Wellington, New Zealand

Today the ship docked at Tonga.

Tonga is the only Island in French Polynesia to be a monarchy. There was no tender today and we had an excursion booked. We met with the other people who were going to be on the excursion and we headed out to the bus. The bus took us to a bay where we checked off what we wanted for lunch and hopped into a two person kayak. We started our journey to another island. It was a fairly calm ride. When we got there one of the guides named Aloni told us that we were able to jump off of a ship wreck. She swam out to the shipwreck and climbed up to the top. I followed her. The ship had broken in half and the hull was sticking out of the water. There was a rope hanging over the side of the ship. It was absolutely terrifying. Once we got up there it seemed a lot higher. She asked me if I wanted to jump first or if she should. I told her she should she said “OK, 1, 2, 3” and jumped with no fear. I figured if she could I could to. I stood up and leaped off. It was AMAZING! I felt like I was falling forever. My mom decided that she wanted to go too. I took her up on top and she jumped off before I did. I jumped again, this time it was much less scary. We swam ashore, had our lunch (I had fish and chips with a coconut) I also had a glass of fruit juice. Then we hopped into the Kayaks and started back towards the mainland. The sea was very choppy on the way back. It was so bad that three pairs of people tipped out of their kayaks before they even left the beach! Luckily nobody tipped while they were in the deep water. After we reached shore the bus took us back to the ship where we made our way aboard and changed.

Us and the Kayaks.

A shot of the small island's coast.

A fallen tree and bushes.

Me eating my lunch.

Me in front of the boat I jumped off of.

A shot of the boat from the island.

Then we went back on shore where we asked around for bike or scooter rentals. There were none. We had turned down several taxi drivers and decided just to walk around. There wasn’t much to see and my mom told me to follow her. She said she thought she knew who would be a good cab driver. We walked over to a big group of guys who were watching two other guys play chess with bottle caps (which was very impressive because they would have to remember which piece was which). The guy told us that he wouldn’t mind to drive us around. My mom told him a few places that she wanted to go and we were off. Our first stop was a place called the blow holes. It was very cool. It’s a large reef and when waves crash into the bottom they fill it up so that when the water needs to escape it shoots way into the air out of little holes. When we got back into the car my mom totally changed the plans. She decided that we should go back to the ship. We talked to James (the cab driver) and we became friends. He started stopping at every different kind of tree to explain what they were. He took us to a roadside stand and brought us breadfruit and corned beef in taro leaves and coconut milk and coconut oil. It was a very good meal. We got back in the car and talked to him about kava (a local drink that is non alcoholic and makes your mouth numb and makes you very relaxed). He said he could get us some and they he made it and would sell us some. I talked my mom out of it and right before we were going to opt out I changed my mind. He drove us into a small town and seemed to be looking around houses rather than restaurants. Eventually we stopped in front of a small shack where he got out and told us to follow. There were five men in the shack who had all removed their shoes and were sitting on a special woven carpet. My mom, James and I joined them. They were sitting around a large bucket full of brown water. They scooped some liquid into a piece of a coconut and handed it to my mom and she drank it. They handed me the same thing (but less brown water) and I drank it. It was very earthy. My mom’s and my mouth were both instantly numb, but nothing crazy happened. Then we got back into the car. We asked James what his favorite food was. He told us ice cream. We asked what flavor he liked and he said Hokey Pokey. We asked what was in it and he said something crunchy and sweet. My mom said that if he would take us to get some she would buy him some. He agreed. We stopped at the ice cream shop in town and he ordered us some Hokey Pokey. It was vanilla with little balls of caramel in it. We told him that it was caramel. He was happy that he learned a new word and that he knew the name to this strange flavor. He bought the ice cream and told us that the ice cream shop workers wouldn’t want American money anyways. He took us back to the ship and we asked him what the new price would be after he brought us all that food and we totally changed the plans and he took us to places where he had clearly never taken other tourists before. Our original price was $30 and he said he wanted $40. We were both stunned by this price and we gave him $60. He was extremely grateful and thanked us about 190 times. We still had about ½ an hour left and decided to walk around a little bit. We walked through the small market as it was closing. There were toys and clothes and foods. We made our way through the market to a main road and back around the other side of the market which was completely packed up. On our way back to the ship there was a man who had dropped a bottle of juice on the other side of a fence and we helped him get it back. My mom never felt anything from the kava but I started feeling very tired and giggled and acted stupid for about two hours even though I was truly trying as hard as possible to mask my kava effected self.

It was a fantastic day!

 Me and James with some corned beef.

Me and James with our Hokey Pokey Ice cream. 

 A shot of the busy traffic.

The blow holes

The three headed coconut tree.