En Route to Pago Pago 21 Sept 2010 14.9365S 171.7975W
After ten days in Niuatoputapu, and after much waffling we decided to head up to American Samoa to provision, before continuing back down south to see the rest of Tonga and New Zealand. So yesterday we pulled anchor, headed out to sea, swimming upstream when all the other boats are swimming down. Less than an hour out, the clew on our jibsail popped right off the sail. The jib is our most efficient sail going upwind, it’s the knife edge that keeps us pointing high. Trying to sail upwind without it is like trying to cut an apple with the back of the knife, slow and sloppy. But if we’d turned around we would miss a good weather window to even attempt this hair-brained provisioning run. After a failed try at moving the staysail to the jib position, we dug out our stormsail (a little bit smaller proportionally than a speedo on a Sumo Wrestler), cranked up the iron genoa (the engine), tightened the fisherman and the main and settled in for a long sewing session in the cockpit and a longer passage than expected.
Ironically our good friends on Kamaya were working on a similar repair to the clew on their main before we left the anchorage. Our last interaction with them was leaving them our sail needles so they could complete their repair. We did keep two “just in case” but now that the jib is nearly repaired, we won’t be able to raise it till we’re in port, due to a missing screw in the roller furling. All more technical than any of you would want to hear. The short version is that in the same way that no repair job on a house gets down without 3 trips to home depot (no matter how small), no repair job on a boat is ever one repair job. In fact, boatrepairjobs, should just always a compound plural word.
There were many good reasons for this side trip. They seemed much more important when safely anchored. But the winds are a light 15 knots, the seastate is relatively calm, we’re making good way and the sky is animated with puffy clouds – rats chasing dancing hippos, dogs kissing ducks (why do puffy clouds look like cartoon animals?). Not too much to complain about really. Among the reasons for this run, was the need to replace some electronics: electric drill, speakers and my toothbrush charger. Samoa would be the only place in the Pacific where we can buy electronics with 110 plugs. Frank had two drills, but lost them both in a day to an overeager Robinhood (we bought a small 110V gas generator in Tahiti hoping it would help with some refrigeration issues – Robin was the brand name). Mechanical equipment onboard quickly earns a human name, once they’ve earned their spot on the crew list. But apparently Robinhood only steels from the rich (us). Giving to the poor was not in it’s genetic makeup. As soon as Frank took him ashore, to help build Red Cross donated huts for the Tsunami survivors there, Robinhood stole away the two drills, one after the other, before Frank realized that without Friar Tuck, Robinhood is just a common thief.
Once we get some goods aboard, we’d like to stop back into Niuatoputapu, to leave some with the very kind families there who welcomed us into their little community – weather permitting as always. When every kid in the street is begging for pencils and books (and of course “Lollies”) it’s really hard to resist, so we’ll be adding some of those items to our list. Logan even went to school with one family’s kids. Their mom ironed up a Tongan school uniform for him, gray shirt and a gray cloth ankle length wrap. He did not wear the traditional woven mat that they wrap around on top of that, which as they explained was only for Tongans. All instruction is in English, but for Science the teacher read from the English textbook, and translated it into Tongan. He said the science textbook was not that great. Of course I think he’s growing a high expectation for science classes, after the lesson on the periodic table with Rhian from Zephyrus, and the physics of waves lesson with Tim from Kamaya, both presented their material with infectious enthusiasm. The dry reading in Tongan with no experiments was a big contrast. He said Tongan middle school was similar to the U.S., in that they have different teachers for different courses, but they all sit in one great room and the teachers come to them. He had a great time, but complained that it was “a lot of sitting” and his back was sore. I had not thought to add “freedom to walk about,” to the list of advantages of homeschooling.
Kennan refused to go, so I added a course on cultural integration to his school day – a one hour lecture on the merits to humanity of stepping out of our comfort zone to participate in other cultures. I’ll podcast it and add it to iTunes U or Google’s Lectures if you’d like;)
xoxomo