Whales, Whales, Whales

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Traveling from dive spot to dive spot in Tonga it’s not difficult to find a misty cloud of water near the surface. We have arrived during Megaptera novaeangliae, humpback whale season. Why are there humpback whales near Tonga this time …

Corals without Skeletons

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One of the most colorful and diverse groups of invertebrates found on coral reefs are soft corals (known scientifically as Alcyonaceans). These cnidarians are related to stony (scleractinian) corals, but they lack a massive, calcified skeleton and have eight hollow …

Beche-De-Mer

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If you follow our blogs, then you might recall the blogs about harvesting sea cucumbers in Fiji. In Tonga, they are also collecting sea cucumbers and processing them. When the sea cucumbers are processed and dried, they are called beche-de-mer. …

Tonga Coral Reef Education & Outreach Launched

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The coral reef education team is underway while on the Global Reef Expedition in Tonga. On the first day, five different environmental education programs were conducted in Ha’apai throughout the Lifuka district, including one secondary school and four primary schools. …

SNAKES!!!

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On our second day of diving we had our first encounter with a sea snake.  While most of the 62 described species are true aquatic snakes, we observed one of the more primitive snakes, banded sea kraits, Laticauda colubrina.  This …

Coral reefs of Tonga

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The Kingdom of Tonga contains some of the most unique and extensive coral reef environments found in the central south Pacific, with over 1500 square kilometers of reef area. These Tonga coral reefs are located due east of the 35,000 …

Tonga Album

Here are some beautiful ocean images and underwater photography from Tonga in the Pacific Ocean taken on Living Oceans Foundation Global Reef Expedition.

Kingdom of Tonga

The Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation conducted a month-long coral reef research mission to assess the status of coral reefs in the Kingdom of Tonga. The mission included extensive coral reef research and habitat mapping as well as educational …