Island of Tongatapu

Tongatapu, is the largest and the southern most island in the Kingdom of Tonga. Tongatapu is home to the capital of Nuku'alofa where the Government and the Royal Family live. The Pacific Islands Forum which brings the leaders of all the Pacific Islands including New Zealand was held here while we were visiting.

Nuku'alofa Marina The marina is small, all the boats drop a bow anchor and tie a line to a post on land, very strange it's called med mooring. We also saw a pretty rainbow drop over the fishing boats after a rain storm. A pretty rainbow
Great produce market

A very large wonderful market located downtown has a great vegetable selection along with beautiful handmade crafts of all types.

Beautiful carvings
Nuku'alofa has a canoe carving competition where the participants have one week to carve a canoe and at the end of the week the canoes are trucked in a parade to the water front where they are launched. We saw some beautifully carved canoes.

Hand carved canoe
Our last sunset at sea

We enjoyed our short stay in the Kingdom of Tonga, the people are very friendly, our experiences will always be remembered. Maybe some day we will return to enjoy it all over again. Our last sunset was the first cloudless sunset in many many months.

More photos to see!