Terrific Tonga!

Tonga is so different! We spent quite some time enjoying the town Naiafu in Vava’u. Mixture of people really. The town is part locals, part cruisers from all over the world but mainly New Zealand and Denmark. The rest of the population consists of immigrated Chinese business owners who don’t speak English or Tongan. We met a nice couple Bear and Char from Canada who landed here 10 years ago and started a small business The Hideaway, a floating restaurant and bar. However, it was still hauled out for cyclone season and there were no boats available to tow it into the anchorage. Well, a few of us yachties (as they call us) volunteered.

More about Tonga, so, so many caves!
The video below shows us snorkeling in Swallows Cave and then diving in Shark Tooth Cave which we we entered 40 feet down. We were back in the cave about 100 yards and Kathy finally pulled on Scotts fin and motioned to she didn’t want to go back any further. Agreed, as it was getting a bit tight and our lights weren’t near good enough for how dark it was. 🙂
We had wet suits on, but it’s more for the protection against the walls vs the sea temperature.

Camp fires, friends and exploration are the daily fix. We even snapped a shot of Patrick Star from Sponge Bob in the wild for our kids.

Back to town to renew out cruising permit and pay 138$ Tongan dollars and to to get ready for our guests Denny and Susan Osburn. Mixing our old friends with our new friends in these exotic locations is just so cool!