Viani Bay Day 2

Stardate Oct 1, 2023

Well, actually, the after we arrived. It was too windy to even think about snorkeling out on Rainbow Reef so we opted to take a hike up the hill behind the school. (It seems that all our hikes start behind schools. Curious. Causation. Correlation.). We were met by an enterprising young man (we think) who was nine years old and offered to show us the path. Ok, we're in. We started up the hill and were soon joined by his siblings, all younger.

We came to a fork in the path. He heads straight up - a rather arduous climb for a couple of 70 year olds. Presently we had to take a pause for breath. That's when the kids decided to investigate our pockets. Felt like I was being frisked. Of course I had a side pocket full of change that jingled when patted. Became the focus of the rest of the hike. Our guide decided that a dollar wasn't enough to guide us the rest of the way and negotiated a raise to $2. That required me to dig into the magic pocket where the jingling took place. Pretty soon his brother had his hand in the pocket digging around. I expressed disapproval and he stopped.

Then the kids discovered my waterproof cell phone holder. They were absolutely fascinated with the locking mechanism, taking turns unlocking and locking it. The five year old in the pink dress became the resident expert, showing her sibs how to do it properly. Nick and I stood there looking around as the kids occupied themselves with my cell case. This went on pretty much the rest of the hike.

We passed the horse tethered to a log. "Go around - he kicks!" our guide warned. He looked pretty harmless to me, but I can take a hint. About this point the cell phone case expert decided my hand needed to be held, so I had a five year old in tow the rest of the way up.

We got to the top and took some pics. The younger brother tried to harvest some papaya, but couldn't get up the trunk. The youngest girl stood on the precipice of a cliff that dropped at least a hundred feet. Nick remarked on the sure-footedness of the kids, all barefoot and fearless of going anywhere. We both had visions of broken arms or twisted ankles; meanwhile the kids are running around us, excitedly pointing things out that we couldn't understand.

On the way down the youngest sister decided to compete with pink dress girl for my hand. I wound up trying to make it down the trail with each hand tethered to a kid. Now I had to worry about stepping on their feet besides trying not to slip.

We got to the bottom and we felt we should give the kids something for 'helping' us out on the hike. I gave each of the younger sibs a dollar coin. They were excited and ran to mom to show her. She came over and I explained that we felt obliged to give the kids something and she said of course it was alright. Nick and I went back to the beach and walked a while during low tide. Then back to the bar for coffee, which was served rather elegantly for a couple of sweaty yachties.

Back to the boat to clean up for the big dinner.

Dinner: Not worth the $70, unfortunately. Lamb chops, sausages, chicken, potato salad, taro root, tomatoes, salad, some other stuff. All the meat overdone and cooled off. The lamb chops were almost inedible. There was only one course - probably a function of the 'barbecue' nature of the dinner. ?? I sat with three ladies from China who were here to dive. Two of them were PADI Certified Instructors of some level. We couldn't communicate until another Chinese girl moved her seat and served as interpreter.

After dinner I joined the dive staff around the fire. It was windy and most had hoodies on. I had my yellow rain slicker, which cut the wind. They had a guitar and I offered to play the "Unofficial American National Anthem' for them. So I launched into "Margaritaville'. They really enjoyed the phrase 'there's a woman to blame' for some reason. Also the follow-up phrase 'But it's my own damned fault.'

Passed the guitar back to the kid in the stocking cap and he launches into "Country Roads, Take Me Home.' I was singing along and pretty soon it became a hootenanny. They all liked country music, but I was a hit with 'Sweet Caroline', with plenty of help on the 'dah, dah, dah' part of the chorus. Good times, but the sleeve of my slicker kept getting in the way of the strings. They kept shaking my hand and saying how glad they were that we were there.

Of course we had to find our way back to the boats through a strong head wind. The dinghy was swamped on the shore, requiring bailout. It was pitch black but we could sort of make out the Dive Academy boats tethered to sea anchors. We managed to row out into the swells and get the motor started. That's when we realized that neither of us had turned on an anchor light. No problem - we just headed for some lights on shore and got soaked by spray. Eventually Nick's boat loomed out of the darkness and I could drop him off. I could see Peregrine faintly. Lesson learned: never forget the anchor light when you leave for happy hours ashore.

My girlfriend.