Welcome to Fanifo Lofa, kitesurf Tonga. I keep saying each time i write that we are working hard…and i will say it again…holy cow! We are busy little remote island dwellers getting things ready for a full house June 18 onwards. We have been finishing off bits n pieces for the resort…including some hole digging, trench digging, pipe laying, various plumbing, gardening, and we built a new building! We have been working seven days a week ten to twelve hours a day for about two months. We are exhausted but excited at the same time 🙂
We had our first guests in April here at Fanifo Lofa and it was a fantastic experience to say the least. The feedback we got from this lovely german couple was incredible and we couldn’t have asked for anything more. They were not kitesurfers but loved to snorkel. They said my cooking was amazing…hear that peeps? hehehehehe 🙂 They loved our fales, they loved the hospitality they received and they said they wished they stayed here the whole time during their visit to Tonga as it was the best place they stayed. I mean, you cannot ask for better feedback than that. Our oven wasn’t working at the time which made things a little tricky…i was using the oven in the house and carrying things back and forth. I don’t think anyone actually noticed 🙂
We received our pipe for our plumbing finally and i dug 100m of trench approx and lay some pipe in it…we also bought another water tank which will cope with the fales water demands for the bathrooms. Glen connected it up to the pipe . Glen has been into the toilet plumbing …loving it i must say 🙂 Boti and i avoid glen a little on these days but you can hear him cursing some way off 🙂 He loves plumbing hehehehehehe… He has done an outstanding job though. He has completed all the plumbing for the solar hot water heating for the showers, the toilets, the shower mixers (kind of…waiting for parts to join the taps). I did all the external piping leading into these bits. The only thing we have left to do is the sink in the fales as we needed a working chainsaw to do the benches that the sinks sit on. Don’t ask…have not had a working chainsaw in forever…spent a lot of money on our existing one…and we have faced facts it was time for a new one. So we ordered one and received it! Glen started cutting the timber needed for fale 5. Once we have done that we began to finish the sinks…finish the bathroom doors outside doors for each fale.
We also re-plumbed our house toilet one Sunday for the fun of it..NOT! No fun to be had on this day let me tell you…what a job! Much cursing went on…It was a learning experience as the house toilet was the test toilet so to speak. We completely dug out all the piping which had blocked due to us not putting the correct slits in the urine pipe and enough large rocks underneath for adequate drainage. So we dug and dug and dug…and then things got shitty hahahaha sorry couldn’t help it. We emptied the poo drum cleaned everything out and fitted it back in. We also replaced the toilet as we had a spare lol. So now the set up is like the fales – they were all done this way in the first place and we always knew that we would have to redo the house toilet. So now its done and i don’t really want to revisit emptying the composts for about six months.
So we started Fale 5 or the Fanifo Lofa Family Fale! I am not sure if we are trying to push ourselves to the limit here to get this done in four weeks…we have done it though..starting with the piles, the deck, and the floor plate in a few days….we got the walls up in one day ..and started the roof & weather boarding. Then once we had the shell we start to fit it out…
We also got our new (second hand) engine installed on our big boat! A lovely fast 90 horse power yamaha. Yeehah! Glen is loving the 6 minute trips to Lifuka. So after all the debacles we have had with boat engines we now have four working engines..go figure…We have our 9.8hp hidea, a 10hp something or other that we got whilst all the others weren’t working, our 50hp mercury and our lovely 90hp yamaha. So from a half working engine to four working engines…not bad! We are ready boating wise 🙂
Fanifo Lofa Fridges have been a bit of a nightmare to say the least over the past year. We started with three 12v solar chest fridges which all broke in the first few months of being on Uoleva…we had battles trying to get parts replaced under warranty and it took months & months. So as it stands we now have our little chest fridge/freezer working with the new parts…we converted both of the big fridges to 240v which are working…We will upgrade our fridge to LPG soon we have decided.
An update on the wildlife we have here at Fanifo Lofa…or animal farm as we affectionally like to call it. Lofa our puppy is now known as the Terrorist – he chews, he barks, he begs, he shakes when food is coming. The little man is a big girl 🙂 Whinges when you take him down near the water as he is worried about getting his toes wet from the waves. He will only come in if you hold him in your arms and when the waves come he scrambles trying to get away and leaves lovely scratch marks all down your legs. Minnie my favourite hen had chicks but lost all except one…They often come into the house (when i say often i mean every morning at seven am) and has taken to waiting in the house till i feed them. This drives me MAD! She jumped up on the stove this morning and started eating rice out of the pot that was still cooking! I chased them out with the broom. Enough is enough! There are two other hens with chicks also…Shazza and Charlene…they all pick on Minnie so i chase them with the broom. Henry (the rooster) now has competition again with two other roosters that are growing up fast. The cats, Tiger and Lily, have settled in to island life now…with Tiggy hunting mice when she doesn’t like what i have fed her and announcing her catch in the wee hours of the morning at the bottom of our bed. She then proceeds to eat her catch leaving the innards behind and the head…sometimes the tail. Yum…something to look forward to when we wake up. Lily wakes me at six am every day…whether it is for food or because she wants to jump up on the bed…or because she just wants everybody up with her. Lily likes to come for walks around the resort but does not like Lofa…and Lofa gets jealous…so a fight breaks out and poor Lily gets herded back to the bush or back to the house. One day i am sure everybody will live in harmony…
I have been hard at work doing some carpentry of my own…I took it upon myself to make some bedside tables this week…I made ten in two days from off cuts of old timber from the rubbish pile..Glen was mortified when he saw these works of art. They are functional…They are perky…They will do okay! 🙂 I also made all the towel rails out of bamboo we had lying around. They are pretty fancy if i do say so myself. My role at the moment is to finish things that the boys will not have time for…now what else can i make…i see loads of empty pallets lying around…hehehhehe 🙂 I would love to get stuck into making some outdoor furniture but that may have to wait till next season.
I really miss chocolate! I want to say that and get it out there…I also miss ice cream. One day we will have ice cream but i don’t really think we will ever be able to enjoy chocolate..Oh and real cheese…like a slab of Brie yummmmmmmm……what i would give for some nice cheese and biscuits 🙂 Food is a big part of my life, always has been. Its amazing what living on an island in a location where you can’t just pop to a shop and get things you want. I have learnt to live with less…alot less. But you do get things here that you would never get in the western first world countries…like pig. Sorry to you vegetarians but the pigs here feed on coconuts all their lives and roasting Mr Piggy is the besting tasting pork i have ever eaten in my life. A few weeks ago there was some dogs barking up a storm somewhere in the bush. I heard the commotion and knew exactly what was going on. They were hunting pigs. I get worried about piggy, our small little cat. She hides in the bush and i worry the pig dogs that come across from Uoleva will chase her up a tree and she won’t be able to get back down. So off i ran into the bush behind the house..of which i never do. If i go into the bush i always enter in a particular place so i know where i am going. So off i run and did i run…then i heard the gunshots. After five gunshots i stopped in my tracks thinking i was going to get shot. I heard voices…couldnt see anyone through the dense bush and then all of a sudden Lofa was at my side. He was shaking and whining. I have no idea how the little pup found me but he did. I like to think he was looking out for me. But it was all too much for him and he ran off. I decided not to go any further for fear of a stray bullet so i turned around and low and behold i was lost. I looked up as i knew it was a SE wind blowing and tried to get my bearings from the coconut leaves to see which way they were blowing. I headed the direction i thought i had come from and started to panic a little. The last thing i wanted to do was start yelling for help, a female in distress…humpf. So i kept going following my instincts and finally i saw a break in the bush..I was about 500m North of where i went in but i made it out. I headed back to the house and saw Boti and Maka (a guy we had in for a few days to do some gardening) pulling this giant 200kg boar from the bushes! The pig hunters didn’t want the pig that the dogs had cornered so Boti and Maka said they would have it. Huge thing! They gutted it and dehaired it and divided it up between themselves but they also gave us a large chunk. And we popped it in the fridge and let me tell you…what a taste! This pork was AMAZING! the skin was crap but the meat was so tender and thats all we ate for a week 🙂 So yes i miss chocolate and cheese and ice cream but we do get to experience lovely pork 🙂
Back to the important stuff…the building of the resort. We started fitting out the family fale starting with the bamboo…oh the lovely bamboo! Boti stripped it all down into quarters..Glen measured..Boti cut..Glen hung…and I hung some above the bunk bed …I was walking past and Glen said hey do you want to do the rest of this? I said sure…Jumped in there and was told to use the roof nail gun as we had ran out of the small brad nails..ummm..the difference in weight between the brad gun and the roofing nail gun is quite significant when you are a little wimp like me! We became quite good friends though..took me a good fifteen minutes of misfiring and firing three nails at once to get used to the mighty nail gun! So i lay on my back held the bamboo strips up with my feet and used both hands to push those pesky nails in! And Done! Our little bedroom in the new fale looks gorgeous 🙂 Boti put together the bunk beds and the combination of that and the bamboo walls and roof is delicious 🙂 I got quite a bit of bruising up my entire back from the experience though 🙂 Well worth it i must say! The lighting looks amazing in the fale too…we have lit up the areas in the bunk beds and it is fantastic. Glen built the wardrobes which are awesome 🙂 I sanded back all the coconut and plywood and varnished the lot..
We have been finishing off other bits n pieces with all the other fales including mounting all the lovely sinks in the bathrooms and some finishing edges with the tiling. All in all the bathrooms are huge and fitted out beautifully.
And finally we hung the hammocks! Eight beautiful brazilian hammocks in bright bright colours! They look incredible 🙂 We also got a massive food delivery and the kitchen in the common fale is now full…oh i forgot to mention Glen and Boti built some lovely bench seats for the large dining table that Peter made whilst he was here. I sanded those…varnished those..all ready!
We now have Botis family living with us to help us with all the guests we are about to receive for the next few months. Wow…I need to stop breathe and relax…oh wait a minute…the guests! hahahaha and they are coming in droves. We cannot wait to share our kitesurfing destination with all the lovely people that are coming to visit. Bring it on i say! 🙂
So this is it folks….the resort is complete? dare i say it? probably not…there are more buildings in the pipeline and renovations already planned…we want a laundry room…okay i want a laundry room. We would like to build a bigger kite storage shed. We are going to extend the common /meeting fale. And…hopefully finish the interior of the house at some stage! Possibly get water flowing in the bathroom sink? please pretty please lol 🙂
Come on over and join us here at Kitesurf Tonga Fanifo Lofa and experience the remote beautiful Kingdom of Tonga. We still have some spaces left 🙂
Oh by the way….its been very very windy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Kitesurfing heaven awaits 🙂
Kaz & Glen xx
