I have to tell you about the rat. It is not our rat, but Bold Spirit’s rat. They think they acquired the rat at the dock at Big Mama’s here at Pangaimotu in Nuku’alofa. The rat joined their ship by jumping on their dinghy at the dock, riding out to the boat and crawling up the lines from the dinghy to the boat.
Well the good folks on Bold Spirit, Cathy and Jeff were petrified that the rat would get below. They shut up all their windows and their companion way, leading to very uncomfortable conditions below due to the heat. They very discreetly asked around for a rat trap, you don’t want everyone in the anchorage to know that you have a rat!! We supplied them with one and they put out peanut butter laced with boric acid and sweetened condensed milk with boric acid. The rat imbibed and left droppings during the night so he was there.

Today we dropped by to see if they had caught the “dirty rat” (a la Jimmy Cagney). We helped them put up their main sail to see if the rat was hidden in the folds of the sail. I was perfectly prepared to scream at the sight and everyone watched with great anticipation while the sail went up, NO RAT. The suggestion was then put forward that the rat could have possibly gotten into their water tanks because they had the tanks open when they were catching water the other day. This idea was quickly squashed by Cathy, perish the thought, some rat swimming around doing his thing in your water tanks, YECH!! We left after Jeff had surmised that the rat may have jumped ship, he was not happy with the boric acid snacks!
We went over to visit Tin Soldier, anchored about 100 meters behind Bold Spirit. Lo and behold they had seen “that dirty rat” aboard last night. Man who would believe it, the bugger had swum over and climbed up their anchor chain, Maybe, maybe not, we will never know! The saga of the rat continues stay tuned for updates.


Pictures are from a tour we took around the island of Tongatapu last Wed. The picture of the tree is where Captain Cook landed in 1777 and they say it is part of the same tree that is growing there, pretty neat. The rocks are huge and were brought here from another island and erected in the twelveth century. How did they do it???
We are hoping to leave for New Zealand on Wed. or Thur. this week. My brother Bob has agreed to do updates for us on the crossing so look forward to hearing from him.