Away to Fafa Island
Trip Start
Nov 18, 2009
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27
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Trip End
Jul 08, 2010
Where I stayed
Fafa Island, Tonga
Thursday, December 10, 2009
The boat trip to Fafa makes the trip to this resort almost worth the money – the Island is rented from the King and carries a 15% 'consumption tax' on everything. The price for the day includes lunch but drinks and snorkel hire are extra. We thought perhaps this was a tax too Fafa. If you are snorkelling you need to swim a way out to find where new Coral is growing to see the fish.
OUR BLOG
This morning we arrived at the Reef Café at 9:45 for our 10am pre-booked day trip to the Royal Sunset Resort Island. At 10:00 the boat arrived and we jumped on with our bags of swimming gear and sat down ready to go…. The man in charge of the boat gave us a quizzical look and trying to avoid embarrassment asked us where we were going. We told him we were booked for a day at Royal Sunset Resort but he said that he was not expecting to pick anyone up and that he had jobs to do in town. As we are now established fully laid back honorary Tongan citizens we merely jumped from his boat to another visiting the closer Island of Fafa. This meant we spent the day with our Austrian friends.
Spent the day sunbathing, snorkelling, swimming, eating our lunch and generally relaxing. At the end of the day we had a great boat ride back to the main land sitting on the front of the boat – we saw a flying fish too.
Once we landed we stopped off at the Reef Café for a glass of wine and a cold beer. We were pleased when we spotted Holly & Penny who had come to find us. Luckily Tony had his bright orange T shirt on and they had spotted us from quite some distance away.
After a lazy hour chatting we came back to the Hotel to shower off and do some washing. We had planned to go to Billfish for dinner but decided too tired and not hungry enough – raided our fridge for a bottle of water and a bag of Doritos – left over from our picnic earlier in the week – no mini bar here.
Staff at the Reef Café dreading Saturday when we leave and their profits plummet!
……..THE CONTINUING TONGA PETE STORY…….
Waiting for the boat to arrive in the morning Tony got into a conversation with a very big lad in the café about the price of the Tongan Rugby shirt that he had purchased yesterday. This lead on to a chat about the reason for visiting Tonga which gave Tony the opportunity to tell his Tonga Pete story again. The lad in question asked for the real name of Tonga Pete and having been told it was Paulo Lavulo he said "That’s my uncle, my favourite uncle". So we have now met nephew of Tonga Pete but not the main man. The nephews name was Sione Fonua (Metuisela’s son).
Comments
Helen. When Tony was in S.Africa for the rugger, you could never rely on him to catch a bus,never mind catch the right boat. I reckon you had best set the itinery from here on in. That does not apply when looking for a bar, curiously Tony has never had a problem with this aspect of life.
Looks like you are having a fab time, and envious as always.
Take care of yourselves.
With lots of love from Joyce, George, Stuart & Yvette.
tonga petes nephew,? wow what are the chances ? still they say that we are all related you could end up being family , happy hunting , p.s. ive just caught up with the blogs ,i may have navigated round them somhow:~# computers