Over the last few days we have made banana-papaya-yogurt smoothies and banana-peanut butter smoothies for breakfast with the early ripening bananas. Today all the bananas are finally fully ripe and it is time for the banana fest to begin. Christi and Adrienne made banana-pineapple pancakes for breakfast. They baked a batch of papaya-banana-pineapple muffins and a large pan of banana chocolate chip cookie bars.

Unfortunately, it is yet another day of gray skies, cool temperatures and strong winds. The only days we have had good weather were the day we arrived and the three days Christi was in SCUBA class. While we have been eager to visit the anchorages around the Vava’u island group, we haven’t wanted to leave the highly protected mooring in Neiafu harbor to go to a more exposed anchorage. We were told Point Maurell was one of the most protected anchorages and that we wouldn’t be blown around there, so we took a break from cooking and moved to Point Maurell for a change of scenery. Point Maurell is near Neiafu harbor, so it was a short ride and we didn’t get blown too badly in the 25 knot winds. Here are the views from the front and back of Kosmos. Don’t ask why Adrienne was hanging out in the dingy.

As promised, the anchorage was calm. Almost as soon as we were anchored it began to rain, so we opted to stay inside Kosmos the rest of the afternoon. Christi continued the banana mission. For lunch we had banana-papaya-pineapple-yogurt smoothies. Christi dipped banana slices in chocolate and froze them for a frozen dessert treat. Christi rolled banana chunks in finely chopped walnuts and brown sugar and baked them for a hot dessert treat. For dinner we had baked fish with a banana curry topping that was surprisingly tasty. The good news is we have made some serious progress on the bananas today and only have three dozen left!

Monday — We awoke to more gray skies. We headed out right away to go for a hike, knowing rain would be coming later. We landed the dinghy on the tiny stretch of beach. This is actually one of the nicer beaches we have seen in the south pacific. You can see how light weight the dinghy is.

There is a hiking trail that leads from the beach inland. The hiking trail is one person wide and well used. It tracks through a pretty forest.

We followed it for a while when suddenly the forest ended and we came to a cute little village along the water. Like in Anaho and South Fakarava, there were no streets and no cars. There are a couple dozen small houses (one even with an outhouse), two churches, a cemetery, and a small concrete and rock dock with several boats along it and a few boats beached. The “roads” are narrow dirt paths, the main one running through the center of village, with a few offshoots heading to the shore, the churches, etc.

There were a group of kids playing in the field in the center of the village. The kids were fascinated by us, following us and giggling. But when we tried to talk to them, they got shy and scampered off, still following us from a distance. One of the braver older boys talked to us a little bit, but we had no clue what he was saying.

At the dock we chatted briefly with a resident. As with all the other towns we have been to in Tonga, there were a lot of pigs and chickens running around freely. He is the view from the village.

We headed out of the village, back the way we came. There was a fork in the road we hadn’t noticed on the way in, so we took the other fork in hopes of seeing new cool stuff. After about 45 minutes of cruising through the forest, we turned back and headed to Kosmos. The rain would be here soon. Oddly enough, there were a ton of cow pies in the forest, but we never saw any cows. And there were a lot of big spiders.

It started raining shortly after we returned and it rained hard for the rest of the afternoon and night. Eric had to go out and bail the dinghy twice. Of course, Christi continued the banana quest. More papaya-banana-pineapple smoothies. Banana bread. Bananas Foster. We are happy to report the bananas are almost gone. We threw the last of them in the freezer and will use them in smoothies over the next few days.