Hanging out on Tonga

Hi, sorry for the lack of updates but have just settled down in to a
routine of sorts and not much new going on. Well, actually, I just got
lazy. There have been some things. First of all the elderly King of Tonga
died Sunday in New Zealand. This is a really, really BIG deal here. There
is a 5 week official mouring period and everyone is supposed to wear black
(in the tropics). If you live here, native or expat, you can be arrested
and fined if you don't wear black. No loud music, parties, singing (other
than church) is allowed, even in bars. Thankfully, they are not closing
down essential services like banks, airlines, grocery stores, etc. like they
used to do. And the mourning period used to be a full year. They are
slowly coming in to the modern world.

This is one of the very few places in the world that are completely governed
by a royal family. There is a legislature but the King appoints 27 out of
36 members. The royals are filthy rich and the rest of the country is dirt
poor. There has been some unrest and some discussion about changing to more
of a democracy but it remains to be seen if it will move farther in that
direction. The Crown Prince is a businessman and Rhodes scholar and
reportedly he does not want to be King but it will be forced on him now. He
had been working on getting a brother or nephew to take over but too late
for that now.

My concern is that I am booked to fly out of Vava'U to the capital of Tonga
at Nukalofa on the day of the funeral. Expats here say that they will be
surprised if I don't get bumped off the flight. I thought about trying to
change tickets etc but that would be too hard right now. So I will keep my
fingers' crossed. The trip to the US is a whirlwind of only 9 days
depending on how you count days with the crossing of the dateline. I will
fly to Seattle and then go to Anacortes to stay with good friends and Cindy
will fly in from Denver for a long weekend. Cindy is still booked to come
back to the boat in Tonga the first part of November when we will make the
next long passage (1254nm) to New Zealand.

Yesterday I had a great hike with some new friends along the cliffs and
beaches on the far east side of Vava'U. Got a little sunburnt but it was
fabulous. We had lunch on a talk cliff overlooking the ocean and watched a
mother humpback whale and her baby swimming and jumping just offshore. The
baby jumped out of the water over and over again. It was kewl! All the
walking was in flipflops so I guess my feet are getting used to the island
life. One couple with us went barefoot the entire way.

Last weekend was my second Full Moon Party on a little island ten miles
south of the main island. I wrote about the first one in a previous blog.
This time I decided to try to take Maggie Drum down by myself and anchor
out, and that was what I did. Everything went well with getting there and
anchoring but I got up on Saturday morning and found out that I was
completely out of water in the tanks. The watermaker had decided to quit
earlier in the week but I thought I still had about 20 gals of good water in
one tank - wrong. So instead of relaxing and exploring on Saturday I spent
the entire day taking about and putting back together the watermaker putting
in new seals and tightening etc. I am now a pretty good expert on this
particular watermaker. I got it working (only took it apart and put it back
together three times) and am leaving it running during the days.

Our weather has finally changed for the better here after seemingly endless
rains. This means the solar panels can keep up with the watermaker and
refrigerator OK adn I don't have to run the engine to charge the batteries.
My attitude is better too with the sunny skies.

The Full Moon Party was another success. Turns out there were eight boats
that all left Mexico from Zihuatanejo at the party - all friends of ours
that we left with. Amazing out of 12 boats all the way over here at the
same time. The party was out doors so everyone sat on towels or mats or
beach chairs, ate the BBQ (small portions this time) and listened to music.
It was BYOB this time as the Tongan officials have cracked down on
"provisional" liquor licenses and would not allow them to serve beer or
anything else. The end result was not as many people drinking too much. I
left early at about 1am but I heard it went on until 3am. Just can't keep
up with the younger crowd anymore.

Other than that I have been working on the boat (of course), planning the
trip home, reading and trying to keep the boat clean. I am also watching a
boat for a couple who are traveling to New Zealand for a couple of weeks and
they will watch Maggie Drum for me while I am gone.

Cindy is workng long, long hours in Denver supporting our boat habit. It is
hard on her to be away and missing everything here, and surprisingly we
still miss being around each other. Surprisingly after being constantly
together 24x7 on a small boat for months at a time. It will be good to get
together for even a short time next week.

The passage to New Zealand is supposed to be one of the more challenging
routes out here, with potentially serious storms coming across every few
days. Sometimes nothing at all, but you have to respect the weather out
here. The new radio I am picking up will allow us to get better weather
reports so we will be OK.

We were especially happy to here that our many friends who are still
cruising in Mexico weathered Hurricane John OK.