I was up bright and early Monday just to be sure that Officialdom didn’t come by the boat and leave because they thought we were asleep. Needless to say, the missed sleep was all I got in the bargain. The commercial container ship rolled in and they were all aboard her instead of us.
Finally, about 9 AM a car pulled up with 2 official looking folks aboard. They pronounced that they were Immigration and Health Inspection (just in case we were bringing in Bubonic Plague or something worse). Another round of paperwork, small talk and Cokes dispensed with our last ice and we were pronounced clear. Then there was the matter of agreed fee. I was rather smug when Mr. Health asked for 100 Tongan Dollars instead of the $120 quoted by Mr. Customs on Saturday (one Tongan Dollar equals one US DOllar).
As they got ready to depart, I went out to take down the “Q” flag and was quickly told not to. We still had to be seen by Mr. Quarantine. I almost hated to ask because I knew the answer – Mr. Quarantine was aboard the container ship and would be for several more hours. We asked if there was any way to expedite the process and Mr. Immigration placed a cell call to Mr. Quarantine and was advised that he would be over shortly.
Another hour later (that is “short” by Tongan standards), Mr. Quarantine showed up with Mr. Customs – one in the same who had seen us on Saturday. Mr. Customs completed his paperwork including the forms he did not have on Saturday and we filled out a few more forms for Mr. Quarantine. Mr. Quarantine then said it would be necessary for us to turn over all of our fresh fruit and vegetables to him for destruction as we could not bring them in to Tonga. We obviously knew that the only place they were going to get “destroyed” was in Mr. Quarantine’s kitchen. We obviously protested and swore that we only had a week’s worth on board for our own consumption and we would never, never, ever bring them ashore. Mr. Quarantine relented, but there was more to come.
Mr. Customs had completed his paper work and pronounced that we owed him his $120. I politely told him I had given the money to Mr. Health. I was them politely informed that that money had been for Messrs. Immigration and Health as their fee was separate. I grudgingly parted with another $120 knowing full well that I now was going to have to deal with Mr. Quarantine who didn’t get our fruit and veges.
I went ahead and asked and Mr. Quarantine solemnly pulled out an ancient calculator held together with masking tape from his bag. This really looked ominous. I had serious doubts that the calculator even worked. After carefully entering numbers for what seemed like minutes, his final pronouncement was that we owed $43 and 25 cents. I have no idea how he came up with the number, but I was out of Tongan money. So while Officialdom sat around drinking our coke and using up our ice, I had to make the 1/4 mile hike to the ATM (hoping it would work).
Upon my return, I presented the $43 to Mr. Quarantine (he asked for the 25 cents which I didn’t have) and magnanimously agreed to forgo it.
Now we were finally official. On their way out, we were told that they could not provide us with any receipts today for what we had paid – no reason given. Note that they did not say that we could get a receipt tomorrow or any other day for that matter – just not today for sure – and most likely forever if we chose to wait.
Deb was furious with them. She really went over the top when they asked her how old she was. I just wanted to get out of jail and Dodge as quickly as possible. The wheels of Officialdom grind very slowly here and could quite possibly cease to turn all together if you get on the wrong side of these folks.
Nuku Alofa is now happily in our wake – we were tossing the lines as the last of Officialdom’s feet were leaving the boat. Nomuku here we come.