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Last Day of the Regatta

What a long and fun week this has been. The last day of the regatta finished with a prize giving party at the wharfside hotel in the evening. Before that we did have an interesting day. I spent 4 hours wrestling with the internet at the Aquarium Café. It is a favourite spot, it seems, for cruisers to buy a coffee and collectively wrestle with slow internet connections. It’s quite social as we each wait several minutes for each page to load. I managed to upload a bunch of pictures from the previous day’s events. I also managed to book a flight for Sam to join us in New Zealand. While I was ashore, Ben hosted a chemistry lesson for nine of the kids from Tyee, Kamaya, Stray Kitty & Mojo. Not all his experiments went as planned but from what I heard later it went over well.

Back to the party. At the beginning of the week we had to option to purchase passports which encouraged us to visit places around town and the island gaining points for each visit and even more if we bought things. We gained points for the events we joined in and more if we won any of them. The party included a prize-giving ceremony for the top 11 scorers. As we had stuck together most of the week (and we got Ben’s passport stamped while he was working on the Full Moon Party) we had similar points. Not only did we all make the top 11 we placed near the top gaining a good selection of prizes. Ben and Helen each won two tank dives. I won a 45km 2 person kart ride around the island which I’ll do with Ben. We each earned secondary prizes amounting to a free pizza, a map and a desert for 2 people. All in all this was quite a valuable haul – but very much the icing on the cake for a fun filled week.

The party had some local dancing and a live band. We stayed on till nearly midnight when Helen felt too tired to continue. On the way back to the dinghy it seemed she had a new burst of energy causing her to invite Brian, Brady & Erin from Delos, Jenny from Callisto and Steven and Dorusha back to the boat to carry on the festivities. We didn’t get to sleep until 1:30 – normally (but not recently) quite late for us.

We had planned on scooting out of Neiafu today and seeing some of the outer anchorages. We still don’t have the tracking number for our charger which is getting comical. The Delos crew have invited us to dive on a wreck in the bay here today and we have to sort out and book our prizes so maybe we won’t be out of here after all.

Regatta Opening Day

The second annual Tonga regatta kicked off around 11am in blazing sunshine. We were there for the opening involving local politicians and prayers and speeches and prayers and some more prayers. We picked up our ‘passports’ and signed up for a number of events and tee-shirts all to support the locals who have been so friendly to us. Our ‘passports’ encouraged us to visit a number of street stalls and local businesses to collect points which may help us qualify for some prizes at the end of the week.

A small section of the main road had been cordoned off for street stalls selling local craft and food. We recognized many of the cruisers who were there for the event and caught up with many.

We did go back to the boat for a bit returning around 4pm as we heard there would be some local dancing. The dancing turned out to be the same group we saw last Wednesday with much the same dances but was entertaining all the same.

As the local Chinese restaurant was one of our ‘passport’ stops we decided to go there for our evening meal. For just over US$20 we all ate very, very well (and deliciously) and had a beer each. Fantastic value.

Much to do today including Fancy Dress pub crawl this evening. All for more points on our passports.

Wet Day, Dry Day

Monday was the wet day which somewhat curtailed our activities. In the morning we dropped off an empty propane tank for a fill and picked up our repaired main sail (which we’ve yet to reattach). We did a little shopping as that evening we had a curry dinner planned with Callisto and Delos.

Throughout the day I spent more time copying DVDs to my hard drive for future viewing. Around 6pm Brian, Erin and Brady from Delos along with the Callistos came over for curry and drinks. Everyone had made a couple of dishes and it went very well. Somehow we polished of a great quantity of beers and gin.

Starting overcast, Tuesday ended up the dry and sunny day. We decided to rent scooters to explore the island. Ben and I had a lot of fun but Helen, having never ridden a scooter before, really didn’t enjoy it that much. At one point she fell over moving off from a standstill and scratched herself a little. We dropped her off back in town and Ben and I spent another couple of hours exploring at top speed for the scooters. We saw some isolated beaches and wonderful views at the end of dirt tracks.

We finished the evening watching the movie ‘Fastest Indian’ which we really enjoyed. Ben went ashore with Brady and Jenny for just a couple of beers but we were asleep before he returned. They’d ended up on Mojomvo playing Clue/Cluedo until midnight.

Today sees the start of the regatta when we expect to find out more about what’s planned about the week ahead. We may well shift the boat out of this anchorage on Friday to get a break for the scene but only for a couple of days.

We’re still waiting for our charger to arrive. It’s been a bit frustrating as for a number of reasons it was delayed in sending. Apparently it’s now in transit but it’s been impossible to get hold of the tracking number which is even more frustrating as I’d like to hand that over to our agent before we head out of here.