Tonga Earthquake!

An earthquake on the Richter scale of 8.5 hit the Tonga Archepelago
yesterday, somewhere East of Nuka-Lofa. They were rather expecting a
tsunami but only a small wave developed -- sometimes when these thing
occur deep in the Earth's crust, they don't create much damage or
displacement in the water, such as what occurred off Sumatra's East
coast December two years ago which caused hundreds of thousands to lose
their lives.

I've had two trips to Tonga and the last one I was diving off Va V'au --
Va Va'u has fijords and palm trees and is one of the most beautiful
places in the South Pacific, and some of the structures or domes there
do look like the ravages of vulcanism. But there are active volcanoes in
the Tonga group, including Tin Can Island way up North which has quite a
steep volcanic cone on it (and little else). Tin Can Island is so far
North in the group that the weather there is more like Samoa (boiling
hot) than the rest of the Tonga Archepelago which can be cool and quite
balmy in the Austral winter.

I always had a good time in Tonga -- the people there are very friendly
and the islands have been dubbed "the friendly islands" in Tour Guide
books. The diving is not bad, but quite a step down from the best that
Fiji has to offer.