Counting Down
04 October 2011 | Vavau Tonga
It was delightful to have Sarah and Alice with us, and although the weather was not particularly co-operative we still did some nice snorkeling and picked up one or two good shells. This was Sarah’s second time in Tonga with us. She too noticed a disappointing deterioration in the abundance of corals, shells and fish on the reefs here over the past 16 years.
We all had one spectacular whale encounter when one backed out of the water beside us. The tail slowly came up, then a good portion of the body, and we wondered at the power of the animal to enable it to rise up that far out of the water. When breaching, they drive up at speed from the depths but this was more like a synchronized swimming maneuver, most unusual. Tonga is an important nursery for the humpbacks, and it is sad for us to see whale watching has become so commercialized here now, with fast speed boats chasing the animals so they can get close enough for the tourists to jump into the water with them.
We have heard many stories of the changes in Tonga, which seem to be accelerating. Boatloads of Black Coral are being sold to the Chinese. For the past 2 days we watched as divers stripped the seabed at Tapana of Sea Cucumbers, no doubt for an Asian market. Between the natural resources and the profits from the Chinese shops here that are all being exported, we wonder what future the Tongans are building for themselves.
Now it is time for us to start thinking about the upcoming passage to NZ. Our cruising buddy Paul will join us in early November and we will set off as soon as the weather looks good after that. We have a list of jobs to get through before then, but it is not too long or serious so we hope we will have lots of time to relax here in the lovely Vavau group, still one of our favorite places.