An Invitation With A Difference

Late last Friday afternoon the owner of Lara, the boat next to Tweed, arrived with this invitation, right.  He had put it through the Google translator but we were able to understand it and accepted his kind invitation to a pizza restaurant.

During a gale in December his yacht's halyard had come loose and just happened to be within reach of our wind generator!  One blade disappeared into the water and another was broken which made the whole apparatus unserviceable!!  Luckily, we had a spare set on hand so we could continue to supplement our battery power along with the diesel generator (there is no shore power available in this marina).

Well, the pizza restaurant was indeed a delicious one and we enjoyed our first taste of Italian food in a long time, all washed down with Japanese beer and Australian wine!  We had at least eight starter platters and then a variety of pizzas to choose from as well as good company.  Pam took along her Japanese phrase book and was able to have an interesting conversation with Tomoko, right, as well as several others.  To top off the night, Kikuji (third from right) put us in a taxi back to the marina - about a half-hour drive.  We think the night definitely paid for the wind generator blades!