Gryphon, Part II

Shortly after our arrival here in Tonga, our friends Tom and Jess flew in from the BVI to spend ten days with us on Gryphon. It took them almost as long to get here as it did for us. Well, maybe not, but the flights took a couple days and lots of airplanes.

One of the first activities we all enjoyed together was the Friday night racing in Vava'u - a friendly round-the-buoys sailboat race held every Friday evening. The last time we were here was almost exactly 11 years ago and that time we won the race. And, this time we did too. There was really only one boat in competition with us: the other two entrants finished about 30 minutes after us. But it was a hoot and Tom reminded us that the last time we raced - in the 2009 BVI Spring Regatta - we also won.

Last Sunday, Jess and Tom walked to a village on the island of Kapa for church. They had been told it was to start at 9am, so come 9am there they sat in an empty church. Finally someone came in and saw them and started telling them... something. The only words Tom could understand were "chief" and "kava". So Tom and Jess followed the guy to the "town hall" where several men were sitting around a kava bowl drinking kava. You remember kava? Roots of pepper plants that get ground up and mixed in water. You drink it and it's sort of intoxicating: first it numbs your lips and mouth, then the rest of your body. Well, anyway, it seems that in this particular village the men - including the chief and the pastor - all get together Sunday before church for an hour of kava drinking. I'm sure it improves the sermon from everyone's point of view! Jessica was allowed to participate since she's a "Palangi" and not subject to Tongan mores or restrictions.

Later that day we went snorkeling into a cave that you have to dive down under rocks to get to. The entrance is about 1 to 2 meters under water and you have to swim about 4 or 5 meters to get into the cave. Very, very cool. The light comes into the cave from the entrance and casts a bluish hue over all the interior. As each wave comes up and goes down against the entrance, fog forms and then vanishes with the changing pressure. Your ears feel like you're going up and down in an airplane really quick.

Afterwards, we were all saying it was a fantastic day as we motored away in the dinghy. I jokingly said, "Cue the whales." About 2 minutes later, whales really did breach near us. It was amazing!

Since then, the wind has been 'amazing'. We've had day after day of consistent 20 knots plus. A couple days it was 20-25 gusting 30 all day and all night. Yuck. It makes it impossible to explore small, remote anchorages and it crowds up the few well-protected places as well. So it goes. We've read a lot of books and played a lot of cards.