Bob "on Tonga time". Note the two cases of beer under his arm and the contented look

We also raced Charisma in the Thursday night race. Here's the motley crew (less Ann who is taking the shot)

John called the start with great form and a beer in his hand...

...and Bob managed to put the chute up sideways! The funny thing though; we passed two boats like this. Everyone thought it was some hot new way to set on a reach.

Not much done today. Oh, we’re on Tonga Time.

Things move pretty slowly here and something planned for today often doesn’t get done until tomorrow, or the day after, or next week…or not at all if it waits too long.

Today we were going to meet John and Lisa for breakfast and then get on our boats and go out to dump holding tanks in the ocean, run the watermakers and do a little fishing/trolling (although not necessarily at the same time). Since we’ve been here almost a week, it’s getting near time for both things to be done. But, when on Tonga time, there can be delays.

The first delay was the internet. It’s very, very, slllloooowwwww. So, what would have taken about ten minutes at home, took at least an hour here, which was booking our plane tickets home for the holidays (we’re now booked home on 12/12 and back to NZ on 1/31). Then once we booked the tickets we noticed that in the confirmation, the seat assignments were wrong. John and Lisa who booked yesterday noticed the same thing. OK, another 45 minutes to talk with Air New Zealand and straighten out all our seating and now we’re getting seriously late in the day.

Even though we “might” have still made it out on the water given how late it was getting, now the rain started coming down. And it was a gully washer! It really poured-for almost an hour. Kind of a good thing we were delayed.

So, by this time, it was almost 1100 and all hopes of making it out on the water evaporated. Oh well. Tomorrow.

I’ll fast forward the meandering all day and the hike across the island and get to this evening. There were two “shows” at the Aquarium which is the local palangi (means more or less same as gringo) hangout. The first was a talk by one of the whale watching folks who is also a bit of an expert on whale behavior and the second was a 1930’s newsreel type movie of Tonga. We decided both would be fun, so we got there early to get a seat and ended up being there socializing and generally goofing off from 1600 until we just got back at 2030. Really a fun night.

Of course, everything is always a surprise here and tonight was no different. We got in the dinghy to motor back to Charisma (and Orcinius since we gave John and Lisa a ride) and…the engine wouldn’t go into gear. Or something. In the dark, it’s hard to say, but suffice to note the propeller was free-wheeling and the engine was seemingly not engaging. So, we paddled back. First Ann and Lisa paddled as far as Orcinius (a good two hundred yards or so), with all of us giggling all the way, then Ann and I paddled the next two hundred yards back to Charisma.

Another project for tomorrow. Or the next day. Or maybe later in the week.