Oct. 17th, 2010: Belching beach

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18 41.45 S
174 04.51 W

Anchored at Mariner's Cave.

Mina's grandmother was hospitalized, so our Tongan cooking class was canceled for Sunday.😞 Instead we decided to see underwater Tonga and snorkeled the emerald waters teeming with the swimming color spectrum. I believe every color had it's own representative on the reef. We said hello to a few spiny lobsters that showed us their war paint of white and purple along their red armored carapaces. They always look precooked to me, but with extra paint. I love them! I found 'belching beach' which was a lovely sand bottom shallow pool that had sculpted porous rock cliffs backing it... that belched and spit loudly when the soft waves pushed in. An amazingly gorgeous vine draped Eden, that burps. awesome.

After doing boat work this morning, provisioning and clearing out of this port (the multiple steps this takes) we are now heading South. Along the way we have heard of a school who we plan on visiting tomorrow to see if we can film and learn from the kids. If they need a few school supplies, we can help with that too. We were told by a few Tongans that this would be very well received. So currently, we are anchored at Mariner's Cave. We visited here with our Sorcerer II friends and had to return to find it again. This is a sheer cliff leading up to jungle. At the base you may noticed a dark area below the surface (only if you are really looking). Dive about 20 feet down and into this 'dark space' and you find yourself in an amazing cavern lit by blue light. As our crew dove curiously in, their silhouettes danced up into the upper cavern where you can breathe. The pressure builds with each surge making our ears pop and a fog form. The surge recedes and the fog disappears and ears are back to normal. It is just magical! We have just returned to the boat from that adventure (I am still soggy) Brett, Colby and Peter are now quickly checking out a cliff nearby to climb... they have recently gotten into 'deep water soloing".. which apparently is free-climbing with no fear of falling, since you just land in lovely warm water. Once they return we will continue South to anchor near the school we hope to make contact with tomorrow.

We leave behind the large 'city' of Neiafu and from it we leave new friends, friendly Tongans and we discovered we are now avid rugby fans now after watching the semi-finals while in town with the locals! There is nothing like watching the All Blacks win against the Wallaby's while hoping the rickety deck holds because there is a group of rowdy large Tongan women screaming at the tops of their lungs in various languages and all jumping up and down together. I cannot imagine what it was like when the Tongans were still in the match. They are insane fans! The deck barely survived and Brett, who was sitting next to the loudest of the women, might be hearing impaired in his left ear. But we all had a good time and are now basking in uninhabited islands as we make our way South.


~Brooke

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