Inspiring Kingdom of Tonga

The light, the infinity of blues, the scenic landscapes, the smiles, the whales and the good mood were just offering us great subject for photos. So we played with our cameras.

Have a look under “Pacific Crossing” the top 8 titles (clic for bigger pics).

Whale of a time

We are anchored in what is called "the South Pacific islands of your dreams" and we were woken up by the song of whales. Great morning!



Cache-cache

Greg est alle traquer la baleine tot ce matin avec Olivier (de Bicoque). Ils en ont vu 4 a moins de 20m. Neanmoins, a chaque fois que Greg sautait a l'eau pour nager avec elles, elles replongeaient un peu plus profond, s'eloignaient ou acceleraient leur nage. Lorsque nous avons quitte notre mouillage a midi, nous en avons revu 4. Pas mal tout de meme comme environnement pour avaler ses croque- monsieurs:

assis sur le pont, au soleil a regarder un groupe de trois baleines danser autour de nous et une autre un peu plus loin nous faire des saluts majestueux avec sa queue.

Few odd things about Tonga

There are 7 churches in each village - one for each denomination/religion. The Sunday singing has a good reputation and we've been to few of them to listen. (However, we much prefer the singing in the Marquises.) The men wear longish skirts. Men and women wear weaved "mats" around their waist (called "ta'ovala"). Apparently it is a sign of respect.

There is no rubish bin (except around important places in the main town). Everybody burns their own. So, yesterday we gave our 3 bags to an old and friendly Tongan lady who did it for us. There are less errant dogs here than other tropical islands. Instead there are loads and loads of pigs running everywhere (Felix was telling us that for sure, they must do lots of bacon).

As the Moorings (charter boat compagny) is well implanted here and as the name of the anchorages are all very difficult to pronounce, Moorings printed a chart where all the anchorages have a number. So, tonight we are at the anchorage 41, and we were at 13 yesterday. We are going to 28 tomorrow!

Nuit des etoiles filantes (par Victor)

Je me suis reveille a 1h du matin pour voir les etoiles filantes. Je me suis installe sur le pont, avec mon oreiller, avec toute la famille. J'en ai vu plusieurs mais a la fin j'en ai vu une enorme qui a laisse sa "queue" dans le ciel pour longtemps.