A good night's sleep was followed by a hearty breakfast. They feed their guests well over here. Helen declines to dive.
Back out to Dog Tooth Tuna Chimney -- a cavern with a chimney (old style [inside of a greek urn]) which should have a school of dog tooth tuna circling around in it, but doesn't. Rather than go off in the cavern [cathedral] again we head off along a coral wall in search of some white-tip reef shark, no show. Good corals, though.
Today we're not having any trouble with sea-sickness and the heavily peppered noodle soup with sausage if wolfed down (by me, anyway).
Another simple dive along a coral wall for the second dive. Anbother bit of guide oddity, I think Herbert was first out of the water! He had muttered about a decompression accident some years ago -- which he sorted by a bottle of whiskey and twenty-five aspirin rather than the usual hypobaric chamber treatment -- but you would have thought that he would check that his guests were out of the water first. He has been relatively hard to signal as well. Like Imthi, in the Maldives, he wants to know when you're on 100bar and 50bar [of air remaining -- you start with around 200bar] but then goes up front and doesn't look round too often and allows the guys at the back to get out of sight where they can't signal even if he is looking. I feel comfortable with coping with my air and ascending but if he wants to know so that he can control the dive then he should try looking at us. When we reached the end point I had to signal to a couple of the others what to do [as Herbert had gone and we were still in the water]. The guys at the back did their own thing!
[I was going to write about what I presumed to be the chef throwing stuff overboard whilst we were still in the water but didn't. Perhaps I should have and would now direct you to Helen's account.]
The 3.5 hour trip back was better both for a lesser swell (but not much) and sleeping/dozing rather than watching. We bade farewell to the other divers, Pat having offered for us to stay at her place on the Big Island, Hawaii.
A cup of tea and a shower and we're ready to go out for some tea [dinner], unfortunately, the heavens have opened. Someone said the Tongans love the rain but I don't see too many of them out and about right now. Sofia, Herbert's wife, came up and gave us the low down on where to go in Tonga and where to eat. We take her option of the Emerald chinese restaurant where we bump into Pat and Chad who've just seen Herbert and Sofia here. Small world. We "Tongan" ourselves on adequate food and a Royal Tongal Beer (since 1987!) and shuffle off for the night.
Divers' Lodge, Tuka'alofu S21.14321
W175.19405 Elev. 49m! 
Copyright 2002 Ian Fitchet. All rights reserved.