Water tank

Recently we had a tropical storm that delivered us a meter of rainfall, yet we only had two 200 litre barrels so really couldn't make much use of all that rain. We were down to our last few buckets-worth again this week. The Met service had warned of a drier than usual summer so we really needed to do something about it. This week the forecast was for another week of rain so we decided if we were quick we could solve the problem. We bought a 5000 litre tank for TOP$1700 and towed it out to the island the day before yesterday.

As usual the sight of Palangis towing things behind a little dinghy was a source of amusement and a photo opportunity.

It took a bit wrangling to get the tank up the hill and down the track to the shed but we only had to cut down a few small trees, otherwise it miraculously just barely slipped between all the obstacles. Unfortunately the tank is a bit higher than the outflow of the guttering on the shed so we had to dig the tank in (about 400mm on one side and 500 on the uphill side), which has taken us the last two days. At least that will help keep it secure and cool so it's worth it.

We just barely got the hole finished as the rain started and we bodged up some temporary pipework including a water bottle elbow. Fingers crossed the pipes don't collapse and the tap doesn't leak and we may have some real water stored for a change. Maybe even a fresh water shower. Hallelujah!

As a matter of interest, they make great tanks here in Tonga. The main factory is in Tongatapu but it's so expensive to ship big empty tanks to Vava'u (cargo is charged by the cubic meter) that every few months they pack up the factory and ship all their equipment to Vava'u then make tanks here for a while before shipping it all back again.

So now we have a week of rain to look forward to. At least we have internet going again! At the moment the Met service says there is a high chance of the depression becoming a tropical storm, but it looks like it will head southwest, away from us. I hope so because we've been so frantic getting the tank in that we've done no storm prep.

Alive!

Forgive me father, for it has been six weeks since I last blogged. We've not achieved a lot since then what with me recovering from surgery and getting over a wee bout of pneumonia. We've mostly been chipping away at small jobs such as getting the floor nailed down, getting the kitchen sink in, hanging the door, concreting in the posts for the deck, and covering the eaves in so it no longer rains inside the house. Also a lot of swims because dang it's hot.

I'm not sure if I mentioned it but when I was in Tongatapu for surgery I bought a car and brought it back home on the ferry. That was a miserable 24 hours with the ferry rolling around and my recently stitched belly rolling around with it. There are only a few seats on the ferry in an overly air conditioned room that is freezing cold, and smells of stale cigarettes and vomit. Most people just lie outside on the deck, usually with a cardboard box for comfort and to stake their claim. You can't walk anywhere without stepping over and on other people but everyone is miserable and forgiving. The few sheltered spots are fiercely guarded and bequeathed to family and friends when vacated so unless you get on the ferry first you are doomed to freeze on the deck or in the vomit chiller. I was totally unprepared but strangely so was everyone else. I had a pillow with me that I had taken to hospital (yes, you take your own sheets, pillow, loo paper, food etc. but the hospital care is exceptionally cheap and New Zealand could learn something there!). My pillow was coveted by many jealous eyes.

As it turns out the only car I could find that didn't have a huge Palangi tax on it belonged to the taxi driver who was taking me around town to look at cars. There was nothing worth buying but in the end he sold me his Lexus for a very fair price. Turns out it's the best car I've ever owned although it's a bit thirstier than what I would usually buy.

Here's the car when we carried some "security mesh" out to the beach (faka Tonga). Flash aye?

 

I had hoped this would free us from the need to arrange trips into town with the neighbour but for now that is still a work in progress as she still has no boat of her own and no likely prospects. Very few boats are available for sale. Judging from the way Tongans load their boats to the gunwales with people they mostly end up on the bottom of the ocean.

Around Christmas the neighbours were kicked off their land by angry locals who decided they owned the land despite the lease agreement. They had to move to the little Cabana that they usually rent out to tourists. It took the Governor and police to step in to prevent the locals from setting boats adrift as they had threatened.  They did cut the moorings, chop down all the fencing and put up signs that purportedly say  "no trespassing" in Tongan. As it stands the only access to the Cabana is by ladder up a cliff face, despite laws much like our Queen's Chain allowing access along the beach, but they are REALLY angry. It's going to court in a few months. They followed us around to our side of the island in their big fishing boat to check we didn't dare step onto anywhere they considered theirs but we lost them on a patch of shallow coral and they returned to the other side. We haven't seen them since but we're told they are due back this month so that could be a bit of drama.

The fibreoptic cable to Tonga was cut in three places just over two weeks ago; two cuts on the link to Fiji and one cut on the line to Vava'u. We've been in cyber darkness until last night and I nearly went mad. Obviously the main link to Fiji was a priority for Tongatapu so we've had to wait a while. There was a satellite link set up by Digicel so I got a Digicel sim card, but we really don't get Digicel on this side of the island so I had to walk over to the other side to get a decent signal. Even so the link was massively over-contended so it was not possible to load any web pages, get email, or pretty much anything at all. All I was able to do was get some short text messages out through Viber. The only person I know with Viber outside Tonga was Sam but he kindly relayed some messages for me and we even got Radio New Zealand to add some weather forecasts to their Pacific shortwave broadcasts so we knew what the weather was going to do. Thanks!

At this stage the cause of the cuts to the fibre is unknown but they are not ruling out sabotage. I hope they got it off their chest; that sucked. Anyway, we're alive!

Good morning

This morning view from the bed surely beats staring at the mouldy roof of the tent.

 

We still need to widen the gap to get the full view.

Moving Day

We've mostly got the roof on now so today we knocked together some stairs that Spy can climb and made the move. OK, so most of the front wall is missing, there is no door, verandah, or power. There is still three windows to cut out and most of the floor boards are just sitting in place to dry but this is much better than spending another night in the mouldy tent.

Spy vs. crab

Coconut crab

And he's still digging. I saw the crab run away ages ago.

 

Hip rafters

We've made some forward progress and some backward. We put about a third of the floor down but then pulled it back up again when we found how much damage the sun was doing to it. Turns out there's a good reason you should put the roof on before the floorboards. We also put one wall and a window on, but most importantly we got the hip rafters up and one of the coconut crossbeams. The other crossbeam is too heavy to lift right now because it was only cut about four weeks ago and is still very green so we'll put that in later on.

 

Next we will do the other, jack rafters, that go between these hip rafters, then cut things to length. The roof overhang will only be 300mm due to hurricanes.

We've also towed the roof battens out to the island now so just the roofing iron to go. That'll require a trip on the raft.

I lost my phone in town when I lay down to poke my hernia back in but luckily a kind soul dropped it in to the police station. I paid a $50 reward for it which I hope actually went to the finder and not the cop beer fund, but then a couple of days later took it for a swim so now I have no phone :-(

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Floor has landed

We towed the floorboards out to the island today.

 

Spy decided we'd made him a jetty to spy on the fish from. At that moment there were two big tuna swimming along the beach.

Should get the floor down in the next few days. There is still a little bit of framing work to finish off first.

Rugby and joists

On Friday Tongans were out in force to support their team, wearing their colours and driving around honking horns.

I'm almost glad the team lost because town would have been shut down for days of celebration.

We got the floor joists on today and are just starting to tie and bolt things down.


 

We need to haul floor boards over to the island but the winds have been too strong for the last week and it looks like they will continue for another week until we get a break so it might be another quiet week on the island.

Hut posts done

It's been a fairly slow couple of weeks but today we finally got the last of the hut posts concreted in, the bearers on and the outer two floor joists in place. Work has been slowed by the need to get aggregate, cement, etc. over to the island but also because I've gone and given myself a hernia, leaving Mandy to do more than her fair share of the work. We're yet to come up with a plan to manage that but the hospital in Nuku'alofa is pretty good so I guess I'm going to have to take a few weeks off to get surgery. That will put us well into the rainy season and the tent is already showing signs of rot and mould.

We also cut down a couple of Fijian kauri trees that the neighbour said we could thin from his plot to make some posts for the verandah. We got three 3m posts out of each tree. We had to float them round from the other side of the island. A fun fact is that the bottom half of a freshly cut kauri tree doesn't float, so that was a bit of a surprise.  However with the top half tied in as well they were roughly neutrally bouyant so only needed a little encouragement to walk them round the island. We still need to get more aggregate and cement over for those but they can wait a while to dry.

Visa

We finally got our Visas today. We applied for our Visas in March so this is about normal we're told.