Nuku'alofa, Tonga, Nov.1

After a jaunt out to some remote, wild and deserted islands for a shakedown trip we are back in the capital preparing to get ready to head to New Zealand. We still are planning to leave on Sat., November 3, but who really knows? The journey - a little over 1000 miles - should take 7 - 10 days, longer if we need to stop due to weather at Minerva Reef, some little dots of land on the globe. We are fueled and provisioned and pretty well organized to take off and looking forward to getting to our destination - Opoa, North Island, New Zealand.
Our big news is the arrival of our grandson, son of Tom's daughter Kim and her husband Ruben. Quinn Andry Layman was born October 22 in Portland, Maine and weighed in at 9 pounds. Sounds like everyone is doing fine considering sleep deprivation and all that. We can't wait to get there and see and hold him and hug the new parents!!!!!!

Nuku'alofa, Tonga,

Nuku'alofa,

October 26, Nuku'alofa, Tonga

There are 176 islands in Tonga, 36 are inhabited, 12 have cars, 7 have electricity. We experienced all of these variations on our trip from the far north reaches of this country. The capital, Nuku’alofa, has people, motor vehicles, electricity, and quite a bit more – a royal palace, government buildings, three consulates, a modern seaport and airport, and a smattering of tourist facilities. However, with a population of 26,000 (out of a total of 100,000), this is a small, quiet town. It is great to have Amy with us to experience this backwater capital…we have a lot of laughs about it.
The weather has been in the mid-70s, cloudy, with no rain. It is pleasant to stroll the long seawall to promenade “downtown”, about half an hour away from the small boat harbor. One sees vibrantly decorated cemeteries, a large proportion of people dressed in traditional attire (black with a woven mat tied around the waist), and small stores with rows of cans neatly piled behind the counter. People are very friendly. The guy who runs the internet café also has a bingo operation; the man who makes jewelry drives a cab; the lady who sells crafts caters parties.
While “desert island”- hopping south, we saw pigs grazing on a beach (they forage for seafood with their snouts in the sand) and a man showed us how to eat a great delicacy – the raw entrails of a sea slug, straight from the sea. Didn’t try it.
Tonga is still a feudal society, even in the capital. The king is at the top, along with his family. There is a class of nobles. Then the commoners. There seems to be a church in every square block in this part of the city. (These blocks are of small one story dwellings with big yards). The churches are filled with young people including trendy young men wearing western branded T-shirts - with traditional black skirts and mats around the waist. It is really something to behold.
Business operates at the discretion of the royal family and royal influence has tended to favor China and Chinese investors in recent years. Last November, Tongans rioted in the streets, destroying many small businesses. The unrest was initially aimed at the Chinese (who, throughout the Pacific, run a big percentage of the small businesses) but spread out of control. Downtown is now pockmarked with empty blocks, where just the concrete pad remains. We have seen a couple of political banners but that is the only sign of discontent now.
The long term weather is that the next good window for the trip to New Zealand will start around November 3. Weather permitting, we hope to get back out to some Tongan “desert islands” with Amy before that time.

Vava'u, Tonga, October 14

We have been in the Vava’u Island group of Tonga for almost three weeks. Of 17 days here, it has rained 12. I am not talking about a tropical downpour that clears in an hour, nor am I talking about drizzle and mist. Real rain, day after day, in what is supposed to be a tropical paradise with calm “inland” waters, numerous green islets, whales to watch, coral reefs to explore, and a small tourist town with a handful of bars, restaurants, and cafes owned and run by palangis for palangis.

There is quite an expatriate population here, maybe a few hundred people. In the weather we have been having, they seem quite insane – scurrying about trying to buy up islands to build resorts, building tourist oriented businesses. Most don’t seem to last long. We hear, however, that there is a feeding frenzy for these businesses when the owners decide to sell – more expats buy them sight unseen, bidding the prices up against each other. Even if the weather was great, the obstacles to success are huge: remoteness from centers of population, undependable airlines and ship supply, a government that is ranked 175^th on a scale of 180 for corruption, political instability.

The palangi relationship with the islanders seems almost colonial, which is strange because Tonga remained a kingdom during the colonial period and Vava’u was historically independent. The islanders live their own lives, frequent their own businesses and don’t engage with the outsider’s world. One day I asked three different islanders for directions to a palangi business that turned out to be a block away. Two of the three did not know the business. The third gave me bad directions.

Wandering around, behind the main street and on outlying islands, things look as hardscrabble as Nuiatoputabu. The paved roads become dirt roads, then paths. Stout homes with metal roofs are built along the paths. There are village centers with small shops and churches, everywhere. You can walk along a path in the evening and hear magnificent choral singing – an evening service or a rehearsal. Bartering works, sometimes much better than cash.

There are many boats here in high socializing mode, getting ready for the final passage of the season to New Zealand. This consists mainly of “waiting for weather”, developing passage strategies, studying weather reports, and waiting for direction from the weather consultant we have retained. Forecasting this season has been terrible, and with an estimated seven days at sea it is hard to forecast the weather in any event, but we are taking a lot of precautions to make it a good trip to New Zealand. Preparation also consists of consuming a lot of the food you have stored on the boat. New Zealand is a bio-secure country and forbids the import of meat, poultry, dairy products, produce, nuts, seeds, anything that is not processed in a factory, and anything that can sprout. Pets must have pre-arrival physicals, spend three months on the boat in quarantine, and be visited weekly by a government inspector at your expense. Some friends with two cats on board estimate it will cost $2000 to bring them into NZ for the season, and they will repeat the exercise if they bring the cats to Australia.

Our daughter Amy is arriving on October 20 to join us for around six weeks. We plan to leave Vava’u October 15 and head for the capital, Nuku’alofa, taking a few days to stop at islands along the way. We will be ready to leave for New Zealand before the end of the month but since we have no control over the weather, we have no idea of what date we will actually leave. We hope to take advantage of visiting Tonga’s southern islands while we wait.

Nuiatobutabu, Tonga, September 24

The morning of September 20, Tonga time, we learned by email that Ellen’s father had passed away the night before. He had been in decline for many years. While we were prepared for this eventuality and had made arrangements last spring with Ellen’s mother and the nursing center where he lived, the timing was sudden and the shock was hard. We were anchored off a remote island but were able to reach the family by satellite phone generously loaned by a fellow cruising boat. Our cruising companions sat shiva (Jewish custom) with us for a couple of nights; it felt very supportive.

Here is a brief obituary of Arthur Jay Schreier from Ellen (who is an obituary junkie). Born in 1928 in New York, NY, he was the only child of Dr. Herbert and Chari Griffel Schreier, who met went they immigrated on the same ship from Eastern Europe to the US after WWI. Arthur was a late walker and talker and very spoiled by his parents and doting grandmother. He turned into a fine student who went off to college at 16 and finished in three years, moving on to medical school and a specialty in psychiatry. He married my mother Judith Rosenblum in 1953. They had grown up in the same apartment building in Greenwich Village and had maintained a secret romance (at least to their parents) during college years. My dad served in the Navy during the Korean War, practiced at the Institute of Living in Hartford, CT, City Hospital in Queens, NY, and the Veterans Administration Hospital in Montrose, NY. He retired in 1983 and spent winters with my mother in Portugal, Mexico, and Florida and summers in Savoy, Massachusetts where he enjoyed wood sculpting and writing poetry. Around 1995 he became a full time Florida resident and has lived in assisted living facilities since 1999.

Dad suffered from bipolar disorder throughout his adult life and in his later years became increasingly disabled by that condition and dementia. He was predeceased by a son, Edward, in 1961, and a daughter, Diane, in 1979. He leaves Judy, his daughter Ellen, and two granddaughters, Eve and Amy. I loved my dad and I will miss him a lot. In his last years he was very sweet, and that is what I now remember.

So there we were, in Nuiatobutabu, one of the northernmost islands in the Kingdom of Tonga. About 1000 people live there in a fairly traditional, hardscrabble existence. People are wiry. The pigs are so active it is hard to distinguish them from dogs. There are a few solar panels for electricity and a few motor vehicles that run between the three villages on the island (“first village”, “middle village” and “the capitol” which is distinguished by a bank from the era of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and the government office, with broken floorboards and rugrats of many species - kids, dogs, insects - roaming around). People are very religious (Catholic, Methodist, Mormon) and everyone covers up onshore. (Tonga has a $25 fine for a man who goes shirtless; don’t know what the fine is for women.)

The economy on the island is still largely based on barter. Cigarettes are like gold if there is anything you want from the natives – handicrafts, fruit, fish, lobster. We arrived the week before the monthly supply ship was to arrive and were deluged with requests for cigarettes-from the customs officials who searched our boat to verify whether we had any to whoever could lay their hands on a boat to come out and make the request. And you could not walk 25 steps on the island without a child coming up and asking “Where’s my lolly (candy)?”

There was lots of entertainment. The agriculture inspector, all 350 pounds of him, sported a baseball cap with a big marijuana leaf embroidered on the crown when he came to clear our boat. (And just in case one didn’t recognize the insignia, the word “marijuana” was embroidered on the back). He and his colleagues (Customs, Immigration, Port Captain) demolished a big tin of Almond Roca candy we brought out to keep them from the beer.

Niko and Sia, the hosts to the yachties, invited us all to a pig roast at their home. We got to ride around and collect two of the piglets, live, stuffed in a gunnysack. They paid for the pigs with cigarettes – five packs per pig. At the dinner we drank Niko’s homemade beer (fermented canned peaches) and mango punch, and ate baked papaya and breadfruit, taro leaves in coconut cream, and raw fish in coconut milk. Niko used to be in the recreational drug business (not exactly illegal in Tonga at least until recently). Now he has the cigarette concession, direct access to the yachties and a seasonal job in New Zealand.

We went to the disco – a basketball court walled with palm fronds stuck vertically in the dirt around the floor – playing unidentifiable pop music. It was a fundraiser for the youth, admission $1. Not many people dancing but the action was in the corner, a whole bunch of men drinking kava, the local intoxicant. It is made from pepper plant roots that are squeezed in water. The concoction looks and tastes like dirty dish water and is served from half coconut shells, passed around a circle. Not hygienic, not very tasty, but it did numb our tongues a little and everyone in the circle had goofy grins.

The weather, the snorkeling, and the views here were beautiful. We left on September 24 for a twenty four hour sail to Neiafu, in the Vava’u group of Tonga.

American Samoa, Sept. 16

American Samoa was fascinating. Whether it was sharing the English language, affinity with palangi (white people) or just friendliness, we had a blast of stimulating conversations and experiences.

We met “Teapot” (short for Tipoti) around 6 pm one evening waiting for a bus. He told us we would have better luck on the main road at that hour and followed us down the sidewalk trying to make conversation. His English was not very good, he was a little too friendly and we were suspicious.

Teapot told us he was 51. He said he had been born and raised on the island and taught carpentry and electrical at the Voc-Tech. His wife was a swing shift supervisor at the cannery and their teenage kids lived in her village at the east end of the island. Unlike other Samoans we spoke to in Pago Pago, Teapot had not been to the US nor did he mention any relatives who lived there.

Teapot flagged down an SUV – a taxi- and ushered us in. The driver was an acquaintance. Teapot pulled out a brown paper bag with a beer in it. The driver did the same. Teapot had him stop at a store. He bought more cold beer, some sodas, and a bagful of snacks, and thrust them on us. He would not accept “no” or payment. At our stop, the driver let us all out. Teapot paid him in cash and beer but our offer of payment was refused.

Teapot told us he had never been on a yacht. It was dark and windy and he was tipsy but we took the chance and invited him onboard, the least we could do for the generosity he showed us. He told us all kinds of tales and tried to answer our questions. Every narrative quickly became nonresponsive to the subject and was transformed into an affirmation of Teapot’s belief in God.

We offered Teapot supper – spaghetti. He had never eaten spaghetti before. We showed him how to eat it. He had a few bites and then asked to take it home to show people. In contrast, Teapot was very familiar with Western music – Ray Charles and 80’s bands like Abba being a few of his favorites.

Teapot kept drinking his beers and then asked what we had on board to drink. We poured him some rum. He grabbed the bottle and filled up his glass. Every five minutes he pointed to the contact information he was leaving us – 3 different phone numbers, his cell, his place in town, his place in the village – and told us to call. He was upset we didn’t have a phone number where he could reach us. When he finally left the boat he was really drunk and tried to get Tom to take his cell phone so we could call him. Tom refused, saying what if his family called trying to reach Teapot?

The evening with Teapot was interesting because we got to experience Pacific “bubuti” up close and personal…someone generously offers you something…you do something in return…things start flowing your way without the exchange of money…at some point your stuff becomes his stuff, you become part of the family and so does your stuff…very different from our Western sensibilities. We chose not to pursue this one any farther.

I toured the Chicken of the Sea cannery – and am still eating canned tuna! We had dinner the same night with its general manager, a South African specializing in food processing workouts around the globe. We also had a drink with a tuna boat owner from San Diego (the fleet has moved to the South Pacific but is basically dependent on US government mandates to buy American product), and talked to a Samoan who is importing the competition from Thailand with great difficulty. This glimpse into the tuna industry was a fascinating study in management of natural resources and globalization.

Briefly, the US seems to be maintaining the local industry with support and subsidies but the product is still noncompetitive with Southeast Asian competition. The product is labor intensive with real people doing the skinning and boning of the fish by hand under US OSHA and FDA regulations. The labor pool comes from Western Samoa and Tonga to work for the entry wage of $3.86 per hour and to give birth to scads of children who are entitled to US citizenship. The American Samoans move to the US (often after surviving a stint in the US Armed Forces) to work for good money and settle in LA, Seattle, Salt Lake City (the top US destination in the South Pacific due to the success of the Mormon movement here). The canneries threaten to close imminently and throw 10% of the population directly out of work. More US government support arrives and delays the inevitable.

We also spent time with a former pipe layer from New Zealand who went native 17 years ago. He now sports a traditional full body tattoo, is a servant to a chief, lives with the chief’s daughter, and with her runs an iconoclastic bar on a gorgeous deserted beach. He taught us about local agriculture, food, tattoos, construction. Together they fed us and about 20 others a traditional umu feast, complete with little girls dancing and singing. He also gave us an introduction to the man who runs NOAA’s weather station which enjoys the first and second best views on the island and “the cleanest air in the world” (upwind from the tuna canneries). He is deep in the technical chain of climate study (he feels the recent research is showing that the present climate change is within the context of previous historical variation and that human activity has some effect but is not the major determinant). He told us white people receive royal treatment in Samoa but knew from his Filipina wife’s experience that other races are not treated with respect.

All in all, an amazing twelve days even though it was stormy at least half the time. We had a minor mishap when Silkie’s (another yacht’s) mooring buoy lost its footing in the middle of a windy night. Talk about things that go bump in the night – the other boat crashed into ours. Fortunately there were just a few surface scuffs and everyone was fine in the morning. We wrote a limerick to commemorate the event:
The night of September 14
Miss Silkie she came a courtin’
She kissed Rasamanis,
Whose crew cried out “Please cease!
We’re naked and we need our clothing.”
Apologies to those who are offended. The other cruisers found it pretty funny,

We left Pago Pago Sunday, September 16, crossed the international date line, and skipped September 17 entirely.