Sailing with Nine of Cups

Well, as promised, we met Mary at the dinghy dock in Nuku'alofa at 0830. Before beginning work, she fixed us blueberry waffles with real maple syrup at her home, then once nourished, we headed out to the local hardware store which was surprisingly well stocked and David bought the parts necessary for the job. Back to Mary's now to actually do the job. It was a toughie. He had to run wire from one building to the next, through the rafters in Mary's house and then into Mary's kitchen and then hook up the wiring on both ends to switches and outlets. Tongan houses are noted for huge stinging centipedes and termites...both of which we were trying to avoid. They also have huge spiders here which I personally was trying to avoid at all costs. No ladders available, David was up on top of chairs, tables, chairs on top of tables, inside, outside, up, down...but at last, success and Mary pushed the switch and voila...water from her kitchen tap. She was elated. She presented us with an autographed copy of her book (which we intended to buy, so a double pleasure). Her company was presenting a session on the role of "rank" in Tongan hierarchical society and invited us to stay. It was great and explained a lot of what we had already seen and experienced, but hadn't understood.

Back to the dinghy dock, we picked up a few freshies along the way at roadside stands and then headed back to the boat for a quick freshen-up before heading into Big Mama's party. She had made me one of her guests of honor because of my SSCA affiliation and I got the royal treatment. She had a 2-pc dress made for me of Tongan fabric and I wore a flower lei of plumeria, a waist mat of tapa with a beautiful shell kei kei (kia kia is an ornate belt used to hold up the waist mat) which belonged to her family and weighed a ton. It was quite the honor to be able to wear these and I stood patiently still as all these ladies dressed me and fussed about getting everything just right. Quite the experience! The party was quite the extravaganza... a huge feast with all the trimmings including three roast pigs...all free to the yachties. A live band played and people danced up a storm, including David & I though we tired earlier than we used to. She topped off the evening by presenting each yacht (40 of them!) with a woven palm basket full of fresh veggies and fruits to take on our passage to New Zealand. It was overwhelming. A great send off ...now if the weather will cooperate, we'll be all set.