Tongatapu and Vava'u 9/2/08 Tuesday

Finally on the boat - let me recap

WOW - what a day yesterday. Up at 3AM - we left for the airport at 4:45 had over 1.5 hours at the airport for an amazing cup of coffee and yummy banana bread. Ed bought us some Kava. FIJI airport was great. Nice shops - a ton of them. Flight was perfect - breakfast and a funny show on the video system.....

Then BAM - Raining like crazy in Tongatapu. Had to get a transfer over to the domestic terminal (which looked like something you would see in TJ). Looking around at the open air terminal there are no computers and two counters - At our airline counter (Air Fiji) there is no one there - were they just out to lunch, no, they were out of business.

Thank goodness for Edward tours (that's him above) - he came to save the day. He packed up our bags and took us to the travel agency downtown. Got on a flight going up to Vavau that day but will have to come back on the 12th not the 13th. We have to stay the night in Tongatapu on the way to Fiji. Had a nice lunch at Friends cafe. Little tour around the town - King's Palace. Got to the airport at 1 - flight at 2. Absolutely gorgeous views from the airplane. Vavau even more rural - pigs and dogs everywhere.

Moorings was right there waiting for us. Marina is a lot less than the BVIs but OK. Our boat is called the Sapphire Seas II

Girls took off to gather the required provisions and to exchange some money. Shopping....OH MY!!! There were slim pickens. Got the important stuff - Vodka, Beer, Wine, Rum. The chinese store (not sure why it was called this) had chicken franks, spaghetti and Dan's diet coke. Sally got a lift in the stores truck while Collette and I headed off the the bakery. Then it started to pour - the bakery let us borrow umbrellas thank goodness. We still got soaked.

Ok - we're fine now. Packed it all up and had a great glass of wine to relax and reflect. Provisioning is going to be a challenge.

Showered, then our first dingy ride off to dinner at the Mermaid in Neifu. It was a really cute outdoor restaurant. Raining hard and took a long time to get our food because the power went out. Ed had a good burger and I had soup - good but salty.

Back to the boat for our first night - it's going to be tight quarters but WE'RE ON VACATION