Neiafu, Vava'u Group, Tonga

Mango's Cafe on the water, Tonga

Dog friend from Raratonga

Tonga greeters

Tonga local beers, Maka is the best

Tonga lobster pizza & Red fish Thai curry with lobster

Tonga resort

Tonga Catholic Church

No tourists except us here. This island in the Tonga group is pretty well shut down except for the locals. The resort we went to for a while had no food and was closing for the season after the group from the ship left them. Whale season is over and that means the tourists are gone. This is one of the few places in the world that has a ton of whales in season AND they let you go out and snorkel/swim with the whales and people come from all over the world to do this. Other than that it is just a very difficult place to get to. One has to fly to Fiji or the main island of Tonga and then take a $380 flight or an overnight ferry boat to get here. We were the first cruise ship of the year and there will not be many more. Given that, they were very happy to see us and receive some income. Our first taxi driver was a lady that had five kids at home and was looking very much forward to school starting in a week. She left us at the resort at 8:30 am and was to pick us up at 3:00 pm. After that we found they had no food so we bailed at 12:30 pm but had already paid her for the return so no worries there. Lunch was at Mango's, the only place in the main town that was even open, it was nice and right on the water. It may have been the first lobster pizza we ever had. After lunch we wandered around town, purchased some boat building supplies for the upcoming boat building competition that we took 3rd place in on the 2017 cruise. The boat building crew are Dawn, Bill, Harry, Peggy, and Paul. The only item on the boat building list done already is to poke fun at each other to see who's room it will be built in. It takes up a lot of room and is messy.

We are at sea at the moment on our way to Auckland New Zealand and we will be at sea for three days. We are heading 209 degrees true at a speed of 15 knots and located at 20 degrees south 44.194' x 175 degrees west, 28.292'