Foa Island - Matafonua and Sandy Beaches

Our friends on SY Tika recommended we visit the Foa Island, the home of Matafonua and Sandy Beaches Resort, when we were in the Ha'apai.  What a treat !  The owners of the two resorts, nice folks themselves, had a great bunch of kids approximately the same age as our older two and they all got along well together for their various adventures.  That, combined with excellent snorkelling, good kiting and being surrounded by whales, meant that over three visits we spent a lot of time there.

Liz already wrote about our time at Foa here and here and I previously posted pictures where many of the photos came from Foa in the post of reef photos and this post on swimming with the whales.

Kids !  The kids had a great time on their adventures together

Victoria swimming down to check out the lepoard shark.

This was a fun photo to take and took me a few attempts.  I dove down and then settled beside the shark so I could get a good side-ward perspective on him.

Lots of kiting !

and the kids got lessons.  Fluenta in the background.

Liz and Benjamin dancing.

The recently uncovered petroglyphs.  More info at https://www.smh.com.au/world/rock-art-find-highlights-ancient-eastwest-polynesia-links-20090204-7xti.html

The recently uncovered petroglyphs.  More info at https://www.smh.com.au/world/rock-art-find-highlights-ancient-eastwest-polynesia-links-20090204-7xti.html

and lots of whales a seen from the deck of Fluenta.

Entry to the anchorage is a bit tight but doable in good light.

A screenshot from the chartplotter showing how tight the anchorage is.  The "skull and crossbones" are where our mini-survey or the satellite imagery showed the boundaries of the reefs.  The chart data is rather off as it shows us anchored on a reef.  We have 150' of chain out.