Thoughtful Thieves

While in the village of Taipivai (called “Typee” by Herman Melville) we took our dinghy into the river (at high tide so we could get through the shallows) to the town and tied it up to a concrete wharf.  We walked around a bit and checked out the few stores.  At one of the stores, we ordered bread for the next day, and they wouldn’t let us leave without also taking a box full of bananas, “gratis.”  It rained on us a bit, but we still enjoyed stretching our legs and getting out a bit.  When we got back to the dinghy, we noticed something was missing.  Our dinghy painter!  The painter is the bit of lined used to tie it off to a dock or whatever.  However, they were thoughtful thieves, in that they didn’t just take the painter and let our dinghy drift away.  They took our spectra harness that we mostly use when anchoring the dinghy and tied that to the dock.  They took our very cheap Home Depot painter and left the very expensive spectra harness.  We got a good laugh about it.

The next day our friends on True Blue V parked their dinghy on the beach and tied their painter to a tree, so it wouldn’t float away when the tide rose.  Would you believe that when they got back their painter was also stolen.  And the thieves were thoughtful enough to pull their dinghy up higher on the beach to avoid the tides.

Our next time to shore we all brought extra line and just set it on the dinghy for the thieves, but I guess they had fulfilled their rope needs, because they didn’t take what we left.  Or maybe they just don’t like handouts.