Rally Finish - Pangaimotu Island, Tongatapu, Tonga
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Thu 4 Jun 2009 09:20
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21:07.588S 175:09.819W
Hmmmm....where to start? We've been in Tonga
for 2 1/2 weeks now and sailed from Pangaimotu Island, which is near the
biggest southern Tongan island of Tongatapu, north to the Ha'apai group of
Tongan islands where we've since anchored in five different spots off five flat
coral islands, each with their own personality, look and feel, but all
marvelous. We've had a few adventures, most good, some scary, and have
done our part to promote socialization among boaters along the way.
Ok, ok. Yes, partying is what I mean to say - we've done our share of
partying.
First, the rally finish - which, in keeping with
rally fashion, involved happy hours, dinners, and, generally speaking,
parties. It started with a trip to the Tongan National Cultural Center for
a Tongan feast and traditional Tongan dancing. We, along with the rest of
the rally boats, were anchored off the coast of Pangaimotu Island, which is a
tiny island just off the coast of the much larger Tongatapu Island where
the capital city of Nuku'alofa resides. The term 'city' is used loosely
here. Like most island nation capital cities, Nuku'alofa
is a four road town with a bank or two, a fruit and vegetable market,
an internet cafe, a bakery, a few shops, government buildings and the
International Dateline Hotel which looks like it saw better days ten or fifteen
years ago. Oh, and a lot of cars. A wide range of second-hand
Japanese cars and small vans - each with its own version of dashboard
decoration. If I haven't mentioned it before, dashboard decoration is a
common thing in the South Pacific. Every country seems to have its
own twist on the idea. In Tonga, dashboard decoration varies from
flowered fabric topped with plastic flowers to my personal favorite, fifty or so
CDs lining the dashboard, sides and top of the windshield. Very
flashy. This particular dashboard decoration adorned
a small Toyota taxi van that tended to camp out in the wharf parking
lot where what the Tongans call 'palangi' (foreigners) like us
disembarked from the Pangaimotu Island water taxi.
The evening of our second day in Tonga, we, along
with most of the other ICA NZ-Tonga rally participants, boarded the Pangaimotu
Island water taxi to the 'mainland' where we were transferred to van
taxis and taken to the National Cultural Center, which was only a couple of
miles down the road on the south side of town. Once there,
we were seated at long tables under a gigantic sort-of traditionally built
rectangular pavilion with a stage lining one of the long sides. To
kick things off, a traditional kava ceremony was held on stage. Kava
is the narcotic-like drink that the Tongan, Fijian, Vanuatu and New Caledonian
people can't seem to get enough of - particularly the men. This is
probably true in the surrounding South Pacific countries as well.
Kava comes from the root of a plant in the pepper family, which is dried,
ground to a powder and mixed with water until it becomes a watery, gray, gritty
consistency not unlike that of dirty dishwater. Others in the know have
told us that a not unpleasant numbness results after drinking several coconut
shells full of the stuff. Feeling brave, Jackie from Lady Kay and I
volunteered to take part in the ceremony (picture 1 - receiving my coconut shell
kava ration). In the end, it wasn't really a big deal as our coconut shell
kava rations were small and we only had to choke down a mouthful. A
brief period of tongue and gum numbness followed, but that was it. We
wondered what happened to the rest of the kava batch that was mixed
up (literally by hand, by the way) in the giant carved wooden kava bowl
until we caught various band members slurping it down in between songs. By
the end of the show the band members seemed extremely agreeable. Not that
they weren't agreeable before the show, just more so afterwards.
The Tongan feast was similar to those we had
last year when we visited the Vava'u group of islands in the north of
Tonga - a buffet filled mostly with unrecognizable dishes and a
carving table with a whole pig splayed out on top. Given our previous
experiences with unidentifiable food, we've learned how to better manage the
feast situation. First, we ask what is in the dish. Second, if any
part of the dish is related in some fashion to breadfruit, taro,
manioke or any other vegetable that weighs something more than lead when
ingested, we politely turn it down. Third, when we feel like
something adventurous, we stick to raw fish salad, hopefully fully-cooked
pig and sometimes seaweed (particularly good in Tonga we've found).
After the feast was served, we were treated to a sampling of South Pacific
dancing. The Tongan dances were the best since these were performed by
Tongans (picture 2). Somehow Tahitian dancing is not quite the
same when performed by the conservative Tongans. Tongan dancing
involves extremely subtle head movements, flowing arm and hand gestures and
pretty much no movement in the hip area. Tahitian dancing
performed by Tahitians was anything but subtle and if there was something
going on in addition to the hip action, we never noticed.
All in all, it was a good night and a nice
welcome to Tonga.
Our third afternoon in Tonga was spent in
the bar/restaurant of the Pangaimotu Island Resort listening to the
stories, songs or poems each rally boat crew had to prepare and
read or sing in front of the group. The catch was that each
story/song/poem had to somehow incorporate all the names of the
twenty NZ-Tonga rally boats as well as the five NZ-Fiji rally
boats. We knew about this story competition from the beginning of the
rally, but did nothing about it until that Friday arrived and we realized
that every boat crew we talked to really did have something prepared.
There was about an hour of mild panic (me, not Don) while I hurriedly typed
something out. Don printed out the resulting story and we rushed into
the dinghy and to shore in time for the official gathering. Anxiety was
high (me, not Don) while we listened to the fairly amazing array of creative
stories/poems/songs put forth by each crew. There was a long fantasy
story about the Land of the Scallywags (boat name), a new set of
lyrics for the song 'Yellow Submarine' (as in 'we all live in a sailing
boat at sea' instead of the usual 'we all live in a yellow
submarine') performed in sing-along fashion, several thoughtful and well
put together poems, a few stories with pastoral settings describing
the quest to grow parsnips and Windflowers (boat name), a few stories describing
the promiscuous nature of Lady Kay, and one story about an internet
date (yup, that would be Harmonie's contribution). All entertaining
for sure - although everyone did admit to drifting off during the fifteen
minute long 'Land of the Scallywags' epic.
The setting was certainly perfect for an afternoon
of nautically related tales. Pangaimotu Island Resort, also known as Big
Mama Resort, is run by Tongans Ana and husband Earle. It consists of
a partially dilapidated wooden dock, a long, narrow beach
bar/restaurant with a sand floor, patchwork corrugated metal roof a few tables
and chairs, picnic tables and a polished hardwood bar. The
beauty of it all was that Big Mama (Ana) was happy to run a tab for each boat
for everything from drinks to dinner to water taxi fare, taxi van fare, propane
tank refills, laundry service, etc. All we had to do was announce the name
of our boat and the charge was meticulously recorded on a notebook page with the
heading, 'Harmonie'. Before leaving, we paid our bill (cash, of course,
credit card transactions in Tonga are extremely rare), but before then Big Mama
never asked us when we planned to leave or more importantly, when we planned to
pay. It's a laid-back place, Tonga.
After the story readings it was time for happy hour
and a barbeque. Big Mama's staff grilled the steaks we brought from the
boat and provided sides dishes - all for the equivalent of $5 each. As the
Kiwis would say, not too bad.
The next day was the final rally
dinner/prize-giving party at Big Mama's. The price of admission was
the equivalent of $25 for dinner for the two of us and pirate costumes. As
in we had to dress like pirates. Dress like pirates? Ok, so not our
favorite part of the rally given that we had no idea what pirates, especially
women pirates, wear. And even if we did have a clue, it's not like we
carry around a suitcase full of costumes with our other essential boater
materials like a medical kit and life raft. Later, we found out
from the American couple that won the Best Pirate Costume prize that
they do indeed carry around a suitcase full of costume materials on their fairly
large catamaran. 'We also have a suitcase full of Christmas decorations on
board too' Robin from the fairly large catamaran said. It didn't hurt that
Robin used to work for Busch Gardens (a performer perhaps?) or that
she and her husband Rick came from Tampa Bay where they were huge Buccaneer
fans. Fans with Buccaneer costumes that now travel around in their costume
suitcase on their fairly large catamaran. We had to admit that their
pirate costumes were pretty good (picture 3 - that's Robin in the middle
with her pirate miniskirt and flip-flop boots and her husband Rick on the far
left with his parrot head, beads and pirate flag skirt. They were
definitely the flashiest of the pirate collection with their
pirate/Mardi-Gras/Jimmy Buffet outfits. Not sure exactly what kind of
pirate the gentleman on the far right of the picture was going for, but the crew
of Vixen 7 (or was it Tusitala?) were definitely going for Somalia-style pirates
with their Kalashnikovs and fast dinghy assault on the dock (picture 4).
All very appropriate given the Tongan ship wreck in the background.
And so it went with the pirates. We opted for
a MEP style of pirate costume (Minimal Effort Pirate) and wrapped the
remnants of an old t-shirt around our heads in an attempt
to achieve the bandana pirate look and that was the extent
of our effort. Maybe after a few more years on the boat we'll have our own
costume suitcase.
After the pirate dinner (another Tongan
feast...very tasty seaweed and lamb wrapped in taro leaves) the prize-giving
began. There were prizes for all boats (hand-woven Tongan baskets filled
with good stuff like local beer, bottle openers and beer glasses, see the trend
here?) and there were prizes for things like the best protest, the best pirate
costume, the most fish caught, the fastest boat, the slowest boat, the best brag
and the best story. Harmonie won the best story I'm proud to say, and
received a very nice bone carving plaque (picture 5). It's a little bit
sad when we get excited over things like the best pirate costume or the best
story, but out here in the South Pacific it's the little things
that make us happy.
The pirate party marked the end of the rally
for Harmonie, Lady Kay and Storyteller. Other boats plan to stick
with the rally and island hop through Tonga, Fiji, Vanuatu and New
Caledonia before sailing back to New Zealand with the same rally in
November. Although we are no longer official rally members, we suspect we
will be seeing quite a bit of the ICA boats along our own
island-hopping route.
More on our Pangaimotu Island adventures
later.
Anne
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