Malinoa Island Park

Malinoa is a small uninhabited island in the lagoon north of Nuku'alofa, surrounded by a protected marine park established in the 1990s. The reef here is a classic Pacific lagoon system, with a shallow coral flat giving way to a series of bommies and coral heads dropping to 20 metres on the northern side. The site is well suited to novice and intermediate divers, with calm conditions in the lagoon for most of the year and good encounters with green sea turtles, which nest on the island's beach and feed on the surrounding reef flat. Juvenile reef fish in high density use the staghorn coral thickets as nursery habitat, and the site is one of the more reliable spots in Tongatapu for finding juvenile species alongside adults. Hawksbill turtles also appear occasionally alongside the more common greens.

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