Noordam in Vava’u
I was happy to see that Holland America’s information on our transpacific cruise on the Noordam for this excursion from Vava’u, Tonga specified reef-safe sunscreen and that there was no mention of insect repellent. So many snorkel excursion instructions say to bring insect repellent even though there are no mosquitos on the reefs and insect repellent kills coral. It also said to bring your own snorkel gear as none would be provided, but at least half if not more of the people on the excursion were lucky that they were wrong about that because gear was provided and a lot of people needed it since they did not have their own. All of the stops on the tour were for snorkeling. Sometimes the actual information about excursions is lost in translation between the provider and whoever writes the blurbs for the cruiseline.
snorkel boat at the dock
The excursion information also mentioned that the swallows cave was home to an abundance of sea birds, but apparently none of them were at home because there were not any birds in the cave when we went there. Vava’u is a tender port so after meeting in the theater for the excursion, everyone on it took the same tender to the dock. Just beyond the tender disembarkation area people on shore met with each excursion and then led the group where they needed to go. For us it was a walk to a boat dock several blocks from the port.
tiny beach
The first of four snorkel stops was near the shore of an island with mostly steep cliffs rising straight out of the water, though there was a small beach near where the boat anchored. There were a couple smaller boats at the beach and some people walking around on it. Most of the coral near where the boat anchored was dead, but there were some small live patches, lots of fish, some big purple starfish, and some long black things that looked something like sea cucumbers.
black sea cucumber
Swimming down the shoreline a couple hundred yards or so from where our boat anchored down near to a different boat brought me to a lot more live coral. The dead coral strewn about the bottom looked like it had been far bigger than anything currently living there. Perhaps it was all broken and destroyed in a big storm or something and now starting to grow back as all the living coral was small and likely young.
snorkel boat at the first stop
All those people snorkeling around near the shore must have woken a large bat up from its daily sleep because it came flying out of a tree on the shoreline. I don’t know what sort of bat it was, but it looked like it was as big as the flying foxes of Australia. It was also flying too fast to get a photo of it.
ghost net on the reef
Unfortunately there were also things in the water there that didn’t belong – a plastic bottle trailing fishing line and a ghost net hooked over either dead coral or a rock formation. It was impossible to tell which through the algae-covered net. Old fishing nets that have been lost continue to kill sealife for many years until somebody removes them. There was a pretty strong current at that site so it was good that the guides recommend wearing fins. They definitely made swimming back to the boat against the current a lot easier.
nearly bare rock
The second stop was in a pretty little cove. There were some beaches at the shore, but it would have been a long swim for anyone to get there from where we anchored. A lot of the bottom there was a desert of dead coral, again looking like pieces from what had once been quite large corals. Even a lot of the rock formations didn’t have much life growing on them, though there were some places in the cove with live coral. It had a lot of fish and one lady said she saw a lobster walking along the bottom.
bunch of lunch
The guides said lunch was supposed to be first at that stop, but one person asked if they could snorkel first instead and everyone else followed suit. They brought a pile of individually packed lunches with one for everyone onboard. Each included a sandwich, a muffin, and some fruit. There were cookies too, but I don’t remember if they were in the lunches or handed out separately. There wasn’t any refrigeration, the lunches were just sitting on a ledge in the interior of the boat. It did have a bathroom.
entrance to the swallows cave
The third stop was the Swallows Cave. The boat anchored near the entrance to the cave. Swimming to the cave from the boat the water was fairly shallow, but once you swim over the underwater rock formation at the mouth of the cave the depth drops down quite deep. It wasn’t the sort of cave with any stalactites or stalagmites, but it did have some interesting rock formations.
cave fish
Quite a large school of small fish with a neon blue glow in the dark stripe on their sides swam around in the cave. That is the only place I have ever seen those particular fish. It was too dark to get a good photo of them glowing, but I managed a silhouette in the light by the cave opening.
cove in the cave
I noticed a little cove off one side of the cave so I swam into it to explore. It didn’t go back too far, and had an opening at the top that let light in. Probably also a back door for the birds if any actually lived in that cave. The rocks that protruded from the water didn’t show any signs of bird poop and the water was clean and clear so it didn’t look like a residence for birds. There were some rock formations both in and out of the water in the cove.
underwater rocks in the cave
I would have liked to explore both it and the main cave longer, but soon noticed that everyone else was at or beyond the mouth of the cave heading back to the boat. I had to leave without further exploration and was the last one back to the boat without even anyone else still in the water waiting for their turn to go up the ladder when I got there. Although that was the place promoted in the title of the excursion it was the shortest stop of the day. Too bad because it had a lot more to see than we had time to look at and was also the most different both from any other stops that day and most usual snorkeling places.
coral at the first stop
A lot of the people must have mostly kept their heads out of the water in the cave because I only talked to one other person who had seen the glowing blue fish, yet there were tons of them and I saw them several times during our short stay in the cave.
coral at the first stop
Some people only stayed briefly in that cave and then went to another smaller cave nearby. I would have liked to see that cave too, but had no time to go there since everyone else was already on the boat when I came out of the first cave. I like caves and we hardly ever get to see them. We did go cave snorkeling in Cozumel once where all of the snorkeling was in a cave, but that was the only time we ever got to do anything like that.
starfish at the last stop
Our last stop was near a beach that must have been where some of the land & beach excursions went because there were people onshore with Holland America towels. Some people didn’t bother with their snorkels and just swam to the beach while others snorkeled around in the water and stayed off the beach. Nobody wore the fins at that stop, just the masks and snorkels. The water was pretty calm there.
coral at the last stop
Most of that area was sand and seaweed with some dead coral, but there was one large patch of live coral with lots of fish and some other smaller bits of live coral. I found a rather big flat underwater rock covered in large snails. The area surrounding it had more of the snails.
rock with life at the second stop
Other than the cave that had its own different fish, all of the other areas had more reef fish than reef. Lots of fish mostly ranging from small to tiny, but there were a few somewhat bigger ones. A lot of them were brightly colored, but there were some plain black ones and some whitish ones that blended into the sand.
brain coral at the second stop
It’s too bad the snorkel boat couldn’t have just picked us up and dropped us off at the ship because the dock the tender took us to was in the opposite direction of the places the excursion went. We passed by the ship on the way out and back. Not so bad on the way there, but on the way back the que to get on the tender was nearly an hour long. That would have been a lot of time not spent standing in line if we could have gone directly back to the ship from the snorkel boat – and that many less people in line for everyone else waiting there. I have seen water-based excursions picked up directly from the ship in Belize, but the tender run from ship to shore there is extremely long. I’ve not seen that done anywhere else.
long line for the tender
Overall it was a fun excursion, though it definitely would have been nice to have had more time in the cave.
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