Backwater of a Backwater

Sunday 13 August 2006
Well, Vava'U is a backwater even to the Kingdom of Tonga and the capitol at Nukalofa on Tongatapu. The rusty old, listing to port badly, freighter that comes here once a week just came in and hopefully it brought the potatoes, onions, cheese and flour that it did not have room for last week. The bakery here is out of flour so no bread. No potatoes for fish and chips so you get fried breadfruit chips (not bad really but not as good as potatoes). The stores here are some of the worse we have seen anyway but you can get the basics. This is definitely a rural society on the fringes.

The big news this week (other than Cindy leaving me) is that a new island is forming southwest of here and has produced a huge pumice field of floating pumice rock that is over 18 miles long drifting around. This volcano was active several years ago and then went dormant and then sunk under water. It is now sticking out of the water and spewing ash and pumice out by the thousands of cubic yards. Geology in real time. It is close enough to Vava'U that some cruisers from here saw it happening last week. People going to Fiji now have to worry about navigating around this flowing mess (two feet thick) which could strip off all your gelcoat or paint off your hull in no time and definitely slow you down or even trap you. Something new everyday.

Well, Cindy left this week to go back to Denver. She left on Thursday here (Wednesday in Denver). I went with her to the airport and the two flights coming in were way late (on Tonga time). I left after watching the ancient DC-3 pull in (the flight before Cindy's) and had to take the bus that was leaving or not be able to get a ride back to town. I got a second-hand message from a friend that Cindy made it to LAX but have not heard more other than her flight was canceled out of here and she had to take the DC-3 out in stead. This DC-3 is WWII vintage (1944) which makes it over 60 years old. The pilots were older than that I think. Cindy had to fly to Tongatapu International Airport, then to Fiji, then to LA, then Denver. But of course, the terrorist deal in London meant she was flying in to a mess at the airports so I am waiting to get the whole story later.

Neiafu here on Vava'U is a small town with a lot of expats (foreigners who have settled here). Pete "the Meat" is one of them. From New Zealand and an ex-cruiser, he married a Tongan gal named Happy and they started a hotel/resort on one of the outlying islands. That was too hard so they came to Neiafu and Pete now imports meat and potatoes direct from New Zealand since the grocery stores here don't do a good job. He does have to rely on the old freighter just like everyone so sometimes he is out of things too. He is an interesting fellow that I will get to know better. His wife owns the property we went to last night on a small island south of here. There was a "Full Moon Party" (several days after the full moon) that was a complete blast. Must have been 150 people, mostly cruisers who took their boats down and anchored out, plus several on a shuttle landing craft that I rode on - including many local Tongans. Boy, do some of the Tongans like to over indulge. They seem to be happy when inebriated, but wild. I met several new people and talked to others I already knew from before. The setting was absolutely gorgeous with the sea on both sides of a narrow spit of land with mowed grass and tents set up for the food, beer and music. The landing craft just pulled up to the beach and you had to walk off on to the water just like MacArthur in the Phillipines during WWII.

Any of you who take Cruising World magazine or can get it at the library, there is an interesting article in the May 2006 edition about the expats that have settled here, including Pete the Meat. They survived Cyclone Waka in 2001 that blew up to 160kts before the wind gauges all blew off. No boats were lost but they drug huge storm moorings a quarter mile across the bay here. Must have been scary.

BTW - we have seen pigs all over the islands before, but nothing like here in Neiafu. They are everywhere, running around loose on yards, across streets, around the hospital - everywhere - and lots of them. Big ones, little ones, all kinds. You don't see as many chickens but like everywhere you hear the roosters at night and all day.

We each got 31 day visas upon checking in here. I will need to renew mine by early next month for a couple of months more. I hope to fly out to Washington to meet Cindy and see old friends and take care of business in late September so may get an automatic new visa when I come back. We'll see. It seems to be easy to settle down here if you can start a business or provide a skill that is needed here. Several of the expats have been trying to get us to consider it but right now our plan is to still go to NZ in November.

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