Tonga: Tubes and Tsunami's

Me about to get pre-breakfast barrel number ???

Nola has been good to us. We've been getting some really fun surf and eating like absolute kings! These pics were at an open ocean reef that was working particularly well this morning. Lots of tube time. We got all geared up in fullsuits for reef bouncing... nice and shallow.

The next morning we back to the reef to check the waves and the whole exposed reef went underwater and back to exposed again in about 60 seconds, tsunami! It was surging around the islands for a few hours but no major damage here... just a bunch of worried "Boaties" chattering all morning on the VHF. I hear other islands weren't so lucky.

More swell on the way!

Tonga: Farewell Hunga Lagoon

A few weeks ago, my time was up at the fishing lodge on Hunga Island, it was 2 months in paradise. Had an amazing time there. A special thanks to Caroline and Steve for letting me into their world for a while. What a wonderful place!

And my departure couldn't have worked out better, it just so happened that Nola was anchored on the other side of the lagoon, I hopped on board and have been a permanent fixture on the boat ever since. Next stop: Hapai. The next island group South of Vava'u. We'll be sailing down there next week. The Kiwi boys on Nola are helping organize a large coastal clean-up through Sustainable Coastlines. Also, the conditiuons are shaping up nicely for some really fun surf during the next few days!

It's interesting to be in a foreign land long enough to experience the seasons change, it's starting to get hot and wind-less here. All the "boaties" are leaving back down to NZ to avoid the Hurricane season, things will be getting really quite here in Vava'u over the next few weeks.

Life is good.

Tonga: Swimming with Humpbacks

Well this was most definitely a highlight of my time here... getting to swim within a few feet of mom and calve Humpbacks. Pretty unreal! They are EVERYWHERE around here at the moment, you'd have a tough time getting on a boat at any given time and not seeing a whale... or a few of them. I would highly recommend getting here at some point in life and jumping in with them, it's one thing to see them from the surface and a completely different thing to see them in their world. Mindblowing.