Last blog of the season

At the Tongan feast



This blog update is coming to you from Tonga where we have spent the past four weeks.. We will be leaving tomorrow to return to Canada for a month long road trip out East and then up at Silver Star for the ski season. Bye bye palm tress, gin and tonics, cruising friends and the South Pacific.

Local dance troupe



Last week I posted from the Ham Radio and couldn’t add any photos, so there are a few more this week than normal. We met up with our friends (and rescuers from the Bora Bora reef mishap) Jan and Elle from Jenny. We went out with them for dinner and a local dance show at the Canadian-owned bar and restaurant “The Giggling Whale”.

Ellen and Jan from s/v Jenny



We’ve spent the last week out at the anchorages and enjoyed lots of hiking, beach combing and visits with other cruiser friends. The highlight was going to a charity Tonga feast put on by the Lape Island community – which consists of only seven homes, with extended families in each of them.

Di with one of the local cutie-pies




They had their wharf knocked out by the cyclone earlier this season, so they were raising funds to replace it. As mentioned last week, Canada Aid was matching 3 to 1, so they were very pleased to have raised about $1,000 at this event, which will mean $3,000 for them.

Wharf that got wiped out – that will be replaced



This was an authentic Tongan feast (as opposed to one put on for tourists) as all the families contributed food, lei’s, coconuts to drink from and the kids all danced for us. They had a Kava ceremony (which Peter loves) and a weaving demonstration. The pig was roasted by a Tongan turning it on a spit, as you can see.

Roasting the pig



The next morning we went to their church, along with other cruisers who stayed for their event. We donated a number of things to the school and took lots of photos which we put on disc for them. The school got its first computer last week, so the kids will delight in seeing photos of themselves.

Photo of the school teacher Daniel and his family after church



We enjoyed hooking up with Scott and Cindy from Beachhouse. We’ve had lots of good times together and we will miss them over the winter, but look forward to catching up with them next spring..

Peter & Cindy at the feast party




We went for our final dive of the season yesterday and it was awesome. I was a little nervous because with my last dive I had a few issues – but the good news is these last two dives went really well, so I regained my confidence. We did a number of swim through caves, saw lots of soft and hard coral and a huge moray eel hiding out in an underwater cave. We also had a treat of seeing a whale and calf on the trip back to the boat. We had to forego our planned whale-swimming trip on Sunday because of high winds and big seas, so this was a nice bonus.

Large banyan tree



As I’m typing this, Peter is busy securing the boat for our departure – fun things like changing the oil in the generator, pickling the water maker, and other necessary tasks. I’m not able to help him with much – but I was able to help packing up the sails on land. The part that my Captain wasn’t too happy about was when we brought them back on board, I accidently let the dinghy get a bit loose – and you guessed it – the dried and packed sail fell in to the water! I think everyone on mooring balls heard him swearing.

View of the anchorage from the top




It is with mixed emotions that we leave the wonderful "Friendly Islands" of Tonga. Our system of spending six months at sea and six months at Silver Star works out really well as we are always a little sad to say goodbye to QuickStar, but we are excited to be heading back to Canada. We are looking forward to getting back home to see our friends and family. We are quite excited about the pending arrival of our granddaughter in November. Also looking forward to having Kylie back home from Australia, even for just the month at Christmas, and meeting the love of her life. Ryan will be picking us up, so we get to spend some time with him. We'll be seeing Tara, Mark and Kieran in Ontario, along with Peter's parents and our friends back east.

Typical rural house on the sparsely inhabited outer islands



We fly out on Friday – spend a night and full next day in the capital city in Tonga– then fly to Fiji to L.A. and then in to Vancouver. We’ll spend about a week there – then up to Vernon to get our truck fixed and then heading out to Toronto for about a month-long road trip. We are looking forward to visiting with friends and family along the way.

Endless beaches



Thanks for following us on the blog this season as we explored French Polynesia, Niue and Tonga. We plan on coming back in April next year and heading to Australia. I’ll start updating the blog again then.

Peter & I heading out snorkeling on the reef




Until next season……have a wonderful winter and keep in touch!
Hugs … Diana and Peter xoxoxoxoxox

From the Friendly Islands

Good morning. This blog update is being posted via Ham Radio - hence no photos.
We have spent the week at the outer anchorages, enjoying the different islands. The weather has not been favourable - with high winds and big seas, so we have spent more time hiking on land, than doing water activities. Scott and Cindy from Beachhouse are with us in the anchorages and on Sunday we are going out again on their boat, with a guide, to go whale swimming again. The winds are forecast to die down then.

Tomorrow night we are going to a charity Tongan feast at one of the outer island. Their goal is to raise enough funds to rebuild their wharf, which was destroyed in a cyclone. In a case of "it really is a small world", the Canadian government aid program is matching any raised funds 3 to 1.

This is our last week here in Tonga, as we fly home next Friday. We'll head back to town on Monday to get the boat ready to leave for the season. I'll do the final update next Thursday.
Until then.....have a great weekend.

Peter and Di celebrating Peter's birthday



Peter’s 56th birthday week was quite a blast. For one of the celebrations we went for dinner with friends to the Giggling Whale (Canadian owned). They have great food and feature a local string band. The tradition is that the band plays until all the Kava (the local moonshine)is gone. Both the band and guests drink out of coconut shells from the communal bowl.

Drinking Kava with the band. I drink a "low-tide" serving and Peter drinks the "high-tide" size.



After closing it down, we went over to Tonga Bob’s to get a taste of the other side of Tonga where they had their famous “Fakaleiti” show – which translated is a transvestite show. The best part was when one of them dragged Peter up on stage for a dance. Gives a whole new meaning to Peter’s favourite dancing song by Shania Twain “Man, I feel like a woman”. We partied on and Peter pulled a SunDance Saturday night where he was a dancing fool. Luckily we only had to dinghy home a short distance.

Peter strutting his stuff with his girlfriend



Peter's actual birthday on Sunday was spent with Cindy and Scott onboard their catarmaran Beachhouse. We hired a local whale guide who spent the entire day with us. The day was crystal clear, with brilliant blue skies and turquoise water. We watched a Mom, her less than month old calf, and her male escort for many hours.

Topside photos:

Mom and escort



Maternal love



Playful calf



That was awesome enough, however, we found another Mom and her baby that were in a very playful mood and we were able to get in the water with them twice and swim for over an hour with them. I can’t describe how awesome it was to get so close and personal with them, so I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Looking for whales



Di & Cindy getting ready to go swimming with the whales



Under water shots

Our host for the day – Scott getting a good shot - his photos will be a lot more spectacular, as we are only using a little point and shoot.

sharing the water with lots of whale tonnage



swimming alongside us


We ended this birthday day with dinner onboard QuickStar with Scott and Cindy. Great friends! Definitely a birthday to remember.

The famous Swallows cave



On another night we went to a local Tongan feast, where we were joined by the Captain and crew of the French navy who were in port for the day, as well as a couple of local Tongans who very kindly invited us to come for their family lunch on Sunday – however, that was our whale-swimming day. The dance show was local children. Although it was a good show, I wasn’t comfortable with the kids as young as two dancing, and having guests paste money on their oiled skin, which they gave to their Mom’s after they were finished.

local dancers at Tongan feast



The islands within Tonga are wonderful for cruising, kayaking, snorkeling, swimming, restaurants and bar-hopping. We will be spending our final two weeks, before heading home to Canada, enjoying all of it!

Di scaring the fish away with her Austin Powers skinsuit



Until next Friday….happy birthday Caroline