Hottest Summer Travel Bargains - Tonga

The all new Dark Sands Vulcanus Resort and Spa in Tonga will give guests a $900 resort credit when they book a stay of five nights or more between March 29 and April 15, 2009. Nightly rates at the five-star luxury resort start at $1200 double occupancy (see video).

The credit can be used for a variety of amenities, dining and services, including treatments at the newly expanded, 27,000-square-foot Venus Volcano Spa - recently rated by Zagat as the hottest mud and steam treatments in the world:

The following Underwater Onion was brought to you by Shark Diver. We hear the mud baths at this resort will take your skin off.

White Sharks In Tonga? You Bet!

Without a doubt 2008 will probably go down as one of the most exciting in terms of tracking data from a global effort with Great White sharks.

From the discovery of SOFA (Shared Offshore Feeding Area) in the Pacific to Y.O.Y migrations into the Sea of Cortez to this weeks revelations of white sharks in Tonga:

THREE Great White Sharks - each over 4 metres long and a kind rarely sighted in Tonga - have visited Tongatapu waters very recently, dropping their transmitting tags and surprising scientists who say that it is the first time they have known these creatures to come here.

They were among six Great Whites that were tagged off the Chatham Islands in April.

"All three sharks may still be in Tongan waters or they may have left," said Clinton Duffy, a scientist with the Aquatic & Threats Unit in New Zealand's Department of Conservation, who confirmed that three tags have popped up in Tongan waters in the last two months.