Things have been very eventful since our return to New Zealand on the 27th of February! We almost immediately moved the boat to Auckland, got our boat work started, and then flew to the South Island and spent 10 wonderful days in Fjordland and Queenstown. After our return to Auckland from the Southland, we worked non-stop on Mystic Moon, doing the various boat projects, maintenance, and upgrades that John has chronicled. When our work was done there, we took Mystic to Great Barrier Island for a shakedown cruise and got that in spades! Mystic Moon was great..….John and I, on the other hand, were battered and bruised from one heck of a passage from GBI to Marsden Cove! But, after fully provisioning the boat to be ready to leave for Fiji, we are finally at the end of the not-so-fun part of cruising and are leaving here tomorrow for the Bay of Islands to return to the much-more-fun part of the cruising lifestyle!
But, first things first….I still owe updates on Tonga, our special arrival here in New Zealand, our crazy but amazing time in the States, and of course our incredible trip to the Fjordlands on board Corybas. Aaaack! How did I get so far behind??
In any event…..Drumroll…..
It’s finally CATCH-UP Time!!! Yay!! 🙂
And so……Tonga…….
Our story of Tonga is really best said in pictures. Visually it is stunning, with crystal-clear turquoise water, white sand beaches and many small islands and islets. Some find the people of Tonga a bit stand-offish, but that wasn’t our experience at all. We found them to be welcoming and gracious and generous. They are very conservative and perhaps a bit shy, but once you get to know them, their big smiles and generosity are heartwarming! We were privileged to get to know David, Hika and some of their children on the island of Vaka’eitu. They treated our visits to their island and us as honored guests, and we enjoyed sharing food and stories with them. We especially felt honored as we spent our last night in the Vava’u island group with them and they cooked one of their piglets for us (their first!) at a get-together on their island. David said it was a going away gift for us, which moved us very much indeed….
Tonga is also another place of convergence for cruisers, as most of the Puddle Jumpers come through Tonga on their way to their haven of choice for cyclone season. As such, we met up with more friends yet again that we hadn’t seen in many months. We spent many happy hours socializing with cruising buddies and catching up. In addition, there was great diving to be had, so we also spent many hours enjoying the underwater world.
Tonga is a place I had always wanted to visit but never had, so it was on my bucket list. Included in that bucket list item was my burning desire to swim with humpback whales, as Tonga is one of the few places on Earth that you’re allowed to swim with the whales. Alas, while we saw many, many whales and often heard whale song on dives, we weren’t lucky enough to have a good swim with them in spite of going out on 2 different whale expeditions. We did get very close on both trips though, and on one of them we were right over a singing whale and could feel the vibration of his song in our bodies. Still very cool stuff, even if it wasn’t the A-list event that we’d hoped for!
In the Ha’apai group, we enjoyed the places less traveled and found beautiful deserted anchorages and beaches. After the busy-ness of the Vava’u islands, it was wonderful to get away, relax and spend hours diving and beachcombing!
Galleries are posted for both the Vava’u and Ha’apai Island groups. We did go through Tongatapu to check out of the country, but really didn’t spend enough time to do it justice. By the time we got there, we were pretty much ‘horses to the barn’ as our minds were preoccupied with the challenging passage to New Zealand to come.
But, between the kindness of the Tongans, the great diving, the socializing with our cruising buddies, and the remoteness of the Ha’apai group, we truly loved the Kingdom of Tonga! Please see our pictures here for Vava’u and here for Ha’apai to share in its beauty and uniqueness.
