Our Final Prize Giving Dinner

Native wood carvings on the wall at Mango Cafe

One of the things we most look forward to are the rendezvous times. This is when all of the boats come together after a long crossing or a free cruising period. It is a time to reconnect with friends in the fleet and share experiences.

The subtle dance movements of the Tongan women

We had our rendezvous dinner and prize giving night at the Mango Café on the shore of the mooring field. Again it was an evening of rum punch, kava, traditional food, music and dance. I really look forward to these events as we all get together - especially before setting off on a month of free cruising where we don't see others often.

We were treated to a demonstration of Tongan dance which is different from the French Polynesian and the Hawaiian style. Here in Tonga, the movements are mostly subtle movements of the hands and head with very little body movement - at least for the girls.  On the other hand, the boys and men do a lot of jumping and fast movements.



The welcoming dance at Mango Café.

The Hawaiians use fluid whole body movements and the Tahitians shake their hips like no others! So this is the other extreme of limited body motion, but very beautiful and graceful. It fits their conservative culture and lifestyle. It seems that the dances done by men are more aggressive and are telling a story of fighting or winning at something.

Receiving our prize

Lucia, Jo (Argentina), Anita (Norway) and Sherry

Prize giving is always fun as several of the boats are serious about "winning." We are not and were quite pleased and surprised when we placed third in our division back in the Panama to Galapagos leg. It seems that there are some repeat winners each time, but also new winners. Therefore, it is a happy surprise when new boat names are called to receive a prize. This time the prizes were very special as they were hand carved kava bowls.


 

Mimi, Dennis, Gro and Erhling

It is going to be difficult to say goodbye to some of our  new friends when we drop out after Fiji! I hope we maintain contact for catching up later when we do land travel. We have really enjoyed meeting Miimi, Gro and Erhling and Anita and Glen from Norway. Sandra and Tom, the honeymooning couple from Switzerland, have become special friends, too. We enjoyed the family from Argentina, but don't know if we will see them again.  I know we will keep and touch and probably see Merc and Bob from Chicago. There are a number of others we will look up when we travel to their countries.