Many of the anchorages in the Vava'u group are in quite deep water but we have found some special places for great snorkeling. One of the outer islands, Avalau has a lovely white sandy beach and a beautiful reef with plenty of colourful fish. We thought this spot was amazing until we went to Kapa Island and went snorkeling at Barnacle Beach. Wow!We were swimming through schools of thousands of fish. Incredible!! It was like being in a snow storm, with tiny sliver fish zipping past everywhere we looked. Yesterday we had a look at Fotula Island reef. Not as many fish but the water was as clear as you can imagine. Even in 25m of water you can see the bottom clearly. Just beautiful. On Wednesday we collected our friends Pieter and Sarah from the airport, they have come to stay with us for a week and we have been looking forward to seeing them. Thankfully their flight was only an hour late - earlier in the week some people were delayed by a few days! Tt seems internal flights from Tongatapu to Vava'u are not very reliable. We all went to the Fakaleiti show Wednesday night, which was very entertaining! In Tonga, if a mother has too many sons, she raises one of them as a girl to help with washing and cooking etc. These boy girls are dressed in pretty dresses and are taught to be more feminine than natural girls who run around in shorts and t-shirts. As adults the Fakaleiti (Faka = in the manner of, leiti = lady)are very graceful and elegant. We thoroughly enjoyed the show, though some of them were more convincing as ladies than others! On Thursday we snorkeled at the Japanese gardens by Mala Island before heading into Hunga Lagoon for the night. Today we explored the Blue Lagoon area, unfortunately the resort was closed and visitors were clearly not welcome. A shame because it is a lovely spot and the water over the reef area is a very pretty blue. Now it is time for an afternoon nap!