Ha'apai Snorkeling and Kayaking

After finishing our water project work and meeting with the stake president to discuss and visit gardening and ploughing needs, we paid for 2 extra nights while in Ha'apai to enjoy some much needed R&R.

Above: Monte walking down to the kayaks

Left: Rissa collecting shells.

Our fale at Sandy Beach. We sat on our front porch and watched the waves, boats, kayakers, snorkelers, and people collecting shells. We read our books and sipped our bottled water. We had our own little path down to the sea.

The weather was beautiful. Looked at the blue blue skies. It was a bit warm at night, but the windows had screens (no glass) so the ocean breeze kept it tolerable.



First activity was kayaking. The kayaks were included with the cost of the accommodations. We asked for paddles and picked out our kayaks ... single or double. Of course, we each wanted our own! It is so fun to jump in and paddle into the waves. Rissa saw the first turtle. He was sunning on the top of the waves. When  I shouted for Monte to paddle over, of course I startled the turtle who then dove and swam away. We kayaked on up to the other end of the island. On the way back, Monte saw a turtle. So glad we both got to see one. We had seen one other turtle; that was on our whale watching trip the first of October.   


We also got to snorkel - right out of the sea in front of our fale. Everyone talks about the blue starfish, but I had not seen one yet even though we have gone out a few times on Tongatapu. As I was enjoying watching the antics of a clown fish among the anemone, Monte tapped me on the shoulder and pointed. I turned and moved a few feet to the left, there I saw 3 blue starfish! They were bright blue like the turquoise in the picture of us kayaking. I loved it. There were all sorts of fish. One we really liked was yellow with a blue stripe across its face. There were many blue neon fish and several types of clown fish.

The other fun thing was walking along the beach and collecting shells, and of course taking pictures.
We kayaked to an uninhabited island (about a 15-minute paddle). As we walked across a rocky area, Rissa jumped, then froze. A rock was moving!  No, on second look, it was a huge black crab. I have seen some big crabs before, but this was massive - about a foot across - and mean looking. Monte followed it a ways as it back up until it reached the rock wall and could go no further. At that point, the crab showed its claws and was ready to fight. We wanted nothing to do with that. I wish we had had our camera, but as I had already dropped the phone in the kayak on the last kayaking trip we had left it at home.

We continued our walk around the island, picking up shells as we went. Three will be shells for the grandkids when we come home. There are so many different colors, sizes, and shapes.

Monte took a very cute picture of a little crab - I love the way he captured the water waves around this guy.

Time to travel home came to soon! We hope to go back to Ha'apai. We are trying to get a new water system for Lofanga, so hopefully we will get back. There is also the possibility of gardening and ploughing in Pangai on the main island of the Ha'apai group.


Ha'apai was very laid back, slow paced, and so very very friendly... a restful place to stay.