You just have to ask, “What the hell”? We’ll get to it.

Waiting for the flea circus to start

The amazing Billy and his flea circus

Ann and Lisa with one of the Tonga Bob's dancers

Bob with the Fakaladies at Tonga Bob's

These girls, er, guys can dance!

In the meantime-we went sailing yesterday. We kind of had to. After being here 8 days, we were about reaching the end of our water and umm, holding tank capacity. Time to go offshore to release the latter and capture the former. So, off we went, leaving our dinghy tied to the mooring so someone wouldn’t grab it while we were gone. We left at 0930 and sailed out. Got a couple calls from friends who said we were “lookin’ good” sailing through the channel. We were with our buddies on Orcinius who needed to do the same thing, so we balanced our two boats’ sails to get a speed that worked and sailed together all day.

Other than taking care of “tankage”, our other goal was catching fish. We both were dragging (this is foreshadowing) fishing lines and we were headed to what they call FAD’s-or Fish Aggregation Devices or what I like to call Fish Aggravation Devices. No matter what you call them, there are three on the coast off Vava’u. A northern, western and southern one. They are basically a series of buoys in a 30 meter circle that support some sunscreen fabric and the thing is tethered to an anchor in 1000 feet of water. They are put out by the local sport fishing group and the hope is that they will attract bait fish that “hide” under their shadow, which in turn attract bigger fish that wait for the “shadow” fish to come out, that then attract bigger fish, etc. I wondered whether they worked, which is one reason I wanted to get out there. Anyway, we had the coordinates of the three devices and set sail for the one due west of us. Five miles out I made time to pump the holding tank and start making water. Once we got there we didn’t find it, so turned south to find the other one. Another five miles and John radioed that he and Lisa had it in their sights. We were a little to the east so were about 1/10 mile away when we started turning back toward the islands as it was a blustery day and we didn’t want to get too far downwind. John and Lisa stayed out to round the thing and BAM! Just as they were abeam it, they hit a Mahi Mahi. Good for them-I guess the things work (we scored a couple fillets that they were nice enough to give us). The rest of of the day was spent sailing back in. Our other excitement was seeing a couple whales just off the channel back into the islands. Pretty close-we were about 20 yards off when I saw the first one. There were two, probably a mother and calf by the looks of them.

OK, fast forward to the Fleas. Flea Circus to be exact. We bought, well, actually I should say; “Ann bought” tickets to the Fleas Circus. I’m usually not too attracted by such things, but I’m glad we went. It was amazing. We could have been 100 years back in time watching it. All the tricks were amazing and I won’t spoil it, but suffice to say that we “saw” fleas drive cars, dive from a high dive, go across a tight wire and get fired out of a cannon. The venue was pretty amazing too. I can hardly describe it better than to say that fitting 15 people into a space about 10 feet wide, by 20 feet long was as much a feat as the show (max capacity was 12 people but there was a booking problem and the show was over sold – no problem – we squeezed together and one guest sat on a chair in the middle of the aisle blocking any potential emergency exit.). Anyway, fun was had by all-oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention that part of the charm of the show was that you walked up the street a bit to buy a couple beers to bring back into the show. The bartender totally knew the drill.

OK, so that’s the Fleas. Now the Fakaladies. I think we’ve noted in previous posts that these are also known as “he/shes”. Guys that are “given away” in Polynesian culture to work with the women and they become one – a woman that is. In this case, they have extended their identity and also do dance shows. At Tonga Bob’s (a place that due to synonimity of names, I have an affinity for). I think maybe I made up that word, but whatever, it fits. You could call this the “Tonga Drag Queen Show” and you wouldn’t be far off the mark. The place was packed. The details are too many to describe, but suffice it to say; we had a lot of fun and so did John (Orcinius) who managed to squeeze about 7 dollars (one at a time, maybe) into the very tight outfits the “girls” were wearing. As for us; we were in the second row. No such luck.

That brings us up to today’s Vava’u/Whangarie Challenge Race. We decided to participate even though there are some very fast boats out here. There ended up being 11 boats in all divided into “under 40 feet”, “over 40 feet” and “catamarans”. John and Lisa joined as crew with John calling tactics and Lisa working foredeck-roles in which they excelled although I should let it be known that when it came time to put the spinnaker up, I took charge of the foredeck and…put the chute up sideways! The fact that we passed two boats at this ignominious part of the race is no excuse. It’s been so long since we’ve put up the chute I forgot the color codes on the tapes. Oh well. And Ann relished her roll as “winch woman” in her first ever sail boat race. She has a sore shoulder but performed admirably. (I only finished off the winching on the very tough tacks.) I know you’re all dying to know; “what place??” We took third in our class and sixth overall (amazingly we beat a Swan 46 among others). The best part was at the awards ceremony, when he called us up, the MC said; “…I really love this boat, it’s so beautiful and I was amazed at how fast they sailed…”, not once, but three times during the after race party and awards.

So what did we win? A $20 certificate at a local crafts store (we’re getting Ann a Polynesian necklace) and $340 certificate for a “makeover” in Whangerie, New Zealand. You may not recognize her when we get back. (Ann is just really excited about a real hair cut!)

Speaking of which; our airplane tickets home for the Christmas holidays are now set. In SFO on December 12th (a day before Ann’s birthday) and fly back on 1.31.13. About six weeks. We’re looking forward to seeing everyone and hopefully sharing some of our pictures of this amazing adventure.