dry laundry (almost)

So the thing that has taken up the most of our time since we've been here is drying the laundry. Yes, we sailed 9,000 miles to sit in the boat in the rain grumbling about wet clothes. In our first 5 days, we've done a lot of socializing, a lot of chores and no sight seeing. It has rained on and off everyday, getting even more of our clothes wet. We did catch about 100 gallons of rain water, so that is the plus side of torrential downpours. The boat is really clean, although quite messy due to clothes lines everywhere. There are so many people here that we know, it's a constant pattern of stopping to talk and having people drop in. It's fun to catch up with people, but hard to get anything else done without interruptions. We did get a babysitter for the night on Thurs and had dinner out with Wyndeavor and Aurora B. Kelly and I about fell over when Laura offered to keep all four kids for the evening. No one had to think twice. Service here is just not up to the standards of home. It's obvious that we've been gone a year, because we didn't get too irritated. It took an hour to get our table ready, they didn't bring silverware, and the owner told us he was so busy there was only one menu left. "So busy" in Tonga means 2 parties of 6 and one table of 14. Oh, well, the food was decent, the company great and the peace of a grown up meal, invaluable.

Friday night we visited on another CSY. It's a walk through, not walk over like ours, so the inside is quite a bit different. We compared notes and it turns out they were moored next to Imagine in Puerto Vallarta the year before we bought her. She suggested that we should have bought a "Kelly Peterson", but since Peter Schmitt designed the CSY's we figure it's just as good. We've only run into two other CSY's on the trip, one in Newport Beach and one in Nuku Hiva.

This morning we hauled out a bunch of extra boat stuff and took it to a "treasures of the bilge" sale on shore. Pete sold a fair amount and I sold a few cards. Like a community garage sale, most people socialized and bargained. This afternoon, after a couple of hours of baking, putting away laundry and general straightening up, we're off to an anchorage with a beach. There is a double birthday party on Monday for two boats kids, so there will be a huge reunion and gobs of kids. We're looking forward to some beach fun and sun. The weather is still unpredictable, so hopefully we won't get rained out. The snorkeling is supposed to be good too and also some caving.

Happy October, it's the 1st here in Tonga. -kellie