Tag Archives: beach

Green Island at Great Barrier

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Matt and I found a little bay tucked up near the hillside with a small mountain behind us.  Green Island Bay offered us good protection from the strong easterly winds.

We were not sure this would be a good anchorage as there was no “anchorage” mark on Navionics or No Foreign Land.  But we nosed in to 5 meters depth and dropped the hook. 

We are so glad we came here.  It is a really pretty bay, very calm, and relaxing.

We’ve had a lot of rain lately which has made the hillsides and Green Island very green.

Our own private bay.

Ashore there are 3 sections of beach.  One small section on the left is soft sand and beautiful.  We landed the dinghy here and went exploring.

Unfortunately, the other two sections of beach are rocks.  With shoes they are navigable, but not comfortable on the feet.

But we made the most of the little 3/4 of a mile walk from end to end.

Cool Drone Shots

It is hard to picture how pretty this bay is until you see the drone shots.  

Matt took one photo shooting out of the bay (top) and into the bay (bottom).

Be sure to check out our amazing smoke out at Smokehouse Bay.

Green Island Bay on No Foreign Land.

Our blog posts run 4-6 weeks behind actual live events.  

We were at Green Island Bay at the beginning of April 2026.

Sunsets, Sunrises, and Beaches of Rongelap

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Rongelap provided us with some of the most spectacular sunsets and sunrises.   The colors were always stunning regardless of what side of the atoll we were anchored at.  I wanted to share some of the beauty we experienced during our visit to Rongelap.

We visited in January when the sun set around 7p-730p and rose around 645a-715a.

Tufa island is located in the southern end of the atoll.  The sun rose in front of the boat and set behind her.

I can’t decide if I like the golden hues, the red, the purples, or the blues better.  We always tried to watch the sun set but we did not always get the sun rises.

Beaches of Rongelap

My favorite spot to cool off is tucked into a corner of Tuff Island.  Soft sand, cool water and beautiful scenery.

The color of the beaches ranged between white to pink.  All of the beaches had beautiful crystal-clear turquoise waters lapping at the shoreline.

Some of the sand was soft and mushy while other parts had hard packed sand.  It was a king tide when we visited so the water covered the beach each night and left pristine sand.  We almost did not want to walk on it.

Some beaches had hard coral while others had small pieces of broken coral.  Coral and rocks always cover the windward side of each island.  

All of it adding to the pure beauty of the beautiful Rongelap atoll.

Our blog posts run 6-8 weeks behind actual events.  We visited Rongelap in January 2025. Did you read about the rare Japanese glass floats that we found in the Marshalls?

Telekitonga: 3-mile Beach

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It is a special treat to visit an uninhabited island as lovely as Telekitonga.  This island is one of the eastern barrier islands in the Haa’pai island group.  It is located about 65nm from Tongatopu.

We had a short 12nm sail from Kelefesia to Telekitonga.  With very light winds we decided to put up Big Bertha to get us there.  We were not in a hurry and thought it would be nice to enjoy a lazy sail day.  It was hard to keep the sail full as we only had 3-4kts of wind, but we made the best of it.

Telekitonga

Telekitonga has a long 2.5 mile beach around the island that can be walked during low tide.  In the center grows a lush, thick forest.

Telekitonga

Telekitonga

We have been running island to island to try to find a protected anchorage where there is no swell.  The swell is coming in from the south and even though we are protected from southerly winds the waves are wrapping around the island creating pretty uncomfortable waves in our anchorage.

So, we decided to go to shore to explore the beautiful beach of Telekitonga. As you walk around the island you encounter all types of ground cover.  Not much sand but a lot of coral which makes it hard to walk barefoot.  A quarter of the island was covered in limestone and another quarter covered in coral rocks.

This little island was hit hard by the tsunami.  You can see the damaged trees and bush trying desperately to come back to its former glory.

We found loads of lobster shells and floats.  Well over 3 dozen of each were strewn about the island.  We also found a treasure marked by a giant “X” and the world’s largest light bulb.

Super nice change to walk around such a large island exploring what the sea brought to us.

Events from this blog post occured during the end of July.  Our blog posts run 10-12 weeks behind actual live events.  Did you miss your opportunity to buy your very own private island in Tonga, see our last blog post on Kelefesia?