Tonga Update -

Hello from Taunga (we think).  It appears to be anchorage #21 on the maps.  We have our own beach here, long and sandy with a large sand spit that stands out at low tide.  Water washes over it from a few directions at high tide, which is also fun.  At low tide we can walk a long way around the island in either direction before coming across any man made structures.  There's some nice rocks along the way that make for great tide pools.  I found a wounded and dying fish on the shore yesterday, Valiant thought it was the best thing ever.  He got to check out a real fish (his continuous topic of conversation) and hold it.  He would hold it and put it in the water, then catch it and bring it back out.  He was fascinated for hours and would not part from it.  We finally brought it back out to the boat in the dinghy and put him on the back swim-step with a bucket of water and his fish.  Intrepid found a gorgeous cowdry shell in one of the tide pools.  It was gold and browns and shimmering, probably about the size of a baseball.  But it had the snail in it; so we admired it, took pictures and let it go.

Yesterday Integrity was running down the stairs and fell and cut some skin from the bottom of his big toe.  It bled well and he got attention and bandages.  Valiant was quite impressed.  He talked all about "big toe" and "hurt."  Then shortly thereafter, he realized he too had hurt his big toe, and took it on rounds through the room looking for empathy.  I gave him a paper towel to hold on it, which he did, and then we bandaged it up.  He even hobbled like Integrity was.  Tonight we washed Integrity's foot off and put on new bandages.  Valiant too then needed his toes all bandaged up, so he has electrical tape on both of his big toes tonight as he goes to bed.  It's so funny his empathy pains for Integrity (and/or his attention seeking behavior).  He does seem to truly feel bad for Integrity though.

Last Saturday when we took 3 other teens out for the day, one of the girl's names was Joelle.  Vitality asked me when we were going to make Jell-O again (not an uncommon question for her to ask).  Integrity asked me at almost the same time what the girl's name was.  I told him, "Joelle."  Vitality says, "No, jell-o."  From that point on both Integrity and Vitality, with the rest of us following closely behind, proceeded to call Joelle, Jell-o.  And so the name stuck.  She seemed OK with it fortunately, because I don't think I could have changed what the kids had named her.

From 40 pineapples, we are down to 6.  We easily eat 6 a day, so it's getting time to consider going back to resupply.  Fortunately, it's only an hour or two away.  But on Sundays, the whole town is shut down.  I think I heard that there's an ordinance, but Courage believes that the people just adhere to the church's teachings of a day of rest.  Either way, it's a quiet day to reflect.  It is offensive to do any form of work on a Sunday.  Also it is offensive to be swimming, snorkeling, SCUBA, or other recreation.  We had a long day in town last Sunday, looking for things to do inside the boat all day.  This weekend, we'll be at a remote beach where our usual physical activities don't bother anyone else.  From what we've read, this is what most boats do.  We've heard that anything children do will be excused because they love children, which is great, but I think we're better off just doing what we do in our own space and everyone's happy.  So we'll go back in tomorrow evening, or Monday morning.  

On Sunday evenings a fair amount of little boats converge on the town of Neiafu for school from the outlying islands.  They go home for the weekend, then return Sunday night or early Monday morning.  So we'll be in synch with the migration.

Goodnight,
Shannon