Tuesday 11th September

Nuku’alofa,
Tonga

21 08.317 S
175 10.867 W

A very happy birthday Jean, many happy returns of the day.

We planned to do the restocking and checking out stuff today in the hope that we would be able to get away from here tomorrow. This was the last day we would have the car so we had to make sure that all the running around stuff was finished before returning the car. We headed out first to the customs office; found that we had to pay the harbour master first so that meant a trip to the bank as we weren’t sure how much it was going to cost. Once we had some money in hand we decided that the day couldn’t proceed without a coffee so we went to café escape and spent half an hour there having a decent cup of coffee. As the supermarket was close by we stopped in there next and loaded up with the few things that we had run out of, by now I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that chocolate and snack bars were at the top of the list. From there we went to the market and loaded up with fresh fruit and vegetables, the market was excellent and the produce better than a lot of places that we have been. We made a detour to the bakers and bought some pies and cake – well you can never have too much pre prepared food! Finally it was time to go to the harbour master’s office and pay him, surprisingly the fee was only about $30 so we didn’t need half of the money we had drawn out of the bank. We tried a couple of times to pay the car hire place but the lady that runs it was out each time, we gave up and returned to the boat to unload the shopping before trying a third time – this time with success, it was arranged that we would leave the car at the wharf and she would pick it up in the evening – a good arrangement as it meant we had the car for the rest of the day. Our next stop was for lunch at Friends café where we also checked our emails, the internet on the boat had been out of action for 2 days so there were a few things to answer and sort out. Late in the afternoon Gerry returned to the customs office and got our final clearance papers – we are set to go now as soon as the weather clears; there has been some bad weather around Fiji that we want to miss if possible. A final trip into town to try and fax our arrival details to the Fiji customs people (they want to know at least 2 days before you arrive that you are coming). This was un unsuccessful episode as the fax machine in Fiji just didn’t pick up and the file was too large to attach to an email; in the end Gerry emailed them a short version of the information they required along with an explanation of the difficulty he had sending the form they require – we aren’t sure how everyone else manages to send it but it definitely isn’t easy! Having done all the essential stuff we went back to the boat locked the keys in the car (as instructed) and then walked across the road to a Korean restaurant. This was a first for us, having never eaten Korean food before, it was a mixture of Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese. We enjoyed it immensely, leaving the place full but with the feeling that given an hour we would feel hungry again! We read a bit before going to bed; hopefully we will have internet in the morning so that we can check the weather before leaving here to spend the interim at anchor behind one of the small islands.