It’s confusingly still dark when I wake up, even though it’s almost 7 am. Mike is already up using the internet as after today we will be without it until we get to Fiji.
He goes to arrange for us to come alongside the dock for water and they tell us to go right away before anyone else gets there, so we tie a fender on our mooring ball and go straight over.
We get tied up and I fill the water tank (after Mike has tested it and found it to be OK). Then we start the process of cleaning the boat. She is still covered in grit from the road in Rarotonga, and it is well and truly ground in. It doesn’t matter how hard we scrub, without some sort of bleach infused scouring material all we can do is remove the top layer but nearly two hours she starts to look a bit more respectable. I even have a go at cleaning the cockpit cushions but am wary of how hard to scrub because I don’t want to remove any waterproofing that may still remain. When I get some Scotch Guard I will really have a go at them. They look a lot better even being rubbed over with plain water.
When we have finished I get changed and to into town to pick up the groceries that I ordered yesterday, and Mike gets his Hooka out again to have another go at the propellers. Whatever he did yesterday made them rattle a bit and they need adjusting. It’s one of those things that you just have to make an adjustment and have a go and keep doing it until it’s right. Unfortunately it’s a laborious process with the damn propellers being under water.
In town, all my goods are ready, and Mimi has cooked my breadfruit as promised. Laden down with these, two huge hands of bananas, onions, tomatoes and a few other bits, I struggle back to the boat absolutely shattered. There are too many hills in this place!
I manage to get hold of Victoria and find out that her exam was not as bad as she feared it would be. It’s great to hear her sounding normal again, and I push my motherly guilt back into my mental cupboard ready for the next time.
We motor back to our mooring ball,only to find that some bugger has tied his boat to it and cleared off. We go to another one nearby, the only one left, and as I start to tie us on someone from another boat yells at us that the ball is already taken. Tough. I tie on anyway. I am downstairs just a short while later when the guy whose ball we have taken turns up in his yacht, and Mike, being the gentleman that he is, calls me up to untie us again. The people who have taken our mooring ball are still nowhere in sight, so Mike gets in the dinghy to retrieve our fender and as we need to go over to the customs dock for re-fuelling later, we head there instead.
It’s quite windy in the bay but luckily the wind is in our favour and blows us onto the dock quite gently and helpfully, and Sandro from Lady Lisa comes to take our lines to tie us on. The boat is still soaking wet, and I watch with horror as the wind blows gritty dust all along the road to the boats. Great.
Mike goes to get our duty free fuel certificate and returns to put dirty, dusty shoe prints on the side deck. I yell at him to get his shoes off before he goes any further, which he does, but it turns out the insides of his shoes were dusty too and he leaves footprints all over the boat. I am now beginning to lose it.
The fuel truck backs towards us, ready to fill us up. We should have been able to take 400 litres, but just after 360 litres go in and Mike starts to slow the flow down, the fuels suddenly spurts out and a couple of litres shoots over my the cockpit. I run to get the washing up liquid and some water, cursing all the way. I am in frantic mid scrub when the customs guy arrives and attempts to clamber on board. I shriek at him to stop, point out a thin path through which he can walk, and he comes on to do his paperwork.
When he leaves, Mike gets ready to release us from the dock and I stare in horror, with mounting fury, at the state of the cockpit. Mike looks at me sympathetically, but shrugs and says it can’t be helped. I just want to murder someone, preferably him.
We go back to the anchorage, having decided to stay another night as we are both too tired to start a the passage to Fiji now. Luckily we are able to take the mooring ball that Tucanon have just vacated. The mooring ball though is uncooperative, with a short line on it. I hook it easily enough but have to pull the ball right up to the deck to thread our warp through and only just manage to release it before it has my fingers off and I have to let it go without threading the second line through. Mike tells me to leave it and that he will get in the dinghy and do it from there. This should have been easy, but at the exact time he reaches the ball and puts the dinghy into neutral, the wind blows madly, forces the dinghy over the line I have tied on and Mike is nearly pulled over the side of the dinghy as the second line refuses to pull through the loop. It’s a right bloody fiasco, although as soon as the wind drops again, he is able to complete the operation and hand me back the warp to tie onto Jeannius.
By the time he gets back on board, I am stomping around on deck shouting that I absolutely HATE f***ing boats and that I want to go home NOW!
I refuse to cook and demand instead to be taken somewhere where they serve decent wine. We have a nice lunch and I down two very large glasses of wine before I am mellow enough again to come down off the roof.
As we have some Tongan dollars left , we walk back into town (for the final time hopefully) and buy me a wood and ox bone memory hook pendant which has been carved by a tufunga (a Tongan master carver.
On the way back to the boat, we stop to chat with Clare on the yacht Panulirus. We met them in Rarotonga and they have even more problems than we do as their engine is not working at all and they had to be towed into the anchorage when they arrived five days ago.
Back on Jeannius we both fall asleep and wake up a couple of hours later. Mike tells me that all the dirt in the cockpit has mysteriously disappeared, but I know it’s just the failing light and it will all be there in the morning to greet me!
Tomorrow morning we will head off to Fiji, 540 miles away.
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