The mysterious Ha'amonga a Maui - a Tongan trilithon

Tomorrow (the first of November) is the first day of the South Pacific cyclone season, although the chance of cyclones is small until later in December or even January. 6 of the boats anchored here at Nuku'alofa have left gamely for Minerva Reef and possibly straight on to New Zealand. Most boats anchored at Big Mama's here in Nuku'alofa will leave tomorrow or the next day or two. Many more are streaming down from Fiji, Vanuatu and New Caledonia, hampered by unusually erratic forecasting with lows popping out of the woodwork right where you don't want them to be. Some boats that left Vava'u, expecting to be already celebrating in Opua, have been holed up in North Minerva's lagoon for over a week.

We have pencilled in a Tuesday departure and will track close to Minerva on the route to NZ. Minerva is 2 days away from our anchorage here and if anything looks suspicious we will stop there, even though we would rather keep going on on what should be a 8 to 10 day passage for little Saraoni. We don't cross our outbound departure point until we pass the Ninepin (a well known rock) at the entrance to the Bay of Islands and there we will string up our motley assortment of flags, caps, shirts and anything else we can find to celebrate the end point of our circumnavigation.

We have had time to explore Tonga's most populous island and have experienced the usual lush countryside with its burgeoning smallholdings full of yams, cassava, taro, sweet potato, pele (a type of spinach), bananas, melons, pumpkins, mangos and even carrots. Nuku'alofa's main market is full of food, too, much of it quite cheap. Tongans like to eat and there seems to be no shortage of wholesome food to keep them happy. Each family is allotted around 8 and a half acres to use for themselves to grow food as well as a place in town to build a house.

We have also seen the Ha'amonga a Maui - the Stonehenge like trilithon, which was erected by Tonga's 11th Tui (King) in the twelfth century, although no-one is quite sure why or how. The West coast, where south westerly swells from the Southern Ocean meet a limestone wall, were full of dramatic blowholes and the rest of the coastline quietly attractive.



The blowholes on Tongatapu's west coast

Tongatapu, like the other Tongan islands is full of churches of many denominations and posters celebrating the coronation of the new king and queen (July this year). It's a strange place and it's hard to work out what the strong adherence to church and royal family does for the people. Nuku'alofa is quite a busy town compared to what we saw of it now nearly 40 years ago on a trip up from Auckland, but it's hard to imagine how the islands survive without substantial amounts of money sent back from relatives working overseas.



Everywhere in Tongatapu are reminders of the royal couple



Even the Mormons wear tao'valas around their lavalavas in public



Ana Emberson (aka "Big Mama") with the departing yachties on the beach at Pangaimotu Island. Alison centre rear with Indonesian coolie hat on;Geoff on the right with bandaged knee