Booking cheap tickets

Tonga is the only group of islands in the Pacific that was never under colonial rule. It was just too small and too far and of no important trading value or strategic value. It is so beautiful that Captain Cook returned to 'discover' the islands 3 times. To get there means a painful red-eye flight through Auckland to a dot in the middle of a huge blue patch of water. (Total 12 hour travel). The main attraction is to go dive with the majestic Humpback Whales, the very best time to do this is August.

So why am I telling you this?

Emma and I like to keep an eye out for good deals to fly around the region. And one day while on the internet I found what I was looking for. I grab the phone and call Emma: "Holy Shit, Holy Shit, Holy Shit!" Emma by this time thinks I've been fired, crashed the car or worse.
I've found return tickets to fly to Malaysia for 200 bucks. From there it's another 100 bucks to anywhere in china or South East Asia. We do our research: what's the best place, when is the best season. And once we're ready to book... Too late... all sold (in less than a day).
Damn, hell, devil, crap, shit, merde (shit always sounds better in French).
Okay, so this is how advertising works: we are now desperate to book anything we can find and heavily hit all the websites with offers. And we find one! WE ARE GOING TO TONGA! We'll be going end of August and we shall be swimming with the mighty humpback whales.
I am so happy!

Strine

During the second World War the Dutch army (who had resisted a full 6 days to the German invasion) came up with a full proof test to sniff out any German spies. They simply asked to correctly pronounce a few Dutch words like "Vliegtuigen op Schiphol" which to any other-Language-speaking-person is impossible to utter correctly.

Here in Australia they might be able to do the same thing, should the country be invaded, by simply asking to correctly pronounce for example the following:

Australian	-->	Stralian	-->	Strine
Bacon and eggs	-->	Baked n eggs	-->	Backed necks
Ham and eggs	-->	Hamn eggs	-->	Emma necks
Scrambled eggs	-->	Scrembl eggs	-->	Scremblex
How much is it	-->	Howma chis it	-->	Emma chisit
Art Gallery	-->	Argallery	-->	Ark ellery
Not yet	-->	Natchet	-->	Nar chet
Did you go to (the concert)	-->	Dja goto	-->	Jeggoda (the concert)
New year's eve	-->	Nyear's eve	-->	Ear's eve
Actually	-->	Actjelly	-->	Egg jelly
Air conditioner	-->	Eggonditioner	-->	Egg nishner
Couple of minutes	-->	Coupla mins	-->	Garbler mince
It's going to rain	-->	Sgonna rain	-->	Scona rine

Whitsundays Pictures

	Couldn't get enough so we hopped on a small Cat.
	Now that is a pancake stack!
	Breakfast at Hamilton Island and some of the locals
	Breakfast at Hamilton Island and some of the tourists
	The only means of transport on the entire Island is by... Golf cart.
	Pool + Bar + Cocktails + Sun = :)
	Our UpYourKilt sailboat
	One of the islands we visited
	Whitehaven beach
	3 feet
	Flying Baby at Whitehaven
	Wanna go for a swim?

Skydiving

G'day mate, so you're going to jump out of a perfectly good plane? The guy is huge and has wild eyes. This will be my 13th jump, he says. Lucky number 13!, the other instructor adds and continues with a story of an unfortunate chain of events of a mate's mate that did an imitation of a floor-pizza on his 13th jump.
Emma is doing her usual: Woohoo's! while we get explained how we might have a remote chance not to turn into pavement spaguetti if we follow a few particulary intriquite instructions.

The next thing I remember is hearing READY?! 3! 2! 1! GO! a push and all of the sudden nothing but air rushing not past me, sssssssSSSSSHHHH!!!! after about 20 seconds of hurling way too fast to earth the chute opens and we are flying.

I get to control the chute and we go into a cork screw twist, yeeeehaaa. After landing I can hear Emma Screaming (she jumped 4,000 foot higher) she has explainded to the instructor she wanted to be thrilled. Guess she got what she asked for. They perform a couple of what I can only describe as triple 72 twist, barrell back flip, killer loop olly salto's.

Mega-Manue is a billabong sky-diver
Nice!

Smooth Sailing

The wind is just fantastic it seems to be blowing from the correct direction wherever we go. The water temperature is 29.7C and it is partly cloudy so we don't get too much sun burn. We sail past the kilometres long Whitehaven beach in one tag. We get the occasional excitement when the winds whip up a bit: Emma steers the ship into heavy seas and big waves crash all around us. Alan shouts out 'Take it easy Em!' Emma replies: ‘don't worry you won't get wet’. To which Alan replies, ‘it's not the wet I'm worried about, it's the living!’


The sea is rough, and we do not insist. Hamilton Island is our next course; with the wind in our backs and sun in our face.

ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzz!

The mere mention of the word 'Banana' was enough to see Alan plunge head first in our boat's fridge. Emma, the startled owner, stood by helplessly watching Alan extract and then hurl out the offending piece of fruit into the sea.
With wild eyes, a threatening pose and a sudden pirate accent he yelled: "yar! be there anyone else with banana's on this vessel"... "Well?! be there?". 'What about: Banana muffins, Banana Bread, BananaBoat sunscreen, underwear with a banana logo, WHAT ABOUT A BANANA SHAPED USB STICK?'... he asked while inspecting each one of us closely.
Seeing a knife, a fish hook and a clubbing bat at hands reach, I refrained to mention that I'd just drank a banana-mango juice and eaten a banana muffin for breakfast. I quickly reached for chewing gum trying to get the possible banana smell out of my mouth.
No, Alan is not a bananaphobe nor has he a banana-hatred disposition. It is a well known fact that Bananas bring bad luck on a fishing vessel. Most fellow fishermen, captains and crews know this and agree that one should never have or admit to having had any type of banana-contact in the 24 hours prior to a fishing trip.
We've been trolling for two days and are beginning to wonder if the banana curse hit us? When all of the sudden: Zzzzzzzzzzzz!. Ahh the sweet sound of a fish taking off with the line. This is no small fish, it's a 6-7 kgs yellow fin tuna or big eye tuna and they know how to fight.
I'm struggling to get it closer to the boat, but every time I see the silver torpedo through the waves it takes off... Zzzzzzzzzzzzz!
After about half an hour it gives up. We're having tuna steak tonight! Fresh as you can get them. Our Omega 3 levels are maxed out. Deeeelicious! And eh, o yeah, that is a bottle Chateau Neuf du Pape. Best dinner ever!
Despite the abundance of banana produce on board, we caught another nice yellow fin tuna, but this time we released it.

 
 
 
 

UpYerKilt!

Our ship is called UpYerKilt! Which we rapidly adapt to a toast.

The instructions are being fired at a stressed Uzi rate and I manage to catch about 3% of the information. Charter Yacht Australia personified by Wendy is explaining us how to sail this ship.
Once out of the harbour we put up sails and... Hit a white out at 25+ knots of wind.
Nervous looks go back and forth until we realise no one really got anything of what was said. By then the nervous looks change to stress. We can't see where we're going, or where we've been. For about 10 mins we navigate blind. Then, the rain settles and we quickly get the hang of it and sail the boat really sharply for an island we think is Hook Island. By now we're having fun!
We realise Hook Island is actually not the Island we were aiming for and decide to give the boat another good spanking. She lists sharply and I reckon we had her up to 8 knots. Now this is sailing!