Tonga part 2: Eue’iki island

We were really excited to get in the water with whales, after building up some anticipation with snorkeling and fishing on Fafa island. Our mode of transportation to Vava’u: a tiny 18 seater. Interestingly, the international airport of Tonga only has 2 to 3 flights a day to either Australia, New Zealand, or Fiji. The domestic airport, just down the road, had about 15 flights to various islands. There were 4 to Vava’u alone the day we went. Our driver had to pick up some butter, so we waited “downtown” in Neiafou.
Mark, the owner of the tiny ecoresort we had booked and the island it occupied (and the user of the butter), and Paki, one of the resort’s staff, arrived in a gorgeous handmade wooden outrigger to bring us to Eue’iki. Is every island in Tonga perfect? The colors were unreal, and because the island was host only to our resort, it was just us and a group of 8 ocean minded yoga enthusiasts.
Here is Veronica (Mark’s wife), and Betta (one of the staff) with a tray of delicious appetizers…Served during the nightly bonfire.
The next day we got back in the outrigger with the Living Ocean Yoga group for our whale watchWe were very lucky our first day, and spotted whales immediately in the channel. There are only three places in the world that allow you to swim with whales – Tonga, the Silver Bank (in the Dominican Republic), and Soccoro Islands (near Baja). There are rules: only 4 people plus a guide in the water, you can only swim with the whales 90 minutes at a time, and then they need a 90 minute break, and you’re not supposed to chase after the whales as the point is to create curiosity and foster an interactive experience. This mother, her calf, and the escort were willing to play. Look closely below to see the swimmers in the water with these whales.
After some time had passed, the baby was feeling very comfortable and inquisitive, and was rolling around in the water and approaching the swimmers, getting very close.
Our camera was a simple point and shoot, so these shots cannot possibly even begin to convey the experience of getting close to these enormous animals. They are so different to land animals in the way they move, but in their manner and their interactions and their steady intelligent gaze, they are familiar as evolved mammals.
After we all got our fill of swimming with the Humpbacks, we took a trip to Swallows cave for some snorkeling. Underwater, there is a sea shelf that drops very suddenly to deep blue water – below is Jesse free diving over the shelf.

Inside the cave there was a massive bait ballFish ball to the left, as Jesse prepares to dive through it
In real life, they were silver and flashing as they lazily swirled aside as we swam through them. There was an underwater cave-within-a-cave as well off to one side.
Looking out from Swallows cave After we had gotten our fill of snorkeling, we took the boat to a little deserted island. Fun fact: Tonga has 177 islands, only 52 of which are inhabited
We appreciated the warmer weather and white sand Our dive guides- Mark (the owner) and Fili (our in-water guide)
Obligatory couple-in-tropical-paradise pose.Back on our island, we sat by the campfire watching the sunset and the boobies dive for sardines.
There was a group of whales moving through the channel, and sunset seemed to make them feisty since they began breaching all over the place.The resident dogs, Honio and Rocky, got really excited and started barking like crazy.
This seemed to spur the whales on to even more breaching.I met a fellow German-Korean, Rita Kluge, a talented photographer and naturopath who was with the Living Ocean yoga group (the link to the video of the fish ball in Swallows cave above is her work, and I’ll share her whale photos in the next post). We are each the only other Germoreans that either of us have ever met. Obviously we hit it off right away.
After such an outstanding first day, we were somewhat disappointed by the second day. Despite a morning and afternoon whale swim, we only had two short whale encounters. The first was with a group of male whales with no baby, which meant that they weren’t interested in swimming with us. On the bright side, they did do some singing, which was really cool to hear in the water and from the boat as they quickly moved away from us (singing link is to Rita’s later swim with another talking whale – only the males sing). The second was a mother and baby who we lost fairly quickly after we got in the water as they got spooked by some boats. Nevertheless, it was a nice day out on the water, and a great evening by the fire.On deck- Part 3, which is not only the last Tonga entry, but the grand finale for the whole trip…