i have returned and am still coming to grips with the brutal cold in this country and the fact that when i left, the all blacks were the best in the world and two weeks later - the worst in the southern hemisphere?
tonga is so cut off from civilisation i had no idea who won 'the apprentice' or that the olympics had even started. pigs, dogs, cats, goats, chickens and horses roam through the streets with kids running after you as you bicycle past yelling hi paalangi! bye paalangi! this is some of their greatest entertainment - on most islands there is no TV, or internet and precious little electricity. flashbacks to the 1900s are common and on sunday the entire puritanical population, from the king down trades whatever work they weren't doing in favour of singing all day in church.
the kiting is fantastic. i found my ultimate blue lagoon between two islands in the ha'apai group and rated my days there, cruising around with a melbourne kiter as my best riding ever. imagine a playground the size of 50 rugby fields with crystal clear water (literally 20 metre visibility), white sand and palm trees, steady 20 knots with big surf heaving over the reef, dead flat zones downwind behind big shoals and not a single man-made object in sight, except for the big balloon at the end of your lines.
no wonder cindy and andy have been tooling around in this bolthole for years - andy keeping 'mosey along' running while cindy dashes here and there to PKRA events bringing home the bacon.
after satiating myself with days of kiting and de-stressing from a year of work, i hooked up with the yacht and the now 'engaged to be married' couple. immediately the weather packed up and the sailboat developed motor problems (a common theme in the islands i've found). we spent a couple of days in port offering advice and hard liquor to andy as he grovelled around in the bowels of the boat dealing with mainly fuel related issues caused by a bug that eats diesel - go figure.
finally we motored out on to the millpond and were rewarded with the wafting aroma of cindy's daily banana cake and a group of massive humpback whales blowing spouts on the horizon. after several close encounters with these unbelievable critters we worked out a method where we found one cruising along on its own, overtook it, switched off the motor, then jumped in the dinghy, put on masks and snorkels and leapt overboard splashing around. twice, we had a forty foot behemoth swim right under us and eyeball us from a couple of metres away. with such incredible visibility even the details like the feeder fish clinging to the whale were seen in close-up 3D.
utterly gobsmacked, we were soon even more wound by a strike on the lure that i had been dicking around with all day. keeping watch for reefs up at the pointy end of the boat, i missed the critical moment and andy had the honour of reeling in an incredibly energetic waloo. its blistering first run took all the line off the reel, then it played dead for a while making andy swear black and blue that we had actually hooked the reef. after 15 minutes of agony, he finally wound it in. i gaffed it hard and then realised as i tried to hoist it in the boat what an immense fish we were dealing with - wider than my arms could spread - taller than cindy and weighing at least 20 kilos. avoiding its bacteria laden snappers, i administered the brain kill, while cindy - ever the hippy - poured perfectly good rum into the beast's gills.
that night, after an epic butchering session yielding 1.3m fillets we feasted on incredible sashimi and watched the sun going down wondering what everyone was up to back home (for one second). after that the ocean continued to thrill us every day with more whales and calves, dolphins, an unbelievable encounter with a 3m sailfish (that i sadly wasn't allowed to catch on account of the fish we were still grinding away on and giving away by the chilli-bin to the few humans we came into contact with). my only daily stress was navigating the yacht through some evil reef systems from 50 feet up the mast.
at another incredible picture perfect set-up i spent a day trying to eke out enough power to jump on my biggest board and kite but couldn't tempt cindy and andy to join me. lazy bastards! actually they probably had more fun manta-boarding behind the dinghy. using a kiteboard towed horizontally as an underwater aquaplane - the mask wearing rider could control descent and ascent and literally fly underwater with massive coral heads and tropical fish flitting past.
eventually i left the yacht to make room for a load of pro kiter chicks, writers and photographers shooting a mag story. catching an eight hour ferry with 200 singing tongans, we thumped our way back to the mainland of tongatapu, which i had bypassed completely at the start of the trip.
on a tiny offshore island named pangaimotu i discovered another kiting paradise enjoying 360 degrees of wind, shallow water and cheap grass hut accom, with plenty of partying and backpacker traffic. here i shared a beach with slingshot pro-chick fiona who had missed her flight to hook up with cindy due to a rare 30-40 knot day, which had me wishing i'd packed my little toys.
all up i scored six kiting days out of fourteen, spending equal time on my 17m and 13m with one and a half days too windy for my gear. it also rained four days solid which was unusual compared to other pacific islands of my experience, but this group is only 2000 kms from home and due to its position gets the tail end of nz's shite weather systems, including plenty of surf. how much sun can a man handle though?
i heartily recommend the kingdom of tonga as a cost-effective kiting zone. its an amazing cultural experience for open minded time-travellers and those wanting to mix it up with giant sea creatures.
returning to jafaland, i've never been so chilled out and appreciative of my car, house, and mind boggling standard of living.
i'll be heading back to see some more next winter and will organise a package for adventurers, now i hear fiji is getting more crowded than orewa beach on a big day.
thank god for the pacific - the last frontier for adventure kiting and still a million un-kited lagoons, beaches and intense reef breaks.
sorry to harp on but it's been a while...
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