Our Tonga Tsunami; Toy Tweaking; TWO Ships

[Note: This is another blog based on my weekly emails to my family on the mainland.]

1/22/22

Aloha Everybody!

Well the big buzz here this week has been about Tonga, for two reasons.  First, a fair number of people here are from Tonga, and naturally they have been very concerned about the volcano and tsunami damage there.   Many have friends and family there, and early in the week they were desperate for news because almost all communication with Tonga had been cut off. It's better now, but the news isn't good -- I've seen some before and after pictures and they reveal widespread devastation, both from the coating of volcanic ash and from the tsunami.  It will be quite some time before they recover from this.

The second reason for the Tonga interest here is that the tsunami generated by the explosion caused some damage along our waterfront.  It happened around 2am and flooded some homes and businesses.  Fortunately it happened at night, so few people were out and about.  The damage wasn't great but it was enough to close the beaches for several days while sand and rocks were being removed.  This put a damper on tourists' normal activities, of course, although we've also been having some high surf that has been making ocean sports somewhat dicey anyway.  This happens every winter here -- storms far to our northwest cause high surf on our side of island.  In the summer the weather shifts to the southeast, so the surf hits the other side.  If you're a surfer, this is a good time to visit the leeward sides of the islands, but swimmers and boaters have a challenge.

For the second week in a row we've opted against going to the gym as a Covid precaution.  The island case numbers are way up, but the hospitalizations have stayed at less than 1%, so the facilities are holding up pretty well.  Still, there are only three ICU beds available at the moment, so we don't have much cushion. Almost all of those ICU beds are occupied by non-Covid patients.  

My new computer is almost set up and working the way I want it, thanks to lots of techno-tweaking this week.  I'll probably totally de-commission the old one sometime next week, after I'm sure there isn't anything on it that I might need.  Kind of sad, really -- it served us well for almost 10 years (!) and is still functioning, just getting slow and kind of glitchy, like any other geezer (including me).

Karen tried to play golf this week on Thursday but got rained out after about 5 holes. Other than Thursday it has been very nice here, and I finished our "solar" month with a nice surplus.  It's still getting chilly at night (mid to low 60's), a real hardship.  In the mornings I've even had to wear my jeans and a long-sleeved shirt on our walks!

The World

Finally, there were TWO cruise ships that visited us this week, one on Sunday and one on Thursday.  These are the first ones to visit in two years.  Our regular cruise ship that does just the islands will likely resume in March, much to the delight of the town merchants.  It was a very pleasant sight to look down from our neighborhood and see the ships in the harbor. The one on Thursday is called The World, and is very unique because the rooms are luxury suites that people buy (for very big buck$), and it sails continuously around the world, with each year's itinerary different.  It has been here once before, a few years ago.  The owners can either live permanently on the ship or rent out their suite part time.  Not a bad life, eh???

Ok, that's all for this week.  Off to market and to the shore for our breakfast picnic.  Take care. Stay warm, healthy, and sane.