The school on Ofu

Ann with some of the school kids

One of the two teachers at the school

We ran across some women weaving floormats. Some of them can get quite large

More mat weaving

Here's a picture of the floormat we bought. On top of it is a tapa that they also gave us. Basically paper made from tree bark that they then paint a design onto.

What a day! We just got back to Charisma from a lovely dinner at Gato Go. And we just got back in time as it’s now pouring down rain (again).

OK, rewind the day a bit to yesterday, which is OK because it’s actually yesterday here where you read this (?).

Now that we have that straight-yesterday, we were sitting in the boat around 1600 and it shook for about five seconds or so. We’re somewhat used to that because all kinds of things cause that-sails flapping, wind in the rigging, etc, etc. But, there wasn’t a lot of wind and the sails weren’t up. Then about a minute later someone came up on the radio and said, “Did you feel the earthquake?” Why yes, we did thank you. And thank you also for explaining this unusual sensation. Very weird to feel an earthquake through the water on your boat.

OK, on to today, which is still yesterday where you are, but that’s another story altogether. Today, it’s been raining like a monsoon and we got stuck in it while going between islands. It became a little sketchy when it hit because we were in the middle of a tricky pass. Very narrow with jagged coral reefs on both sides and NO channel markers. How did we do? I’ll explain in a minute.

First, I have to say that before we were dumb enough to move to a new anchorage with the threat of heavy rain we decided to go ashore on the island where we were anchored. And we’re so glad we did. The people there were delightful. There’re only a dozen or so families that live on this particular island (Ofu. Ha – wondered what that meant in the headline?!) We walked past the school where we met the two teachers who are teaching 21 kids in multi-grade setting. The kids were so fun, they all streamed out of the class to say hi to the Palangis (white people). The teachers were fine with it since it was a “cultural experience”. We took pictures of Ann with the kids. They all squealed with joy when they saw their digital images on the camera and all wanted to see themselves. We had so much fun we went back to the boat later and brought back a box of pens we had bought for just such an occasion. Then we continued our walk. No road, no cars, just a path. All the houses were built along the beach and there was a path along just in front of them. This island has a subsistence economy. They fish, make some crafts that they usually sell in the market on the main island and they have chickens and pigs roaming everywhere until they are needed for a feast. Then, well, let’s not talk about that.

Anyway, on our walk people would wave from inside their houses and say “hi” and we would say hi back. In several cases, we noticed it was women inside weaving something and we’d walk over and see what they were doing. Two or three would be sitting on the ground weaving Pandanus leaves into very intricate and beautiful mats and clothes (they wear these wrapped around their waist). It often takes one person several weeks to make one and they are handed down from family to family over generations. We have admired their mats and wondered out loud whether anyone on the island might sell one and to our surprise we were pointed down the path to a small hut. We walked down and found (surprise) three ladies and one of their daughters weaving mats. One thing led to another and you guessed it, we are now the proud owners of a 12 foot by 6 foot floor mat. It is gorgeous and as we told the ladies, we will treasure it since it is not only exquisite, but we also know who made it and where it came from. We have pictures and hope to be able to post them in a week or so.

OK, the monsoon. We decided to move to another anchorage as Gato Go called us on the radio and offered an inducement-chicken curry dinner on their boat-if we would come over to their anchorage on Kenutu. It was actually not very far from where we were, but there was a very tricky pass that winds through the reef that we had to traverse to get there. We decided to give it a shot as we had some GPS coordinates to help us through the reef. On a sunny day when you can see the colors of the water, this is not too bad, but today was grey and rainy. Thus the water was grey. Hard to see the shallow spots unless the waves were actually breaking-which they were in numerous places. Anyway, we were game and things looked OK, if not great (how often do you really get “great” anyway?). So, we plunged into the pass, so to speak. Things were going well and we were progressing nicely until the sky started to go from grey to very grey and then very dark grey. Uh oh. It had been raining all day, but mostly sprinkles that you get used to out here-but this wasn’t looking good. We were about ½ mile, maybe a little more, from exiting the pass and making it to the anchorage when the skies just opened up. And I mean opened up. It was raining so hard the visibility went down to 100 yards of so. We completely lost our view of anything. This is not good when you have coral reefs all over just waiting to tear a hole in your boat. The good news is it wasn’t too windy so when the visibility went to nothing I choose the just drop anchor right where we were in the middle of the pass. We were over sand, so the holding was good. It was the safest thing to do. So, anchor down. It held. I put out a “Securite” call on the radio telling anyone who might have been behind us that we were now anchored and blocking the pass. And we sat. Well, I sat. Ann took the opportunity of having tons of water pouring down to take a shower. We had buckets sitting out catching water so a shower wouldn’t lower our supply. And that’s where we sat for the next two hours while it rained, and rained and rained. I was starting to think we might have to spend the night anchored right in the open when the storm broke long enough for to us to jump up, haul the anchor (not too hard as we were just in 25 feet of water) and make the last ½ mile into the island. Once we got there it was abundantly clear that we made the right decision as there were very shallow reefs all over that we would not have seen in the rain.

So, earthquake, monsoon and Ofu-all in a day in paradise.

As seen in Tonga...dog taking pig for a walk

We heard that on the radio this morning. We’re out anchored by ourselves at a little island about 10 miles out of town, but we can still hear the morning radio net. One of the items was Monday Night Football at one of the restaurants. Who played? Who won? We are clearly out of sync.

We spent most of today doing “in-boat” stuff. It was an overcast, almost rainy kind of day. It ended up not raining, but it looked like it all day. It’s making up for not raining now, as it’s been raining since about 1800. Ann worked on cleaning out our food lockers and updating her inventory system. It’s really been somewhat of a miracle as the spreadsheet she developed on her iPad is still pretty accurate. So, we now know (for instance) that we have 7 rolls of toilet paper left. Also, we know we have 2 tins of tuna, etc, etc. This way we can get to New Zealand without buying expensive goods out here in the islands. Also there are many good New Zealand won’t let into the country including nuts and canned meat. We can now monitor these and either use them or donate them to the Tongans before we leave if need be.

I did…very little. Actually what I did was time consuming. I finally “processed” about a month’s worth of photos that we’ve been accumulating. Probably a thousand photos that needed to be tweaked for the best exposure and such and then filed. I also had to choose which ones to use to post on the blog and in Facebook for when (if?) we ever get a decent internet connection. We can’t wait to share them with you. I have selected about 100 pictures that help define the trip thus far.

So, that pretty much was our day. It’s supposed to be about the same for the next few days unfortunately. The grey skies don’t do justice to the beauty of these islands, so we are reluctant to move on and leave a place that we haven’t really “seen” in all its glory. However, we’ll need to leave this spot at Ofu tomorrow afternoon and find a more protected anchorage. Some of the weather forecasts are showing some potentially strong south winds, and this spot is really only protected up to southeast. Beyond that we have a reef right behind us that comes into play. So-tomorrow, we’ll visit the island and then look to leave by about 1500 for a more protected spot elsewhere.

And for those food junkies that follow us- we figured out naan bread today. We had it with homemade hummus and sautéed eggplant for dinner. Yummy!

Just remember; Keep clear of the Whiskey Bravos. Charisma, clear.

We’re a day ahead of the US, so today is your tomorrow.

Anyway, last night (which was your tonight, er, I think) was another fairly sleepless night. Not as eventful as the night before, but heavy, heavy rain kept waking me up and I’d hear a wind gust and jump up to make sure we weren’t going to get hit by the boat upwind. We heard a great term for certain boats that come into an anchorage that you just know are going to cause a problem with their boat handling. “Whiskey Bravo”. This is the phonetic for “WB”, which in term are the initials for “Wide Berth”. In other words there are some folks that when you see them you just head the other way because you KNOW they aren’t going to handle their boat or anchor well. Last night we had a Whiskey Bravo anchor directly upwind. I should have just moved, but it was late when they got in, I had dove our own anchor and was positive it was well secured, etc, etc. But…by not just moving, I was up all night worrying instead. They were actually directly upwind of our friends on Adventure Bound and anchored barely one boat length upwind of them so they were most at risk, but we were the next in line if they broke lose. Ultimately nothing happened, but we’ve seen enough to know it can, and when it does there can be some significant damage. So, look out for the Whiskey Bravos!

We left Ano Bay today to start exploring the Tonga Archipelago. There are so many lovely little islands to explore, we’re going to take a few weeks and just move from one to the next, snorkeling, hiking, tide-pooling and just generally getting to know this area. We have about a month until we need to leave for New Zealand, so we’re going to make the best of it.

We left our anchorage right about 1200 and headed for the Eastern Islands, which are the hardest to get to. There are some gnarly reefs you have to thread your way through to get over here. Fortunately we had some GPS coordinates from another cruiser who we trust, so I put those into a GPS Route Plan and off we went. Even though we had the route, it was a little hair-raising. You never know absolutely for sure if the coordinates are accurate, so you’re using them plus navigating visually-and by visually, I mean, you can see the water change color right in front of you from “deep” color to “shallow” color and you can see exposed reef on either side where the jagged coral sticks out of the water. By “deep” and “shallow” colors, I mean blue and turquoise, but these are blunt navigation tools. When does “turquoise” become too shallow? It’s a constant judgment call and we went realllllly slow through the shallow spots.

But we made it and we’re now at a spot that is affectionately called #28. It’s funny, but that’s how the charts mark the islands around here. At first it seems impersonal, but after a while you get used to it and it’s easy to tell people where you are. “Number 27”. Much easier to say than; “Kakautaumai”, for instance. Actually in our case, right now we’re in “Ofu”, so that’s not so hard to say.

It’s still cloudy, but has stopped raining for the first time in two days, so that’s progress. It’s supposed to be nice for a couple days before another front rolls through bringing more rain and wind. So, we’ll look to spend a few days exploring and then find a solid place to hunker down for the next storm episode. Hopefully without any Whiskey Bravos nearby.

Last night was one of those nights that get your attention and remind you that cruising has its ups and downs.

One of the “ups” is the friends you make along the way. We had a delightful evening with a boat couple (and their lovely six year old daughter Natalie) that we have paralleled over some of these past months but not had a chance to really meet. Dave and Angelina on La Fiesta had us over for a wonderful curry dinner.

But…the other side of cruising raised its ugly head about 0330. It started raining and we did the rain dance. That is, got up and closed all the portholes and hatches. We leave them open at every opportunity since it’s so humid, but when the rain hits, we have to close everything up. So, closed up, back to sleep. Not for long.

At 0400 the first big gust hit and Charisma heeled well over on her side. I knew that sign and jumped out of bed. No sooner had my feet hit the floor that the anchor alarm went off. This didn’t necessarily mean we broke loose and in this case, we didn’t, but it DID mean there was a 180 degree wind shift and instead of swinging 200 feet off one side of the anchor into deep water, we swung back over the anchor the 200 feet of rode, plus 200 feet in the other direction. With the wind gusts and the waves and all the anchor lights from other boats in completely different places then when I went to bed and the rain fogging my glasses, it was chaos. I turned on the engine first thing in case we needed to avoid other boats come adrift or motor off the reef the was now our lee shore. I concentrated on looking at the GPS, the depth sounder and the trees getting closer on shore. Through the rain and foggy glasses we looked like we were swinging pretty close. I dropped anchor very purposefully in water where I was pretty confident that we could swing and still stay off the reef, but you never know if the anchor is going to reset after the boat swings 180 degrees and pulls 200 feet of chain around. I was watching the depth sounder. We started in 50 feet. 40, 30, 20, 18, 17…I was getting ready to move. 17. 17…OK, looks like we’re stable for now and the anchor is holding. Looking around again to see if we might be the target for another drifting boat, we looked OK, but could see there was chaos over to the north of us. A number of boats had turned on their steaming/navigation lights and we could see they were turning one way and the other. So, we’re stable, no one is upwind about to smack us, we can settle in to anchor watch in case it gets worse. I was soaked and getting cold so went below to dry off and put on some foulies (heavy duty rain gear) and warm, dry clothes. You have to keep your brain warm or you can’t think clearly when bad things start to happen. Ann had a chance to get some foulies on, so she was elected (elected!!?) to stand watch for the time being. Engine still running just in case.

Turned out the front blew through from 0400 to mid-morning. We both stayed on watch with the engine running until daylight, then Ann went back to bed and I took the watch. At 1100 she got up and we had lunch after which I took a nap until about 1600. We turned the engine off once we could see that things were OK and by 0730 the winds had died down a bit, or at least they seemed to in the light of day. They were still gusting into the 20’s, but we could see that things looked stable.

I learned a couple more things last night. First, the never ending lesson of fixing things today, not “tomorrow”. We discovered a couple issues that by themselves were not huge, but combined would create an “accident chain” that could be a big problem. The first was that the windlass (that we use to lower and raise the anchor) wouldn’t freewheel and let the anchor out. I cheated it out, and was going to look at it “in a couple days” until I heard there might be a front. So I fixed that yesterday afternoon (turned out to be a jammed brake cone-the grease got used up and it seized). The second was I happened to just take a glance into the engine compartment “just to look around”. I happened to see that the bolt that holds the alternator bracket on was backing off. Another fix that took ten minutes to bolt it back down, but with the loss of that bolt not only would we lose the alternator, but the alternator belt also drives the fresh water pump. No belt, no cooling. We would have lost the engine. Third, I dove the anchor “just to check”. I was able to see that it was set pretty deeply. Not great, but in my opinion, would withstand at least 35 knots of wind and I noted the topography of the bottom around the boat. I had a really solid feeling for the slope of the bottom and the fact that it looked like decent sand on top of coral. Thus, when things went bad, I didn’t panic about the holding. I knew the anchor was set pretty well, that the slope was heavily up-sloping making the direction the anchor was holding when we spun around very favorable. This let me stay calm and wait for Charisma to settle down instead of doing something like cut that anchor lose and motor offshore when we swung into the shallower water.

So there we are. The good and the not so good. We might be into some more not so good tonight as it looks like there might be another front coming through.

Stayed tuned.

Sometimes, you measure the days by the number of projects you get done.

Ann cleaned the cabinet in the bathroom which had flooded-probably with rainwater, but we’re not sure yet-then made a great cabbage salad and fresh cookies for our dinner out (more on that in a bit)-so technically there were more than two boat projects, but…whatever…

My contribution was that I found a loose bolt on the alternator, just by a chance look in the engine compartment. Could have been a big problem down the road, now averted. I also fixed the anchor winch. When we went to use it yesterday, it was frozen. We hadn’t touched it in a week or two and it wouldn’t budge. I had visions of broken chains inside it-and since it’s completely sealed, there’s no fixing something like that. I put down the anchor hand over hand, but that was in light air. Started taking it apart today and got to the “gypsy” which is the part the chain rides on. I thought, “That doesn’t look right” since there was another part embedded in it and looked at the mechanical drawing in my equipment binder and found there’s a part called a “cone” that is the thing the brake compresses that stops the chain from going out. OK, thought I, I’ll get a pick and try and dig around the outside. Very careless moments later, I managed to gouge myself with a rusty pick. Since we’re in the tropics where a lot of heebie jeebies can form on deep cuts, I actually deep cleaned the cut with soap, then with an antiseptic pad, then added some antibacterial cream and a band aid. Finally I covered the whole thing with a good dose of duct tape which is my usual first line solution.

Anyway, after the pick issue, I went back up and tried the other option. A good rap on the thing with a hammer. The “cone” instantly fell out, almost dropping into 60 feet of water. Whoops! But, solution found. Then I lightly greased everything per the manual and put it all back together. Problem solved. Two boat projects complete, time for a beer.

So that was most of the day. There was also the requisite visiting around the anchorage to chat people up and then we got invited to La Fiesta for dinner. Angelina, David and their daughter Natalie. Delightful people. David is Aussie, Angelina was raised in Portugal, but is an Indonesian mix and Natalie was born in Singapore and has been living on the boat for all of her six years. A delightful little girl. We even got to meet her pet hermit crabs. Dinner was a fantastic Wahoo curry (no it didn’t come from a store) and Ann’s wonderful Thai cole slaw salad (recipe courtesy of Lisa on Orcinius) and chocolate chip cookies a la Joaner (Ann’s sister).

Charisma showing her colors on the downwind leg

Going upwind, heading toward the finish...

A closer shot...

...and closest. With thanks to the yacht "Ice" for the nice shots of Charisma showing her stuff

I’ll have to admit that neither Ann nor I tire of hearing that. Today we raced in the Vava’u Challenge race, which is the final race in the Regatta Vava’u week and heard it on the radio as we crossed the finish as well as from other boats after the race. I should add here, that Ann actually steered about 60% of the race while I trimmed and set sails (yes, we were able to set it right side up today-works better than way). It was about 12 miles around the islands and we ended up in a gorgeous cove where a big party is still going on, on the beach as I write this. In about an hour they are going to light a giant effigy (of what, I’m not sure), Burning Man like. We’re going to be sitting on the deck with an after dinner drink enjoying the spectacle. But for now, there is still music and lasers-all powered by generators on the beach.

So the comments per the headline continued to come because today we got 2nd place in our class (Under 40 feet, no handicaps, straight up racing) and even beat all but three of the over 40 foot class, all while towing our dinghy! One guy motoring his sailboat as a spectator come over to us at the beginning of the race and yelled; “you’ll go fast if you get rid of that dinghy!” He thought he was being cute, but later when he saw that we were waaay out in front and actually racing with the over 40 footers, he came by again and yelled; “I had no idea you could have such a beautiful boat AND go so fast”. So, yes, it was a great day.

A gorgeous day-it blew 14 knots, flat water since we were inside the islands and blue skies. It doesn’t get a lot better. This has now launched our cruising of Tonga which we’ll be doing for the next three or four weeks before we have to get ready for the final crossing of this year into New Zealand on or about November 1st (weather pending/permitting).

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.

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.

We began our day with internet access!!! Not great access, just access. Breakfast at the Tropicana with internet access (our laundry having been dropped off as we entered the establishment) followed by a trip to the local grocery store and a return to pick up laundry. It seemed like our day was complete and all we had left was to visit the farmer’s market. But…we came upon the game day of the Vava ‘u Regatta. Who can resist a game day? Well, Bob can, but Ann cannot.

So even though I was late to the games I was allowed to play and was actually claimed by a team. The games consisted of 13 ridiculous children’s games with adult participants. The day’s activities included a sack race, egg tosses and even a pie eating contest. There were some other odd games thrown in just for fun. All of this was put on by a group promoting Vava ‘u tourism. The best part was that no one was allowed on the same team as a boat mate. So lots of new friends were made. Points were scored based on the whim of Billy, the MC. Unfortunately my team actually got to a point where we lost all points. Ouch. But some clever gamesmanship by my team and we quickly earned 10,000 points for not caring at all. So you get the point – just good ol’ childish play. And I had a blast.

Bob returned just in time to watch the final pie eating contest and provide me a ride back to Charisma for a much needed shower. Not everyone gets to play silly games and earn points south of the equator. I am lucky!

Tomorrow we are going to do some fishing and hopefully some catching as we go out of the anchorage to empty our holding tanks and make some water. All in a day’s work….

Some Sunday hammock time

Dinghy raft-up floating through the harbor

Heading home after church

As I sit here writing the blog I realize that for us it is Sunday, September 23rd, but most of our readers are enjoying a Saturday night. Welcome to the influence of the International Date Line. Actually the dateline was extended east to include Tonga as most of their business transactions involve New Zealand or Australia who are clearly on the other side of the dateline. Interesting quirk to the dateline.

Tonight I am writing the blog because Bob is pouting. We played our tie-breaking cribbage game tonight (we can’t remember how many games we’ve played but we know we were tied) and I stomped all over him. Too bad, so sad!

Sundays in Tonga are pretty low key, at least on Charisma. Bob actually set up the hammock and dozed while I went to the local Catholic Church for mass. The singing was spectacular. The church was packed with Tongans dressed in their finery. It is a big deal for Tongans. Most of the adults wore pandanus mat skirts over pareos. The young children, especially the babies, were dressed in fluffy dresses and cute little suits. In the states you would have thought it was Christmas. After mass the families piled back onto their trucks with as many as 12-15 people in the back of the pickup and Grandma in the passenger seat to head back home. Obviously it is an important event in their week.

I think most of the cruisers were a little under the weather after the pub crawl on Saturday night. We were lucky to have ended the crawl early. But an energized group of cruisers did manage to have a dinghy raft-up luncheon. We would have gone but it was a potluck and we don’t have a lot that we could share other than canned beans. Maybe next time. As the dinghy luncheon ended the raft of dinghies started drifting into the anchorage. Timing is everything. I had just finished a cockpit shower and gone down below to dress when I heard, “Charisma…. Charisma…” The raft of dinghies was floating around singing to us deadbeats!

So our day ended restfully with a wonderful meatloaf dinner. It is amazing what wonderful memories meatloaf dinners can provoke. Yum!

We hope you all enjoyed a restful Sunday too!