We spent two days in Tonga.
I am on my verandah watching pilot boat leave. It is standard to bring on a pilot to get in and out of port, but here on Tonga it is essential. Very shallow reefs lie in wait to snag the unwary. For example less than half a mile off is a drawling off shore reef. It is marked with one GF3, a green beacon Light that flashes every three seconds. That’s it. That’s all. You have to know the bay exactly.
Do not stand under this tree.
Or these. Umbrella trees are bird magnets, but the foliage and limbs are too dense to see them.
And it’s quiet. Emergency vehicles have no sirens. The aid van is a red station wagon with two flags flapping on the roof with crosses on them. There are no seabirds here. None whatever. It is the first coastal area I’ve ever known with nothing at all. No shearwaters, no frigate birds or gulls, not a single booby.
I observed a reef heron foraging around in ripra; that is, a sea wall of ragged boulders of coral, not stone. A pectoral sandpiper was pecking its was along in a park. All the rest of the birds are common mynas. The same tug that helped us moor is standing by to help us leave. Goodbye Tonga.