Ok, because I got a bunch of great photos from our trip to Tonga, especially our 11 days out on the Moorings 46 ft catamaran, Thalassa, I decided to do one more posting from this great trip. Most of the pictures in this will be from Guy Foster. We boarded Thalassa a month ago today....
Photo by Guy. This is the overview chart for our cruising grounds in the Vava'u island group in Tonga. Most of our whale swims were in the southern area of the chart while most of our cruise was in the central part. Happily, the Moorings, NZ, Whaleswim boat and the Beluga Dive boat would pick us up at anchorages 7, Port Maurelle, and 8, Nuku.
Photo by Guy. Here's Raymond from the Moorings, Vava'u giving me my briefing before we started our cruise.
Photo by Guy. The catamaran's bridge provided outstanding visibility for cruising, anchoring (Donna was usually at the helm for that) and docking. I love the ability to manuever with twin screws 20 ft apart!
Photo by Guy. Donna, first mate!
Sharon Healy, photo by Guy.
Tom Healy, photo by Guy. Despite many efforts we were unable to catch any fish. One restriction we hadn't anticipated, but fully support, was that a couple of our favorite anchorages were marine reserves with no fishing.
Tessa and Lily Foster with Cosmo, the sea hound. Photo by Guy
Guy and Tracy Foster, photo by Guy.
Photo from Guy's drone. That's Thalassa in the foreground, anchored at anchorage 7, Port Maurelle.
Photo by Guy, one of our many skiff outings. With 8 of us, if all wanted to go on an outing it required two trips. The skiff was great, the outboard was outstanding, easy starting.
Tom did an outstanding job grilling quite a number of our meals. Had to watch out for rapid onset of darkness after sunset at this latitude!
One of many beautiful sunsets, the small boat was the local villager leaving after we paid our small fee for anchoring there. Photo by Guy.
Dinner, it was great having a large table and seating for all 8 of us. Photo by Guy
Guy took the following photos of our delightful Tonga feast at Anchorage 15. The other scheduled boats canceled so it was just us with a Tongan family feeding us and giving us a Tongan dance show by their delightful young daughters. The two skiff trips back to the boat in the dark were entertaining but fortunately non-eventful.
Photo by Guy, Tracy and I on Blue Sky whale swim.
While some of us were in the water with whales another Humpback breached very near by, Guy caught this amazing sequence:
Some panoramic views from Guy's drone:
Anchorage 15
Guy took this shot of me snorkeling off A'iwa, a small island off anchorage 8, Nuku.
Guy took this shot of me with a colony of clownfish on one of our two days of scuba diving.
Guy took this shot of Donna on one of our dives.
Tom snorkeling, photo by Guy.
Another drone shot from Guy, this one of our boat and wonderful anchorage 8, Nuku.
The end, photo by Guy.
