Sunday 15 October – a walk around the island

Lazy start to the cloudy day, but by midday the sun was out and we went for a walk around the uninhabited island on the left of us. We were very pleased to see a turtle on our way over in JeldiJeldi, the first one we have seen in Tonga. It was a good walk, the leeward side of the island was all beautiful white beach, the windward side was full of old coral and of course quite a bit of rubbish, including two big fish attracting devices that are made with loads of plastic netting and ropes. It was good to stretch our legs.

Big sand spit on the island we walked around

Looking back at last night’s resort

A little rock pool we found on the windward side of our walk around the island

Sunshine in between the clouds

JeldiJeldi is too heavy for us to pull out, so we often leave her out in the water on anchor – always a relief to see her when we get back!

The boats in the anchorage

Mid afternoon we had a great display of 3 sets of humpback whales breaching, they look like they are having so much fun. Rowan sent his drone out which was fully charged this time, but it was soon sending him panicky messages about the wind being too strong! Thankfully he got it back and some nice shots.

You can see the dark patches of coral around us

Our neighbours

We went to the other resort for dinner tonight, some of the guests from last night were there, we heard the crab racing got quite exciting. We had a very good 3 course meal, squash soup with toasted nuts, beef with veges, and a very good plum strudel with mascarpone, such a treat. We sat next to a retired Aussie sheep farming couple, who lived in the middle of nowhere in New South Wales, they had no kids who wanted to take over the farm, so had to sell up. They now live on the coast near Port Macquarie, they are experiencing a whole new life style from the remote dry inland countryside. He reminded Rowan and I, a lot of my dad………same khaki shorts hanging from a boep (belly), with skinny tanned legs!