Sun Downers on Tahina

Our friends on s/v Totem – who you may remember visited us during the 2012 New Year’s Eve fireworks in Sydney Harbour – finally caught up to us after months traveling through Papau New Guinea, Indonesia, and Borneo (Malaysia and Brunei). They arrived here in Tioman with their three kids and a cousin in tow day before yesterday. This was one reason we decided to stay a few extra days here as they are a really nice family, with a nice blog of their own.

We spent a while catching up with the parents on Totem, but the kids were gone after finding out a boat called s/v Utopia II was here with 4 kids on board. Turns out we had met Utopia way back in Port Vila, Vanuatu briefly.

While going to town to pick up some provisions yesterday, I ran into Pam of s/v Shaung Yu who moved into the marina a couple days back. They invited me on board (where they had the A/C going) and we caught up a bit.

Back out at our boat, Jamie of Totem was visiting and we had made plans to invite the crews of Totem and Utopia over for sundowners in the evening. We also called Shaung Yu to invite them as well.

Karen and I spent a couple hours tidying up the boat, and putting up our awnings and seat cushions in preparations for our guests. It was hot with calm seas and no wind. The awnings would help a lot we thought. Although a little breeze would be nice I thought. It was so calm Tahina was rotating around. I called Totem on the VHF to let them know we were ready, and they said they were coming over in just a minute. Just after I called them, I looked out at the water and saw white caps a few hundred meters to the west. I told Karen we need to prep for winds and we tied off the chairs we put on the front deck. Then suddenly we were hit with 20-25 knots of wind! There was no apparent squall out there. Crazy!

A couple minutes later both Totem and Utopia left in their dinghies downwind of us. As they tried to make their way against the winds and fast building little swells, I saw a huge splash in front of Totem with 3 adults and 3 kids and food on board. Oh boy! Sure enough, they arrived drenched… But, as experienced cruisers, everyone was laughing it off. We got them towels and let them use the shower to rinse off.

With Utopia’s 4 kids and two parents, and a bit later a soggy couple of crew from Shaung Yu, we had a full boat of guests. It was a fun-filled evening of cruiser talking, drinking and eating. The kids played around the boat, played monopoly, and played on our Wii for a while.

Actually, there was a funny moment when one of the young kids approached me while I was explaining something to another kid about Google Earth. She asked me if she could do “wee”. I had been wondering when someone would ask about using the head, so I walked down and showed her the head she could use. She looked at me strangely and said, “I meant can we play ‘Wii’!” I just about died laughing at that one and she ran to tell the parents about it. Everyone got a good laugh at that one!

Fortunately, the winds gradually eased as the evening wore on, and it was downwind for everyone to get back to their boats. The seas were calmer by the time we got to sleep.