Church

The Tongans are devout Free Wesleyans (Christians) and the king is head of the church.

Sundays are strictly observed, no fishing or swimming, and in the morning church bells can be heard everywhere.

So…. we went to church and listened to a tongan service with wonderful singing by the choir, the local rugby club and the rest of the congregation.

One local preacher welcomed us and said a little prayer in English for the ‘’visitors’

Dust Buggy Safari

Monday saw us take a tour of the island on dust buggies, which are four wheel drive go carts with roll bars. It was very exciting off roading through plantations and local villages and we stopped at some fantastic view points.

Farewell to Malc & Sandie

On Tuesday we said a sad farewell to Malc & Sandie who set off on their three day trek to get back to the UK.

Dinghy Race and Tongan Feast

Tonga is not one island but consists of a group of around 1100 islands and called the Kingdom of Tonga.

Wednesday saw us take a leisurely trip through some of the islands to anchor off a sandy beach and prepare for the Blue Water Rally dinghy race.

The race started at 3.00pm, dingies had to be propelled by wind alone, no motors or oars.

There were some ingenius rigs and sails, we kept things simple and hoisted our huge England flag tied to the boat hook and hoped not to disgrace ourselves like the football team.

Our secret weapon was two large umbrellas bought from the local supermarket and if all else failed we were armed with water pistols and plastic jugs to disrupt the other entries as much as possible !

We didn’t win but we didn’t disgrace ourselves either and a great afternoon was had by all.

In the evening a Traditional Tongan Feast was prepared for us.

Numerous trestle tables in one long display were covered with banana leaves and little parcels of all sorts of food were piled up high along the tables, it was an amazing site. Chicken wrapped in banana leaves, sweet potato, fish cakes, thai salad, octopus salad, suckling pig, bananas, melon, each individual portions.

It looked a bit like a car boot sale only using food !

The local chief said a prayer and then we tucked in using just our hands, no plates, cutlery or napkins at this feast !

Pink Beach Barbeque

The next day we anchored off another beautiful sandy island for snorkelling, swimming and a ‘bring your own’ beach barbeque.

It was Charlie’s 14^th birthday celebration so everyone dressed in pink and we had pink birthday cake.

We transformed the beach into a dinghy park and ‘pink’ gathering – another lovely day.