Tongan Feast Vaka�'Eitu 06/09/2019

In midst of a monsoonal rainstorm, a young teen man paddled up to invite us to a feast on Saturday night. He asked to speak to my husband and request the favor of a dingy ride out to the other six boats that were battened down for the wind shift and storm after he checked that we were aware of the weather alerts. John re launched the dingy and I donned my foul weather gear to meet and greet the other cruisers and let Mako invite them to the Tongan feast. Maku said the pig was already reserved and it would be at the beach hut which looked like a Mexican palapa. Friday, David, the father of Maku, stopped by on the way home with his girls from school and some wiggly piglets so he asked and we got the dinghy out to introduce him to the five new boats that had arrived. In all about 8 yachts have signed up for the "feast" on the beach.

We spent Saturday morning exploring the coral garden reef area and then rested until Maku asked John to take them over to the next island, Lape, in order to watch the rugby game All Blacks against the Tonga team. Now these were 4 big boys in one dinghy so John was not able to get the boat up onto a plane just lugged it across when the prop began to spin on the hub uselessly. David was headed across to our island with family and took the kids off to shuttle them the rest of the way and promised to return and tow John back. John was able to make some progress and Maku stayed with him to return to start cooking the piglets until prop spun and time to row. Fortunately John was able to swap out with our spare prop quite easily and will look at a repair another day. We headed over early to watch some of the feast preparations under the massive banyon tree (looks like an ancient ficus to me). Would have made a great tree house. David and his wife have 10 children and are the only family living on Vaka�'Eitu but most grown children live on the next islands of Lape & Nuapapu where there is a church and school. All had come to help Mother with food preparation. Tide was going out so all the dinghy�'s began arriving and anchoring out in the shallows in order to get away home later. Dressed up men and women carrying their satchels of drinks of choice wading barefoot into the beach to watch the piglets roast over open fire. The food filled one table and guests filled the second larger table with some of the men eating on the beach. The raw tuna salad is even better here than in French Polynesia as it is fresh coconut milk and a bit more spicy. We had also octopus, several salads, local white sweet potato, chicken teriyaki dish, some thin noodle vegetable dish and the yummy moist pork (once they managed to pull the pole out of its butt).

So many nationalities, Norway, Israeli, Denmark, Italian/Swiss, New Zealanders and several US with two boats from the bay area. So many stories to swap including one couple lost their mast their first season and tied it alongside to manage repairs later. Maku began inviting the men on the beach to church the next day and giving his reasons for believing plus an invite to the 9 am men�'s kava pre-church ceremony.