Thursday, September 25, 2008

O'ua and Lifuka


O’ua was a really neat little anchorage that we had all to ourselves. I think this may be a seldom visited island as two of the teenage boys who live in the little village rowed out to the boat to welcome us, but were very shy and spoke and understood very little English.


Shayna swinging in the bosuns chair.

We saw that our great country has funded the school in this little village, it makes us very proud to be Canadian.

All of us, excluding Jenny because of her broken ankle, visited the village which was very poor and in ill repair. On O’ua, all of the yards are fenced to keep the pigs out which we thought was very odd but we later learned that it was unlawful to pen the pigs.

We visited the home of Kafoa and Eliki, the two boys who came out to visit, and were amazed at how undeveloped their place was but they were obviously very proud of their home which was kept very clean. The villagers seem to really value photographs and we left them with many.

We have been making balloon animals for the village children who watch in wonder as their little gifts are created. It has been such a joy to bring smiles to the faces of the young ones.
It was at O'ua that I did my first real scuba dive! It was cool and I even let go of Jay's hand for a little while....baby steps!




We sailed on to Lifuka where we spent the weekend and Celebrated Jenny’s 15th birthday with a pizza lunch at Matafanua and a two hour horse back ride (bareback!) through the Tongan jungle and along the beach. You should have seen the HUGE spiders in there!! YUCK! I’m certain it will be a day we’ll remember for a long time. Our rear ends remember, that’s for sure!

In Lifuka, we attended Sunday morning service at the Weselyen Church and were moved by the angelic voices lifted in praise to God, however, we couldn’t understand the message at all as it was delivered in Tongan. I found it very interesting that the image of Christ was caucasion and that the participants in the church were all women. Another unusual thing we noticed was that when the offering was taken, there was an announcement to let everyone know who gave and how much – weird.


Jay & Steve with a big wahoo.......wahoo!!!

We’ve now reunited with O’vive and Orca III in Neiafu in Vava’u and are enjoying the camaraderie of the other cruisers once again.

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