We entered Tongan waters on a lovely day of the 28th August after a 32 hour sail from Samoa. Our landfall was the small remote island of Nuiatoputapu, its only visible neighbour being a high conical shaped volcano in the distance.

Tonga is an archipelago of 176 islands with four main groups known as Nuia, Vava'u, Ha'apai and Tongatapu spread from north to south by over 500 miles. Only 52 of the islands are inhabited with a total population approaching 105,000 with 70% of the population living on Tongatapu.
The word tonga comes from fakatonga which means "southwards" as the archipelago is the southernmost group of islands of central Polynesia.

Nuiatoputapu is hard to pronounce (Newya-toepoo-tapoo) it's a bit of a tongue twister so a few yachties refer to this island as New Potatoes.
Nuiatoputapu is a port of entry and contacting customs/immigration is usually by radio but in Nuiatoputapu it was a dingy ride or a 3 kilometres walk to the office. We sailed from Samoa with A'Capella and the advantage of being the slower boat is that Julian had already done the dingy ride and organised for the officials to come the next morning. There were four boats needing to be checked in.
The following morning Bill dingy'd ashore to collect the officials, two ladies and a gentleman waiting on the wharf. We were the first boat to be cleared in and I offered our guests a drink (as you do), meaning tea/coffee or a soft drink. The ladies took a cola but the gentleman asked for a beer. A little later he had no hesitation in asking for another. I put aside my disapproval, not wanting to upset these guys,so dutifully fetched another cold beer out of the fridge. All paperwork and inspection completed, Bill took the officials over to the next boat. Our Tongan official, obviously being very thirsty that morning, brazenly asked for beer and even bottles of wine (as a gift!) on each of the following boats and was rather drunk by the end of his official duties. Was this typical of Tongan culture or just this man?
To be fair our friend (sorry never did catch his name) redeemed himself a bit by turning up the next day with enough bananas, coconuts, tapioca, papayas etc to share amongst the boats and announced he would organise a beach bbq to welcome the eight yachts now anchored in Nuiatoputapu. There was only a total of twenty-five visiting yachts last year. We felt perhaps we had misjudged him as he would be providing two suckling pigs, freshly caught fish and other Tongan food.
The bbq was a fun social gathering but the one tiny roasted suckling pig (no sign of the other or the fish) was a mere morsel when divided between sixteen people and we couldn't help but feel our Tongan friend had yet another boozy event at the sailors expense!
Life on this remote island is very sleepy. Nuiatoputapu has a small population divided between two villages. There is no tourist industry, the one small beach resort never reopened after the extensive tsunami that followed the Samoan earthquake in 2009. There is one shop with little stock, a police station with only one police officer, a post office, school, hospital and a small airport.
There is subsistence farming, lots of pigs and the women make the mats from the pandanus leaves. We were free to wander/bike around the island. A happy five days later we lifted the anchor to head south to the Vava'u group.