Tonga

The scenery in Tonga reminds us very much of Georgian Bay in Canada (except for the palm trees of course). Tonga is made up of 171 islands. They are relatively close together, very rocky and rise abruptly up out of the water with only the occasional sandy beach. You really have to watch your charts because it is easy to confuse one island for the next. The sea between the islands is generally calm making it pleasant for boating day trips and whale watching. There are lots of cool anchorages with great snorkeling and nice hiking trails. And whales all over the place.
We awoke one morning to the sound of whales singing. The sound was reverberating through the hull of our boat. They call it singing but really it sounded more like whining but who are we to judge? We went on deck to see how close they were but it was still dark and couldn’t see anything. At 6 am, they were still singing and the sun was up so we could see that they were only a half mile away. We decided to hop in our dinghy and get closer and maybe get a chance to swim with them.
While drifting around in the dingy, the whales came within 100 feet of us. They look REALLY big from that close. The width of the tail alone from tip to tip was longer than our dinghy. It was awe inspiring and scary to see them up close and hear the explosion of air when they blow.
One evening we attended a “Tongan Feast”. It was held on a small island quite a distance from the main town. There were about 11 sailboats that had sailed to this island and anchored in the bay to attend the feast which is held every Saturday night. There was a small village on the island with maybe 15 houses and a church. They had built a small barn with a thatched roof and a sand floor to house the feast. The picnic tables were covered with banana leaves as a table cloth. The dinner consisted of a small pig roasted over an open fire. (The spit was rotated by hand of course.) Most of the other hot items were cooked in an earth oven called an umu. There was octopus, clams, lobster, and fish each cooked separately in pouches of banana leafs. They also had my favorite, raw fish in coconut milk. Also, breadfruit, yams and dough balls in sweet sauce. For desert we had fresh watermelon, bananas, coconut and baked papaya filled with coconut cream. After the feast, four local girls performed traditional Tongan dances. It was a night to remember.
The snorkeling in Tonga is as good as we have seen anywhere in the South Pacific to this point. The reefs appear fairly healthy with a wide variety of coral, and small fish. There are many caves along the rocky coasts several of which we snorkeled into. Some of the caves required us to dive below the surface to enter the cave.
Given the vast number of anchorages here in Tonga, it would be great to have a couple of months to explore more of them. Unfortunately our schedule allows us to spend only a few more days here and then we must be off to Fiji.