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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