Swimming with the whales!

Tonga is known for its annual migration of humpback whales coming to mate and calve. Every July to October, they migrate from the Antarctic to Tonga. In July and August new babies are born and if you can time it right and get lucky, you may have an opportunity to swim near a mother and her calf.

A Visionary Trip to Tonga, Giving the Gift of Sight

 "Malo, Malo 'Aupito!" he said with a smile, adjusting his new glasses and looking around, taking in the details of things he had previously been missing.

Tonga, a study in contrasts

Five weeks in Tonga and the answer to the question "What is Tonga like?" is not an easy question to answer. For us Tonga was a series of contrasting events.  Let's start with the weather. Tonga was either cloudy and grey, with high wind warnings, or calm and absolutely beautiful.  When the sun was out the contrast between the green hills, the blue skies and the turquoise waters was stunning. 

 

A watercolor I did of our anchorage at Port Maurelle, one of the many anchorages in the Vava'u group of Tonga. Many of the islands have undercut limestone cliffs and caves.

Greetings from the future

 We did it! We crossed the International dateline and traveled into tomorrow. While I can't give you tomorrow's winning lottery ticket number, I can tell you the answers to tomorrow's Wordle or tomorrow's New York Times Crossword puzzle. I am reading tomorrow's news while you are still in yesterday.

We crossed the dateline out at sea somewhere between American Samoa and Tonga. We were sailing along, enjoying our Tuesday when, out of the blue, it was suddenly  Wednesday. I looked for the dotted red line in the water marking the change, but I didn't see anything, I just don't understand. We did, however, see a complete double rainbow just after we crossed the line.