While in New Zealand, Keith and I had the hard task of deciding what to do with our little bit of time between New Zealand and returning to the States. Australia is the obvious choice, but it just didn't feel right given the time constraints. We started to look toward the islands in the South Pacific.
Vanuatu was the first thought. After a trip to the library, a little research, and a lot of Googling we thought the island kingdom of Tonga was exactly what we were looking for.
The Kingdom of Tonga is compirsed of 169 islands, is the only island nation in the Pacific that has never been colonized, and sounds like it has perfect weather. Also an interesting fact: There are no McDonald's or any other international fast food chains in Tonga, but they are still one of the most obese nations in the world.
After months of dreaming of the beach, it's finally time to get to our island resort in the island group of Vava'u-how do you get there? Well, fly from Auckland to the captial of Tonga, Nuku'alofa, in the island of Tongatapu - about 2 hours. Then you take a taxi to the domestic terminal (with chickens wandering around) and get on a plane built in 1956 headed 80 miles north to Neiafu, the capital of the Vava'u group. After you arrive in Neiafu, you get in a van and driven down to the port where you then get on a boat to finally arrive at the
Blue Lagoon Resort. All this takes about 12 hours.
Once we finally arrived, we were greeted by the crazy German who runs the place and shown to our little bungalow-just steps from the beach.
Our 'resort' was on the island of
Foe'ata and looked out on a beautful lagoon and the islands of Hunga, Fofoa, and Foelifuka. While we were on an island in the middle of nowhere, there was plenty to do. We could sea kayak, go whale watching/swimming, snorkle, or just lay around on the beach and not do anything-somehow in the 8 days we were there we managed to do all of those...at a very relaxed pace!
Humpback whales come to Tonga to breed and have their calves and we just happened to be there at the height of the whale watching season. We were really excited about whale watching, but swimming with them was another thing, I mean humback whales are massive-how do you swim with them, does it bother them? It turns out the 'whale swimming' is really just putting snorkle gear on and getting close enough to see them, but being a safe distance from the tails. We spotted our first whale with it's fluke sticking out of the water.
According to our guide the length of time that the fluke was sticking out of the water was kind of odd, but we still jumped in the water to see the whale. Once in the water we saw that there were 2 whales, not just the one we could see from the surface. One whale (the female) was hanging straight up and down, with her fluke sticking up on the surface and her head straight down, while the other whale was swimming around her head. It was a truly awesome site. In the water you almost lose perspective of how big the whales are becuase it's just you and the whales and blue sea. I think if I had had an underwater camera I would have forgotten to use it I was so stunned by the whole exprience. The guide took a bunch of pictures and hopefully we'll be able to get a few!
We spent the rest of the day trying to find more whales. When it looked like we weren't going to swim with any more, they took us to Mariner's Cave. We had read about this cave as a cool place to snorkle, but I was kind of scared. You have to swim down to the entrace of the cave, about 5 ft under water, then swim for about 12 ft in complete darkness to get in the cave. Yes, I was kind of freaking out. Which is why when I felt the stinging on my shoulder I thought it was nothing really, maybe just a pinched nerve or something, I had other things to worry about. When the stinging got worse and I realized that I had probably just been stung by a jellyfish, I was relieved that I did not have to swim into the cave, but man it stung like crazy! Fortunately for me, they had vinegar on the boat and little of that neutralized the stinging a little bit and no one had to pee on me! Luckily the jellyfish sting wasn't that bad and was almost gone the next the day.
While Keith went kayaking everyday we were there, I used a lot of that time lazing around on the beach and playing with the two dogs who lived on the island. I'm really not sure what their names were, but we spent a lot of time together as they were also big fans of napping in the sun all morning and afternoon!
On one particularly calm and beautiful day, Keith and I set out on an all day kayak trip with the uninhabited island of Avalau as our ultimate destination.
Our resort had two 2 person kayaks and just 3 paddles, which meant that I just got to hang out for the ride and try to spot whales while Keith paddled the whole time-I'm a lucky girl! It was so great to have a whole island to ourselves! It was amazing to me that there are still untouched places left in the world.
On the way back to our island we spotted two whales. One was jumping out the water every 5 seconds or so, while the other one was just swimming. The big slash in the middle of the picture is the whale (the zoom is terrible on our little camera!)
One reason we picked the Blue Lagoon was we had read that their food was delicious, and it did not disappoint! We started everyday with an absolutely ridiciously sized breakfast that usually included fresh fruit, pancakes or crepes, a load of eggs, breakfast meats (which could be anything from hot dogs to tuna), toast, muesli, and probably a few things I'm forgeting-it was awesome! Lunch was usually reasonably light and dinner was always great. I've gotten a little to used to having dessert every night! I'm torn between deep fried apples or deep fried bananas as my favorite dessert while we were there! Tabu, the owner's daughter and our waitress every night, always seemed to giggle as she brought us these massive amounts of food, knowing that she would take away only empty plates...what can I say, the food was great!
We both wondered if we would get bored on a tiny island in the middle of nowhere after 8 days....nope we didn't! I wish we could have stayed at least another week, but unfortuantly we have to return to reality at some point! I very much did not want to leave the view I had everyday!
Or our sunsets at night
Oh, and the puppies! I was almost crying when we left when one of the dogs tried to jump in our boat, then swam after the boat of quite a ways!
Now we wait for fermentation to take place. With the yeast added and the wort hanging out in a warm dark place (Keith's closet), we have two weeks before we bottle what will hopefully, actually be beer! After that we still have two more weeks to condition the beer in the bottles-so we will have really no idea if it's any good for about a month. At this point we know that the original gravity is extremely close what the recipe says it was supposed to be-we have our fingers crossed! 
