CHAPTER 38
The International Date Line follows the 180th parallel of mother earth, except where it weaves eastward to enable Tonga, situated in the midst of a vast empty sea, to boast of being the first nation to greet a new day. Well—guess what? We happened to be six nm from the dateline at midnight—so while the earth spun on its axis, hurtling time forward, we were closer to the date line than any anyone on earth, excepting potential fishermen—none of whom were visible on our radar. I had never previously paid any attention to the date line, but it’s possible Denise, Tom, and I were the first three of the world’s seven billion people to etch our carbon footprint into September 19th, 1987, though probably not a soul but us cared.
Arriving at Tonga via the archipelago’s northernmost island of Vava’u, should have, by this stage of our voyage, become a mundane event—another typical palm-fringed channel with white sandy beaches. But the old is forever new and every entrance was memorable. We threaded our way through the many petite islets into Vava’u in daylight for the beauty and because it wasn’t well marked, evidenced by a dismasted fifty-foot sloop, abandoned on a slab of coral, remnants of sail still clinging to a portion of the mast.
Tied to the municipal dock in Neaifu’s Port of Refuge harbor, I was struck by the extent of damage from a recent tropical disturbance we hadn’t even heard of. Trees were down. Stately palms were headless and a few storefronts boarded up.
Officials with attitude came aboard, we thought to clear us. In a kingdom, without a democratic process, they unfortunately don’t have to be pleasant, and they were not. Clearing a yacht into a country normally takes an hour, maybe less. Sometimes officials don’t bother to come aboard at all. These overbearing presumptuous agents all but strip-searched us during a three-hour interrogation in our steamy, humid salon, with a blazing midday sun overhead.
We were ordered to surrender all liquor and cigarettes. We had none. They practically tore us apart, even stripping our refrigerator and tossing the ‘black hole’ (storage compartment). We had not lied. Our fishing gear caught one civil servant’s eye. He boldly declared, “I’ll take these, and these,” and stuffed his bag with five hundred dollars’ worth of our lures and hooks.
Denise was fuming. Tom was visibly uncomfortable. I strained to keep my fuse from detonating. This was blatant robbery—by representatives of the king.
With pockets stuffed they found our video collection, and took them all. I was shaking when they left with our best Penn deep-sea fishing reel as dessert.
“They may, at least, return the videos,” Tom mused. “If memory serves me, the states uses NTSC format and the rest of the world uses the PAL system. Your tapes so won’t play in Tonga.”
Denise added, “Yup—and you know what, boys—it’s their country, they can do as they damn well please, so dial down the temper, especially you, Skip.”
Tom proved correct. One dark night a soiled laundry bag containing our tapes was unceremoniously tossed onto our deck.
We didn’t stay long in Tonga. The chemistry wasn’t right and I had this dark cloud, a sense of impending doom hanging over me. Aside from a luau and native dancing on a remote beach, Tonga held little joy.
Denise’s thoughts were reflected in this letter home:
We’re in Neaifu now, it’s Sunday. Everything is closed because everyone is in church but I’m not sure why. A Governors’ wife died so there’s a weeklong ban on drinking, dancing and I’m sorry to say, shopping. The wife story is odd. They carried the poor sick woman around from island to island trying to get her help, and in the end that’s probably what killed her! Yuk!
I was glad to leave Tonga.