Bikes, Dogs and Rain

We had a nice sail from Uoleva back to Pangai on Kifuka Island Thursday after a morning beach walk. The beach walk was interesting, especially the dead pig floating just off shore. We had earlier seen half a dozen piglets on the beach with no sign of mom which we thought a bid strange, but the mystery was soon solved. Nature at work! When we arrived at Pangai, we saw another ketch anchored that we didn't recognize but figured we would run into them sooner or later, it's not that big a place and there's only one bar/restaurant. We stocked up on a few supplies and treated ourselves to a cold beer at Mariners Café. We found out the other ketch was also Canadian registered and from Vancouver. That made it a full Canadian anchorage. While we were refreshing ourselves, Malachi came into the harbour and stern tied to the wharf. OK now it's getting weird, three Canadian boats here, no other boats, and all registered in Vancouver. What are the odds? One the way back out to Tarun, we stopped by and said hello to Salena and her owners Michel and Carol. We talked for a bit and they invited us for dinner, so sure why not. It turns out that they left Canada in 2005 and have been cruising three months on and three months off since then. He works three months on and three months off as a Captain on one the Royal Caribbean cruise ships. Not a bad gig. Nice people and we had a great evening getting to know each other.
Yesterday we decided to get some exercise and rented a couple of bicycles to tour the island. We went to the north end of Lifuka, crossed the causeway to Foa and went to the north end of Foa. Mostly flat, this was good as we had single speed bikes. Brakes were the old style, push backwards on the pedal, so that took a bit of getting used to as well. Stopped for a snack at the top of Foa then rode back to Pangai for lunch. We got chased by a dog on the way back and Cathy got nipped on the ankle but no damage but we will watch out for distemper and we may have to put her down if she starts foaming at the mouth or something (I'm kidding OF COURSE). We had lunch on the waterfront in Pangai under the tree's then rode south to the end of Lifuka. It was getting on to low tide and the locals were out on the reef connecting Lifuka to Uoleva harvesting giant clams. We ran into to some kids, as we do everywhere and they were a blast. One of them was quite an artist and was drawing figures in the sand. I got some pictures and will post on the web site when we get back to Vava'u. Last night was cooks night off so into the Mariners for dinner, pizza, burgers and beer. We had planned to get up early for the Saturday AM market (6:00 to 08:00) but it has been blowing 20 knots and raining since the wee hours of the morning so nuts to that. I didn't bother pulling the dinghy out of the water last night so this morning, I had to bail it out and haul it up. It was literally half full of water, so much so the gas tank was floating around inside. Its up out of the water and the plug is out so it drains. Looks like we'll have a boat day, put up the rain catcher and fill the water tanks and generally take it easy. It is worth noting that Cathy did get Coffee and Juice in bed this morning.

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