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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.
Not so recent perhaps but here are our tracks since we left the Marquesas.
Tuamotus
View 2010 Tuamotus in a larger map
Society Islands
View 2010 SocietyIslands in a larger map
Southern Cooks / Beveridge Reef / Niue
View 2010 CooksNiue in a larger map
by steve, on September 27th, 2010 ( Anthem, Bamboozle, Tonga) The problem with skipping a day is trying to remember what we did. Sunday seems a long time ago now. What I do remember is despite the mid-afternoon heat, we got round to putting the main sail back on the boat and retying all the reefing lines. The patching looks pretty good so we’re pleased about it.
Later in the afternoon I had a few of the net controllers over to discuss our last week of running the net. The net we started heading down from the Marquesas to the Tuamotus has had a good run and has been pretty successful in terms of the numbers of vessels checking in from time to time and certainly those listening. Now that the NZ bound boats are congregating in and around Tonga and the Australia bound boats have headed off west we’re beginning to find ourselves pulled in different directions. We’ve decided to call it a day but not without gathering some information together about other nets and weather sources and offering that out. Getting a few folks together we were able to get some ideas going about how we will communicate the information we have over this last week.
No partying for Sunday evening. We watched a movie and slept early.
Around 6:30am Monday morning we were off, heading back to Neiafu for the fun contest they’d named the ‘tridecagonathlon’. The contest comprised 13 separate events all of which had opportunities to get dirty and messy. It started with an egg tossing / spoon race and ended up with a pie eating contest. The point scoring was somewhat arbitrary and totally up to the judges with points being gained and lost for various things including flattery, complaining, bribery (drinks), etc. So many points were given out on the pie eating event that it largely determined the final result. We had been split into six teams which separated the three of us into different teams. For the last event one person had to represent each team and had to eat as much banana custard out of pies in six minutes without using their hands. Helen and Ben both represented their teams. Ben managed eight pies and Helen ten – sealing and overall win for her team. Needless to say, both of them lost their ‘lunch’ later on. It was all tremendous fun and once I have secured some pictures I’ll post them. (I have managed to upload some pics from the pub crawl and full moon party which I’ll add to previous blogs).
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In the afternoon we had a nice surprise. Jamie and Lucy offered to lend us their electric piano so Ben could get his fix in. We found compatible power sources so were able to take them up on their offer. Ben is now very happy.
We ended the day with Jack from Anthem aboard for dinner, chat and beers. Somehow this lasted some time and we weren’t asleep until late.
Today (Tuesday) is the last day of the regatta. There is a prize-giving ceremony for all the things we collected points for over the last week and no doubt a little partying after.
We’re looking forward to slowing down and that we’ll do once we get out of here and out to some of the anchorages around here.
What’s a bit frustrating is that we still haven’t been given the tracking reference for our allegedly shipped charger by CatCo. Without this we won’t be able to appoint an agent to clear it through the capital and get it here. Furthermore we have no idea about how much time we have to wait and how to plan our time in the anchorages. Seems just stupid to me.
One other annoyance is one of my email services has been hijacked and a bunch of our contacts emailed/spammed. Sorry if you’ve received some unwanted email from us. I am doing what I can to track this one down.
by KC2RIY, on September 25th, 2010 ( A Cappella, Anthem, Bamboozle, Callisto, Desue, Freezing Rain, Imagine, Inspiration Lady, Jackster, Kamaya, Mojo, Paleides, Passages, Scream, Sea Mist, Tonga, Trim, Tyee, Visions of Johanna) The Jackster’s showed up and anchored next to us around midday. We soon had them over to share our experiences of the last few months as well as abandoning our plans to hoist the main sail in favour of a few beers.
Around 6pm we headed ashore to Ano Beach for the ferry service to the Full Moon Party. Sadly, the ferry service was the weak link of the whole evening requiring some folks to wait over two hours for their turn to board and make the passage round to the party. Fortunately we made it over on the second one out so we didn’t have to wait too long.
The party was a lot of fun. A lot of the people we have previously mentioned on our blog were there. Most people on their way to New Zealand this year are either now in Tonga or soon to be arriving. I’m probably missing a few but those that we can put our heads together and remember are : A Cappella, Anthem, Bamboozle, Callisto, Delos, Freezing Rain, Imagine, Inspiration Lady, Jackster, Kamaya, Mojo, Paleides, Passages, Scream, Sea Mist, Trim, Tyee & Visions of Johanna. There were many others and we made some new acquaintances along the way.
A lot of effort had been put into things including three 10 minute shows of which Ben played a part (dressed as a skeleton) in the first and third. Not everything went smoothly but it was all appreciated.
We didn’t get back until after midnight. We didn’t see Ben until the following morning around 11am which I saw him on the ferry. I dinghied over and he jumped in the water to avoid the trip to the beach. He hadn’t slept at all having had the beer and food go free around 3am and partying into the morning followed by helping to clear up.
We have some pictures, courtesy of Ann from Callisto, which will be posted when we can get a connection.
Tomorrow the fun continues so we’ll be off early round to Neiafu.
by KC2RIY, on September 24th, 2010 ( Tonga) We’ve been on the hook in Neiafu for 9 days – something of a record for us this year. Time to move on – even if we’re heading back fairly soon. We’ve now moved down to Ano Beach / Tapana in readiness for this evenings Full Moon Party. We’re looking forward to it. We’re being encouraged to go dressed as pirates. I briefly thought about going as a video pirate but decided to go with what was expected. We still have our ‘light sabres’ from Grenada. These will do for our pirate swords.
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