Roz and Bob left on Tuesday to fly down to Nuka'alofa. They were going to look round there yesterday and then fly back yesterday so should be home by now. I think they enjoyed it, well most of it anyway! We certainly enjoyed having them with us. It was a change for us to have other people with us, adding a different dimension to the trip, but it will also be good to have a bit of time on our own again.

Over the last few days we spent a few nights out on different anchorages within the island group. As I said in the last blog, the Moorings yacht charterers have compiled a cruising guide and map to the area so it is very easy to find your way around. The anchorages are usually by quite wooded islands with a little beach and a reef nearby so we visited three or four of these and swam and snorkelled. Near one of them is an underwater cave, Mariner's Cave, where you have to snorkel down a metre or so and through a 4 metre passage into a cave. Bob was the only one who braved it and said it was magical with stalagmites and stalactites in a dome-shaped chamber of about 5 metres by 5 metres with an aquamarine fog that appeared and disappeared as the swell came in and out. While he was doing that, we watched a female humpback whale and her calf for about an hour. It's the whale season in Tonga now and there should be lots of sightings as the females come here to have their young and the males come to find a mate. Apparently humpbacks are known for their dramatic acrobatics in the water. They put on quite a show, 'breeching' where they throw themselves completely out of the water, doing 'spyhops' where they stand vertically upright above the water's surface and barrel rolling where they splash the water with their pectoral fins. Hope we get a chance to see that.

We came back into Neiafu on Saturday to do a bit of food shopping and to go to a special curry night at one of the restaurants. The plan had been to go back on Sunday and do an anchorage right near the outer reef so that Bob could have one last go at getting a lobster but it was not to be. Firstly, we started having trouble with our battery charging again! Regular readers will remember having to read extensive moaning when we were in Antigua trying to get this sorted out there. Thought we had done it but no. As with most things marine-like, they're just waiting to go wrong again, especially when you're many miles away from a decent chandlery. Secondly, it began to pour with rain and hasn't stopped since. So we have stayed anchored here looking out at the grey sky and dashing into the shops in between torrential downpours. Not a good end to their trip.


A very sad event has happened while we've been in Tonga that you may have seen reported. The inter-island ferry, the Princess Ashika, set off for here from Tongatapu last week for the overnight crossing. It was hit by a wave and the cargo shifted sinking the ferry in just a few minutes. First reports said 52 survivors had been picked up but there were 23 missing. This has now changed to over 90+ missing. The ferry was overcrowded and did not have a correct manifest. All the women and children were below whilst the men were up on deck so when it sank, most of the men survived but women and kids were lost. As the ferry was on its way to Vava'u, many of the families here have been affected and it's been a really sad time. The ferry had only recently been bought second-hand from Fiji but there had been concerns about its sea-worthiness which had been ignored. Needless to say, there are now a lot of recriminations and the Minister of Transport has had to resign.

Meanwhile, there have been lots of fund raising events organised by the local businesses and by the cruisers here and, of course, we have had to attend as many as possible to show our support! If you do see anywhere where they are collecting for this tragedy, give a bit of money if you can. The people here live pretty simply and don't even have money to pay for the funerals, so it would really be appreciated. They are the friendliest and the most delightful people we've come across and have shown us such hospitality which seems to make it worse somehow.