Tattoos, Tahiti and Tonga
Friday, June 13th, 2008
In another three-worded alliteration-fuelled blog post, Kate waxes lyrical about the harsh dilemmas of relaxing on a paradise tropical island. I have delayed posting this for some time because of pure, seething jealousy… over to Kate:
Since my last love affair with our friend the internet I have been back at sea for two weeks, at the mercy of the uncooperative wind and waves as we sailed the 1500 nautical miles from Tahiti to the Kingdom of Tonga. Sadly in this installment I have no stories of pearl smuggling or giant eels to keep you entertained but have been brought crashing back down to the day to day monotony of yachting; of reading books, cooking meals, and enjoying the many delights of salt, water, their close relative salty water, and the colour blue which is available in a range of shades and tones to suit your home.
However before departing Tahiti I did manage to squeeze in a beer and impromptu sing-a-long with a friendly group of skirt-wearing, pot smoking, tattoo covered locals who made up with beards what they lacked in teeth. A lifelong supporter of the comedy beard I was pleased to make their acquaintance and so spent my last few hours on land in their company, playing along to their songs with the newest development in percussion technology, the classic pebble and bottle combination. Disappointed that they couldn’t offer me a lift home, and reluctant to see me try to hitchhike they kindly organised for me to be escorted back to my yacht on a jet ski. Talk about arriving in style. I only wish that the following two weeks at sea were as interesting.
The highlight (if you can call it that) of this week has been the arrival of cockroaches on the boat. While not an infestation of biblical proportions, the headcount currently standing at two, we didn’t want to give them the opportunity to multiply, so armed with a bottle of now illegal boric acid, and with the tune of ‘eye of the tiger’ reverberating in my ears I got to work, dousing all available surfaces with the noxious powder in a hope to burn off their limbs as they mount their assault on our food stores. Ha ha, in your face disgusting only-thing-to-survive-a-nuclear-holocaust-evil-insect-of-doom. Survive this! It seems the pre-emptive strike did the trick and we haven’t seen any since. However, the threat to our precious food was not over yet.
Just as we were recovering from the cockroach fiasco we suffered the simultaneous breakdown of our fridge and freezer which forced us into a race against time to eat as much food as possible before it defrosted or grew mould. While I can’t really complain about being encouraged to stuff my face with ice cream, cheese and salami, this eat-a-thon, coupled with the distinct lack of exercise which characterises life aboard a 44ft sea-faring caravan is rapidly accelerating my decline into lardiness, about which I am none too pleased. And then, three days later all the food was gone, and we were left with 3 apples, a variety of tinned goods and a selection of just add water treats of the dehydrated kind. Thanks to the joys of pasta, rice and fake mashed potato (or faux-tato as I like to call it) we did not starve. Nor did I develop scurvy which I happen to think is a pity as it would be have been very authentic sailor-ish of me, but there’s still time.
The third disaster to strike our boat was the weather, which fluctuated wildly between total calm and no wind on one end of the spectrum, and too much wind and lots of rain on the other. Somebody once likened yachting to “standing in a shower while tearing up money”, and I have to admit that the last fourteen days fit this bill very well. The only saving grace in this situation, which comforted me as I was thrown from side to side during one of many small storms or as I sat, staring through rain at an eerily becalmed sea, is the thought that as a trans-Pacific hitchhiker it isn’t my money.
Our arrival in The Kingdom of Tonga came just in time, the last apple had been munched, the fauxtato was rapidly running out, and so we descended on Neiafu in the Vava’u group of islands and headed straight to a restaurant to resume the lard-off. Neiafu is a little corner of paradise, a yachtie heaven deep in the heart of the South Pacific, where Palangis (foreigners) have set up shop in their hundreds and are welcomed with open arms. Captain Cook named Tonga ‘The Friendly Islands’ when he sailed here many moons ago and the accuracy of that statement is just as true today as it was then. In the space of a week I have been offered a job, a free place to stay, enjoyed oh so many drinks on the house, and been invited to church. There is a great balance here between locals and visitors and I have fallen in love with it.
So in a bold move against the little sensible person who usually resides on my shoulder, I have abandoned ship, leaving the sailing vessel Esprit in my metaphorical wake and striking out alone. One of the potential hazards of this particular kind of hitchhiking is that personalities can clash and with no more than a few metres to separate you from your fellow crew it can become a little stifling. Let’s just say I didn’t necessarily like the cut of my former captain’s jib, and was eager to see what opportunities might open up if I took a chance on Tonga. So as I write this email I am a boat-less sailor, a nomad of the open seas and am bravely sticking out my thumb in the hope that another yacht will take pity on me.
Despite my initial fears that I might be stranded in this paradise forever (woe is me) my bravery has been rewarded and within a few hours of officially leaving my yacht I have been offered not one but two crewing positions on other boats. They say beggars can’t be choosers but I think that ‘they’ were not in Neiafu so I am currently being a yacht snob. I am enjoying myself far too much here to set sail again too quickly so am currently staying put, throwing myself head first into a great little community that has made me feel more than welcome. And if all else fails I can always stay here and have lots of Tongan babies because the locals sure are pretty (don’t worry Mum, that’s a joke…sort of).
So watch this space. I could be back on a boat before the week is out, heading to Fiji, Vanuatu or well, anywhere, or I could hang around for a month, who knows. Afterall this is a place where the school uniform is comprised of a skirt for the boys, there’s a pub quiz on Wednesdays and a weekly drag show in which local Fakaleitis dance to Kylie Minogue. What more could you possibly hope for?
In another three-worded alliteration-fuelled blog post, Kate waxes lyrical about the harsh dilemmas of relaxing on a paradise tropical island. I have delayed posting this for some time because of pure, seething jealousy… over to Kate:
Since my last love affair with our friend the internet I have been back at sea for two weeks, at the mercy of the uncooperative wind and waves as we sailed the 1500 nautical miles from Tahiti to the Kingdom of Tonga. Sadly in this installment I have no stories of pearl smuggling or giant eels to keep you entertained but have been brought crashing back down to the day to day monotony of yachting; of reading books, cooking meals, and enjoying the many delights of salt, water, their close relative salty water, and the colour blue which is available in a range of shades and tones to suit your home.
However before departing Tahiti I did manage to squeeze in a beer and impromptu sing-a-long with a friendly group of skirt-wearing, pot smoking, tattoo covered locals who made up with beards what they lacked in teeth. A lifelong supporter of the comedy beard I was pleased to make their acquaintance and so spent my last few hours on land in their company, playing along to their songs with the newest development in percussion technology, the classic pebble and bottle combination. Disappointed that they couldn’t offer me a lift home, and reluctant to see me try to hitchhike they kindly organised for me to be escorted back to my yacht on a jet ski. Talk about arriving in style. I only wish that the following two weeks at sea were as interesting.
The highlight (if you can call it that) of this week has been the arrival of cockroaches on the boat. While not an infestation of biblical proportions, the headcount currently standing at two, we didn’t want to give them the opportunity to multiply, so armed with a bottle of now illegal boric acid, and with the tune of ‘eye of the tiger’ reverberating in my ears I got to work, dousing all available surfaces with the noxious powder in a hope to burn off their limbs as they mount their assault on our food stores. Ha ha, in your face disgusting only-thing-to-survive-a-nuclear-holocaust-evil-insect-of-doom. Survive this! It seems the pre-emptive strike did the trick and we haven’t seen any since. However, the threat to our precious food was not over yet.
Just as we were recovering from the cockroach fiasco we suffered the simultaneous breakdown of our fridge and freezer which forced us into a race against time to eat as much food as possible before it defrosted or grew mould. While I can’t really complain about being encouraged to stuff my face with ice cream, cheese and salami, this eat-a-thon, coupled with the distinct lack of exercise which characterises life aboard a 44ft sea-faring caravan is rapidly accelerating my decline into lardiness, about which I am none too pleased. And then, three days later all the food was gone, and we were left with 3 apples, a variety of tinned goods and a selection of just add water treats of the dehydrated kind. Thanks to the joys of pasta, rice and fake mashed potato (or faux-tato as I like to call it) we did not starve. Nor did I develop scurvy which I happen to think is a pity as it would be have been very authentic sailor-ish of me, but there’s still time.
The third disaster to strike our boat was the weather, which fluctuated wildly between total calm and no wind on one end of the spectrum, and too much wind and lots of rain on the other. Somebody once likened yachting to “standing in a shower while tearing up money”, and I have to admit that the last fourteen days fit this bill very well. The only saving grace in this situation, which comforted me as I was thrown from side to side during one of many small storms or as I sat, staring through rain at an eerily becalmed sea, is the thought that as a trans-Pacific hitchhiker it isn’t my money.
Our arrival in The Kingdom of Tonga came just in time, the last apple had been munched, the fauxtato was rapidly running out, and so we descended on Neiafu in the Vava’u group of islands and headed straight to a restaurant to resume the lard-off. Neiafu is a little corner of paradise, a yachtie heaven deep in the heart of the South Pacific, where Palangis (foreigners) have set up shop in their hundreds and are welcomed with open arms. Captain Cook named Tonga ‘The Friendly Islands’ when he sailed here many moons ago and the accuracy of that statement is just as true today as it was then. In the space of a week I have been offered a job, a free place to stay, enjoyed oh so many drinks on the house, and been invited to church. There is a great balance here between locals and visitors and I have fallen in love with it.
So in a bold move against the little sensible person who usually resides on my shoulder, I have abandoned ship, leaving the sailing vessel Esprit in my metaphorical wake and striking out alone. One of the potential hazards of this particular kind of hitchhiking is that personalities can clash and with no more than a few metres to separate you from your fellow crew it can become a little stifling. Let’s just say I didn’t necessarily like the cut of my former captain’s jib, and was eager to see what opportunities might open up if I took a chance on Tonga. So as I write this email I am a boat-less sailor, a nomad of the open seas and am bravely sticking out my thumb in the hope that another yacht will take pity on me.
Despite my initial fears that I might be stranded in this paradise forever (woe is me) my bravery has been rewarded and within a few hours of officially leaving my yacht I have been offered not one but two crewing positions on other boats. They say beggars can’t be choosers but I think that ‘they’ were not in Neiafu so I am currently being a yacht snob. I am enjoying myself far too much here to set sail again too quickly so am currently staying put, throwing myself head first into a great little community that has made me feel more than welcome. And if all else fails I can always stay here and have lots of Tongan babies because the locals sure are pretty (don’t worry Mum, that’s a joke…sort of).
So watch this space. I could be back on a boat before the week is out, heading to Fiji, Vanuatu or well, anywhere, or I could hang around for a month, who knows. Afterall this is a place where the school uniform is comprised of a skirt for the boys, there’s a pub quiz on Wednesdays and a weekly drag show in which local Fakaleitis dance to Kylie Minogue. What more could you possibly hope for?
