[mrbheagney]

The water is 26 celcius in the summer and drops to 21 in the winter so it is quite warm. The reefs where I am in Ha'apai are excellent, very varied topography will abundant healthy coral cover. There are walls, pinnacles, channels, drop offs, and barrier type reefs. There is more hard coral than soft and there is great biodiversity of fish life. We do have some dive sites with more soft coral than others. It does fall short in biomass and big pelagics. No huges scools of anything except Fusiliers. Reef Sharks are common, Napoleons, Dogtooth and we do have Turtles but the locals still catch and eat them so they are incredibly shy. I think a Tongan Turtle is the fastest thing I have seen underwater so far. The macro is good but lack some of the diversity of PNG or Indo, still lots of Nudibrancs, shrimps and crabs. No frogfish or lacy scorpions.