Main Street, Palmerston
Supply ships come by every 3-4 months, hopefully, so it was nice to offload some canned food that had been around to some people that would appreciate it. We spent most days socializing with the locals, walking the island and talking with the teachers and nurse as to how they managed in such an isolated location. We learnt about the history of the families and how they managed before modern technology came to the island. One of the delights of being here is that they had satellite Internet at a very reasonable cost. It wasn’t consistent but certainly good enough to manage a few emails and get daily weather without having to use the Iridium. It also allowed us to work at getting a much-needed rigger for when we arrived in Tonga. Our friends Matt and Dagma arrived after 2 days and we spent a morning making our rig much more secure. Since both of them were climbers and had all their climbing gears, it was easy for them to help without putting more stress on our rig. We managed to borrow some Dyneema line from Pele on Loupon and Matt climbed to the top of the mast to secure it. Once the mast was under tension again, he was able to put sail ties around the rest of the genoa so it would not shred itself in the wind. Paul managed to get the transmission working again and we were set to enjoy the rest of our stay on the island.