (too much as it later turned out, but oh, well…) and he left us to make breakfast with our fresh loaf of bread. Toast is ever so nice when you haven’t seen any fresh bread for weeks (usually Ann’s been making it, but all our recent passages have been just short enough that it hasn’t been worth the trouble, but then when we get into port, there hasn’t been any). Still puzzled by the powdered “beer” we finished breakfast and went into shore to check things out.

This town is really more of just a village. It’s got a bunch of ex-pat ruin bars and restaurants, but beyond that the island seems really rural. Today we walked out of town to see the championship Tonga rugby game. The “stadium” is pretty basic. Pretty much a high school football field where people line the field and sit up in the trees to cheer their team. And cheer they did! It was really fun to watch and a hard fought game. Since neither of us knows anything about rugby all we can say is that it looked like semi-controlled mayhem, but was fun to watch. Unfortunately, our team lost.

Today Ann participated in another “canoe race”. At least she thought it was going to be a canoe race. One of her friends and prior teammates (Barb from Astarte) convinced her to join her team and they also picked up a friend Vanessa, a Dutch lady from Cornelia to join them. It turned out the “canoes” were broken down dinghies, but the race was hard fought. I’ll have to post pictures to do justice to the image, but in the meantime picture Barb sitting on the bow of a ten foot beater dinghy with Ann on one side and Vanessa on the other paddling for all they had. Amazingly they got second and came very close to winning. I thought that at best they would probably sink, so they bettered my expectation.

Tonight was the “pub crawl”. Everyone showed up in costume (one of the few times where we actually didn’t) and went from bar and restaurant to bar/restaurant. There was even a vehicle with a portable DJ playing music that went through town that everyone followed. When the music started up, it was time to follow to the next bar. We ended the night at Tonga Bob’s. What could be more perfect! Well, turns out Tonga Bob’s is sort of a transvestite bar. We have a picture of me with three of the “waitresses” and the Tonga Bob sign to help show what I’m talking about. Actually, in Polynesia, there is a cultural tradition that in a family that has a lot of sons, one is chosen to become a he/she , which means this boy is designated to help the women and in essence becomes one. It’s complicated, but very accepted part of their culture. Anyway, Tonga Bob’s celebrates this and we had fun there.

OK, so what about that Tongan beer? I caught up with Lofi later in the day and asked him the burning question; “Do I mix this with water and then let it sit for a while?” He said; “no, you mix it, sometimes with a little rum and then drink it. It makes your mouth, lips and tongue go numb and you feel good!” I, now getting part of the picture here, replied; “You mean this is Kava?!” “Yes!!, says he; “Tonga beer, Kava!!” OK, so this should be interesting.

At this point I would like all our readers to know that Kava is legal in Tonga. Ann and I made some last night. I can say, yes, your mouth goes numb-it is an acquired taste-and it was fun. That’s all I’m saying.

Tonga is not always filled with this kind of activity. Our tattoo mana worked its magic and we are here for a very fun week of cruiser fun and activities. And we are loving it. After this week things will quiet down and we will move out of Nieafu and anchor in some of the more remote parts of Tonga.