What a season! It has been full of laughs and no tears 🙂 hahahahaha We have been relatively full this season. July through to October we have been fully booked which is more than we could ever hope for with our second year of operation. 40% of our guests this year have been repeat customers and we love it. There is nothing better meeting someone and then having them return the following year!! We must be doing something right for people to return 🙂 Kitesurfing in Tonga is now becoming a new destination!

Our two dogs are growing up fast! Jenga is a bruiser but very sooky 🙂 Lucky is devious and very independent! We visited Craigs a few months ago on a sunday and on our return trip home Lucky fell overboard…all Glen saw was Lucky cartwheeling through the air and a big splash when he hit the water. It was dark and Alan or i didn’t even see Lucky fall out! We did a huge turn back and i was ready to jump in and save my little puppy who doesn’t like swimming on the best of days. We looked high and low and about a minute later Glen, eagle eyes, spotted little Lucky. Before we knew it…Alan our fabulous and fearless Scottish friend does a swan dive out of the boat to rescue our canine friend. This is rather amusing as Alan doesn’t like deep water swimming but his love for Lucky was obviously too much and off he went in a spectacular display and entered the deep dark ocean. He grabbed onto Lucky and as a reward got a fair few scratches over his face lol 🙂 We were so appreciative and so was little Lucky. Always an adventure returning from Craigs place after a few drinks.

On our no wind days we have got a new little activity – wake boarding! We have had a few people strutting their stuff out front. Its loads of fun and fantastic to watch. The foil board waking has been my favourite to watch so far. One of our guests Mike has been learning to foil and decided that he was going to have a go wake boarding with the foil board. Mike and Fabian went out to have a go and what a fabulous time they had! I think their crashes were pretty spectacular however after awhile they looked to be mastering the treacherous foil board. The foil board has slowly but surely made its way into kitesurf Tonga. What a surprise..not hehehehe We had a guest arrive who sold their foil board to Glen…and now Glen is hooked. The amusing part of the whole foil boarding phenomena is one morning i was sitting on the communal fale deck and was watching Glen limp down the beach, then Mike walked past – also with a limp..and then Hugh also came by with a limp. I realised that the foil board was the thing they all had in common 🙂 hahahahahahah One morning Glen had to get some physio treatments from Sara as he couldn’t walk properly. I think i might give that one a miss 🙂 Anyway the long and short of that whole conversation was the fact that if you do want to try foil boarding whilst you are here with us kitesurfing in Tonga we now have one for rent.

Cultural nights have been a bit of a success this year. We have been helping a local school in lifuka with their fundraising by donating money to them when they come over to our resort and show us some local dancing and music. We ask all our guests if they are willing to donate $20TOP each and then we ask the school to come along and put on a little show. We had a show when Glen Bowdens group was here from QLD and it was fantastic. The school kids were amazing in their outfits and they bought along some unique musical instruments and we had some singing too. We all gave the kids small donations of $1 and $2 notes on top of the $20ea donation. Fun nights had by all! The kids love it and our guests really enjoyed it too. We will be making this a regular occurrence now 🙂 We have had a few pigs on the spits on the cultural night and these are always a hit. We did overfeed everyone on the last cultural night however with so many leftovers we didn’t know what to do with them! the fridge was packed and we were eating pork for days. The dogs were happy as they had all the bones.

We even found time in between guests to head out to town one night to Mariners Cafe. Karaoke night…what a night. We decided to take Jenga and Lucky…ummmm will not be doing that again. They had never worn a collar before let alone a lead…and they had never been to town before. So collar on…which jenga did not appreciate in the least…sulked for hours….and away we went. We got them out of the boat on the wharf and put their leads on. Jenga wouldn’t budge. Feet spread out in front and he parked himself….refused to move. Alan carried him up the steps and he was terrified. I literally had to drag him through town. Lucky on the other hand was like a dancing bull…he was not being led he was leading us…We finally get to Mariners greeted by Magda and all her dogs. Unfortunately her dogs did not take a liking to our dogs. Jenga and Lucky were absolutely terrified so i proceeded to sit in the corner with the dogs under my chair for the next few hours. As the drinks were handed out and the music was blaring i occasionally got up forgetting the dogs were there and all of a sudden the whole table would start moving toward me…there was Jenga (attached to the table) trying to follow me. After about 5 hours they relaxed a bit more and i was permitted to go to the toilet without rearranging all the furniture. The singing was enough to put the dogs into a nightmarish slumber hahahahahaha…What a night! Everyone thought they were a bit of a rockstar and sung their little hearts out. I am sure the neighbours didn’t appreciate the singing as much as we did 🙂

Things are ticking along quite nicely here at Uoleva to say the least. Kitesurfing in Tonga is amazing as always…The whales are here and everything is going along swimmingly…i won’t mention the morning we woke up to find the ski boat underwater…or the hours it took to repair the small crack in the hull…or the fact that the boats engine is still out of order…Apart from that everything is running quite smoothly. 🙂 We have had so much rain here this year compared to last which is great for our water tanks. The garden is very appreciative also!! Our papaya trees have not been attacked by the various wildlife we have here on the island and have all fruited…however due to the coldish weather we have had none of the fruit are ripening. We have about 40 papayas or more in the trees and i think they will be ready to eat just as the last guests are leaving hahahahhaahahaha oh well papaya smoothies, papaya pancakes, papaya salad, papaya chutney…we will be eating papaya till we turn into one i would say!

This year my role was cleaner and washing lady which left me quite a lot of time to kitesurf. This was working out nicely however at the end of August i had to start cooking again. So back in the kitchen for me which is okay for now and we will look for a new cook for next season. I have gained a real passion for cakes this year. A different cake every day and sometimes two. We had a lot of Birthdays over the last few weeks so baking Birthday cakes was also amongst my baking day. Keeping the candles alight was always a mission when taking the cake to the outside eating area hahahahahaha the wind just kept blowing them out. Alan our Scottish Woofer has been even more amazing and helpful over the last few weeks and has not only been doing his kitesurfing role but helping with the housekeeping and hosting. We will miss him so much when he leaves, he has been with us for five and a half months so far and is certainly part of our little family here at Kitesurf Tonga. The dogs love him, the guests love him and we adore him. Wherever in the world Alan ends up he will always have a place here with us at Kitesurf Tonga. He is currently redoing our shower floor! Did i say that he was amazing??? Watch out for pictures to follow…its a masterpiece!

Our no injury record has now been broken….we have had a coral cut and a sliced toe – courtesy of a kite bag!! 🙂

I mentioned earlier that Glen Bowden bought a group from QLD to us this year and he produced a short advertising video for us. The video was only up for a week and it resulted in a lot of exposure for our small little resort. We have now got quite a few individual bookings and group bookings for next year already! Kitesurfing in Tonga with whales is a huge drawcard for kitesurfers all around the world. Our location is amazing and its an added bonus that the majestic humpback whales pass through here July – October each year. Thank you Glen for your amazing video, we really appreciate it. Here is a link to the video if you haven’t seen it already Fanifo Lofa video

All the photos on our blog are from our fantastic guests we have had in the last few months – Glen Bowden, Martin, FABS, and Mork and Mindy 🙂 Thank you so much everyone we really appreciate all the photos