Dexter Poindexter has nothing on us cause we really “feel on fire.” The first 3 days we were in Tonga were extremely torrid. Trying to come up with a description of the early afternoon sun we could only surmise the word-blowtorch. It wasn’t just us, everyone commented on the heat and no one moved much between noon and 4pm. We have no thermometers but it was probably around 95F and very humid with no breeze. Later we had a fisherman tell us they fish at night because “if you fish during the day the sun fishes you.”

Friday morning March 20th and I am up early and excited, we fly to Ha’a Pai today for a weekend vacation. We wanted to fly earlier in the week but all the flights were full. As it turns out all the previous flights this week were canceled due to ash in the air from the volcano erupting near here, serendipitous.

Our flight was the first out in 3 days, necessitating a larger plane to carry all the canceled passengers. (We flew just off the still smoldering new island and got some pretty good photos)

 Tonga Thursday March 12, 2009 8A.M. (Wed March 11, 3P.M. in Michigan)