Niuatoputapu was hard to leave and harder to get back to. Three days ago we thought there would be time to sail south to the Va'Vau group before a cold front and its attendant high pressure system moved in. But, my mid-afternoon on the day we left the blue skies were suddenly invaded by rolls of slate-grey clouds like gigantic sea cucumbers coming towards us. Ominous cold rains were soon replaced by escalating winds coming from the predictable (as in, we should have known better) south, which is exactly the direction we needed to sail. Trying vainly to make headway in a near gale, Hannah got banged around. The spinnaker pole, which was not in use, crashed down off its lock up the mast. A bottle of olive oil flew around the galley. The vang plate which attaches to the boom (new spring 2007) popped one rivet and loosened the rest. The stove gimballed hard and got stuck on one corner and dinged up the galley. The swivel nav station chair broke the pin which locks it in place in a seaway. The cabinet with CDs, the AM/FM radio, and eggs flew open while I was sleeping underneath. And more. The numbers for wave height and wind speed were not really impressive, but trying to beat into them was. We elected to turn around and to run off downwind, hoping that the wind would shift direction soon but knowing that we would end up returning 80 miles to our departure point, the island of Niuatoputapu. We barrelled through the very dark night, blind to the seas around us but able to hear the few that would cover the top of the cabin or crash over us in the cockpit just before they hit. It was eerie being together out there, feeling like we were being shot out of a cannon, far away, alone, soaking, salty, tired, eating cold food. Soon we realized that with just the staysail we were going so fast that we would go well by the island by first light when it would be safe to enter the pass. With the spinnaker pole lashed to the pulpit and shroud and sticking out like a cigar, we were reluctant to put out sail to heave to, fearing that something would get caught on the pole. So we pitched out the drogue (Galerider, a ring with a web basket), not having recently read the directions and with many sailor's inner fear that you will never be able to get it back in. Miraculously our speed slowed, although eventually we took down even the staysail and went with bare poled. About 12 miles out, we pulled the thing in using the winch and were pleased to find it played like a fish--tight/slack, wait/winch..We pulled back into the lagoon about 7:00am with almost everybody on deck on their boats waving and smiling. A fine and familiar group of boats have been here for a good while. Marcia of TJ and Richelle of WD have risen to "better than Saturday Night Live" humor in conversations on Channel 17 VHF; I always dial up and eavesdrop, a devoted fan of these two very funny women, and have awarded them both prizes of packages of dried egg powder. This is a big deal prize now, for there are not surplus eggs here and our hosts all love the brownies and cakes we bring to feasts of roast pig(s), breadfruit, coconut crab, chicken, taro, bananas, coconut cream with taro leaves, et al. When the US economy really tanks, we all will have figured out how to cook with this survivalist dry stuff. Leigh of MQ, the consummate craftsman, helped repair the vang by tapping new holes and bolting it back in. He astutely pointed out that the vang and the fitting on its plate were not in line, so the vang forces were distributed unequally to the plate and boom. Will have to consider fabrication of a new, longer, aligned plate. Today I have been splicing silky Spectra line for some new safety gear. We reevaluate our communication under pressure. In general, we are upping our usual caution. The laundry is drying in the rains. I am drinking hot pepperment tea and slack key guitar is playing, just like a cozy winter day. Niuatoputapu is one of the handful of places that we have visited that are very close to our hearts. There are three villages, Falehau, Vaipoa, and Hihifo on the island and a fourth on the nearby volcanic cone Tahahi, where pungent kava is grown. Tongans from other islands working here on construction contracts or for Fisheries or for the hospital or the schools view it as most isolated. People have little electricity from generators (just for some lights, the hospital refrigerator), cook in umus (ground ovens) or over fires or on kerosene stoves, and get water from springs or roof collection. A 150 meter mountainous green ridge forms the island backbone, with the windward side planted in yams, breadfruit, cassava, coconuts, and limes near a white sand beach with a fringing reef and lots of baby black-tipped reef sharks. On the leeward side a dirt road strings through the three villages with a probable population of about 1000. We hike all over. In Hihifo is a fresh water spring, crisply clear and filled with fish, that we modestly enter fully clothed whenever possible. We are anchored in the lagoon in sand bottom with turtles and big trevally. We swim off the boat. Yellow and black sea snakes show up at night. We dinghy out to a shallow pass and float with three humpback whales, here for mating and calving season; I drop into the water 50 feet away with a snorkel but cannot see them underwater and get back in quickly. One Sunday, we went to the nurse practitioner's house. As I was climbing over the wall on the back patio, I came face to face with eight live coconut crabs dangling on strings and learned how to tickle them under their tails to get any death grip of the claw released. With her family we carried tubs of food across the sand flats at low tide to the island where the Palm Tree Island Resort, a main house and four well-thought out bungalows, is run by Laura, a British woman here for many years. There are no scheduled airplane flights now, so no overnight guests, but we all make our way out there. I spot a bonefish in the lagoon and Steve hopes to persuade some fly fishermen to spend a month here searching out bonefish and, if they are found, working with the men to have them learn guiding (a very different activity than fishing). For those in the know, "the next Kiribati". Life over the last two weeks has become a series of spirited interchanges. One family near the wharf take care of the boat people and the construction crew to a bounding reggae beat. Another day a little red sailboat shows up from New Zealand with a man aboard who has been married for many years to a local woman. They have two kids and go back and forth between two worlds. The island children took exams to pass to the next level in school. We went to a Catholic church service organized specifically to support their efforts. Each child was dressed in white with a woven waistmat decorated with shells, beads, feathers, wool, and more. Soulful a capella singing rose. Sabbath is truly a day of rest, with no fishing, no laundry, no sports, no swimming, and no work except church and family meal. Another day the men cooked a meal for the students, who ate with with the women at low tables covered with white net tents decorated with strips of newspaper, bags of chips, and candies and once again piled with the usual foods plus big taro root (looks like a split fir log cooked), mullet, chop suey, pumpkin pudding, fruit, and other things too numerous to count. The food was piled as high as Christmas gifts under a tree, but sure enough the kids went for the four basic food groups of candy, chips, coke, and cake. I spent time at the hospital which has about four beds and is staffed by a nurse practitioner. She has organized competitions among villages for things like picking up trash, lowering of blood pressure or blood sugar (even in pre-diabetics!), and losing weight. She is concerned about a rising birth rate and is going out to the weaving houses to talk. I spent some time going over the use of some items that had been donated by New Zealanders: for instance, she had learned to cast with plaster but did not know how to use the fiberglass that had been sent. We all ponder solutions for E, an elderly Australian man with dementia and reported host of serious medical problems who said that God told him last April to come here to die. He has been warmly received, cared for in the hospital and at home and in people's homes, taken regularly to the beach and the resort, and fed well from families' own larders. These are fabulous last days compared to life in a low-end nursing home in A. with no next of kin. But unfortunately his pension does not cover the 24 hour hands on care and his hospital bills however low-budget and supplies like Depends, and he is in truth an emotional and financial burden though everybody smiles delightfully about him. A number of us have given money to help pay his bills so the hospital doesn't suffer, yet is seems all topsy-turvy to me. More properly the Australian government should do whatever it would do for him at home (a legal guardian, nursing home, etc) and any money flowing from cruisers should go to Tongans. A solution is being sought, as everybody from a first world country finds it embarrassing. I have been treating more problems arise among cruisers, pretty much just as soon as we got out of sight of xray, lab, EKG machines, interpreters, and other doctors. Very different questions arise in the practice of medicine: the risk/benefit ratio of giving a medication must be lower if one may not be able to treat side effects, language barriers are there, weather windows to sail to where evacuation is possible need to be considered. Had some hard days but things worked out well. Woven among the days is women weaving. The island is known for its fine white pandanus waistmats and large floor sitting mats. Traditionally Tongan wealth is counted in tapa, pigs, and mats. The kie pandanus leaves are boiled and peeled, then left in the tidal ocean flats for a few weeks to soften and bleach out. Women wander out at low tide, getting children or husbands or horses to carry back the pandunus leaves. They are washed and dried and worked by hand, cut in fine strips, and woven. The ta'ovala or waistmats are family heirlooms. All over there are houses where women gather to weave and weave and weave. The radio is buzzing with social plans. A woman from the middle village, a bit far from the anchorage, is very excited because she is having a group over tomorrow, which is less common than for people who live nearby, and so has invited her mother and her sister. We find some more broken stuff and decide not to think about it tonight. Nolan Report. He is very happy with life at Midland. The new friends and the outdoor life suit him fine, and the strict rules "are not a problem". The academics are challenging but he is working hard. We talked on the phone on his 16th birthday and he sounded great, full of stories about the community and his horse Lasse and hiking and mountain biking. Just about every email succinctly states "I'm having fun". Steve and I are thrilled that he has taken to this very special place. Off to take stock of the rainwater that we have collected, and eat dessert of papaya with lime.