Fair winds

We've had a break in the trade winds for a couple of days so have managed to get the solar panels, freezer, tools, fencing materials and even a couple of the 200mm x 4.8m house poles over to the island. 

We met some lovely Irish folk travelling the South Pacific who called in, curious about the poles we were moving. They have a few able-bodied lads aboard and are going to pop out tomorrow morning to haul the posts up to the house site. That will save a lot of pain winching them up. We'll have to duck back to the mainland first thing and grab the other two poles to make the most of their hospitality.

Other than that we just have 30 sheets of plywood, mattress, a door and about 30 4.8m lengths of 150x50 framing left to bring over. It's looking likely we'll make our deadline with 3 more raft trips in the coming days, weather permitting.

I saw my first local owl today... big birds. Unfortunately I found it dead in the well. We've been using rain water for the last week but we're down to about 50 litres so unless we get rain soon we'll need to clean out the well again. Well, we were going to clean it out again anyway, but that's a bit gross.

Ahhhh, a shed

We'd been sitting on our hands the last few days waiting for the wind to calm down a bit, but to no avail so yesterday we headed to the mainland in waves higher than the dinghy with a new plan. We loaded up 18 sheets of iron into the dinghy and set off to the sheltered side of the island then walked the dinghy around in the low tide to our side of the island. So, we got the iron and now we have a shed to store our stuff in. I feel more complete now that I have a shed!

 

Now the priority shifts from building a shed to moving the contents of the container over to the island. We have twelve days until the container has to be returned. It looks like Friday might be suitable to do a load on the raft so we might get solar panels and the freezer over here.

On our last trip with the raft one of the barrels took on some water and several barrels had big indentations in them. We thought we might have a crack but today we checked and they are ok. Perhaps it was just something to do with the change in air temperature? We've sealed the openings up with silicone. Fingers crossed our solar panels and freezer don't sink. We may have to walk the raft around the island.

A roof

We've been building a utility shed over the last few days and today it got a roof. One half of the shed will be enclosed for batteries, freezer, etc. and one half open for drying clothes during the wet season. 

We have to head back to the mainland for some more tin, hinges, guttering and stuff to finish it off. Hopefully the rain gods will give the roof a wash soon as it's got some suspicious yellow liquid on it that may belong to the dog at the hardware store.

A peek at the view

We've never actually seen what the view from the house site will look like because of the thick bush, so we cut a wee peek hole through today while waiting for high tide to get a load of timber.

Deforestation

The deforestation continues

Raft, rain and recharge

We ran out of data so have been cut off from the world for a few days until we could make it to the mainland but progress has been steady without access to the internet. By the way, it costs NZ$44 for 8GB of data.

Raft

We built the raft on Tuesday and did a first test tow out to Tapana with some timber for the lock-up. The picture below is the dinghy and raft stranded by a low king tide, awaiting some water to make it to the beach. The raft has the streamlining of a brick and it took us about an hour to tow it out to the island. The boat takes about 15 minutes to make the trip unladen so one hour with the raft is OK I guess, but we would be in trouble if the wind or sea came up.

Rain

You want rain? We got rain! The rain neatly filled our 200 litre drum and we got a few 20 litre buckets filled off the tent roof too. We were able to do both washing AND have a shower yesterday. We're still running it through the filter for drinking but it's delicious.

The tent largely stood up to the rain with just a few minor leaks that we will address with seam-seal when things dry out.

Recharge

We also took a couple of the solar batteries and the generator out to the island and tonight we will have our first electric light that isn't a dim led lantern. I've even got to use the laptop again so no more fiddling with a phone as a computer.

Nevertheless, even with power, nothing beats this technology:

Other than that, we've been continuing to clear trees to build the lock-up. When you cut a tree down the vines from neighbouring trees that can be up to 6 inches thick hold it up and the tree just leans over a bit. It's not until you chop down several trees all holding each other up that they come crashing down in an unpredictable massive heap. Clearing the tangled mess of vines and branches away is very time consuming.

Temporary water collection

Although Sunday is strictly a day of rest here in Tonga (you shouldn't even go swimming or fishing - just worship, eating and relaxing) we are a bit desperate for water so we quietly constructed some temporary rain collection. The chainsaw would have been handy but that might have been a bit much.

 

3.6 x 4.8 m = 27 square meters. Not huge but anything will be good for now.

Loo

A loo may not seem worth mentioning but it's a big deal for us. Sure it may benefit from some privacy enhancements yet but it's doing the job.

Today we collected some bamboo to make a frame for temporary water collection with a tarpaulin, and we also started clearing some bush and vines to make space for a permanent utilities shed for water collection and solar panels. We need to get the shed built in the next few weeks because the container needs to be returned soon.

We had our first shower in a few days now that we have our water filter in full operation. We can make about 30 litres a day, and it does indeed make a fine cup of tea, although we're still buying water for drinking. Hopefully we'll get to collect some rain in the coming days because hauling it from town is a pita.

We also got to try baked food for the first time since we arrived. Everywhere we have been has just had a gas hobb, so an oven is great. Tonight we're having kumala, corned beef, onions with coconut cream, a Tongan delicacy.

 

(I can't believe my life has come to the point where I am blogging about what I am having for dinner. I'm so sad.)

Cooking with gas

Well it took us three trips back to the mainland and a new regulator but we've finally got the gas oven going. Coconuts make a great cooking fire but this is so much more civilised.

There's not a whole lot of kiwi food here and some that is here I don't think I'll ever be buying:

Tent up

We're in the tent tonight. Barely got it up so no creature comforts yet but this will be our new home for the next 6 months or so.

 

The King whizzed through town today. The villages were decorated with flags and banners and in town they decorated the roads with children spaced every 20 meters or so. Seconds later he was gone. Never even saw him.