Pangaimotu is a small island in the

Tongatapu Tongatapu is the main island of Tonga and the site of its capital, Nukualofa. It is located in Tonga's southern island group, to which it gives its name, and is the country's most populous island, with 74,611 residents (2016), 70.5% of the nation ...

group of

Tonga Tonga (, ; ), officially the Kingdom of Tonga ( to, Puleʻanga Fakatuʻi ʻo Tonga), is a Polynesian country and archipelago. The country has 171 islands – of which 45 are inhabited. Its total surface area is about , scattered over in ...

, lying near the capital

Nukuʻalofa Nukualofa (; ) is the capital and largest city of Tonga. It is located on the north coast of the island of Tongatapu, in the country's southernmost island group. History First western records of Nukualofa On 10 June 1777, British captain James ...

. It is reachable by a 10-minute boat trip from Nukuʻalofa. Aside from the beaches, a centrepiece of the island's attraction is a wreck jumping from the hull of the upturned ship 50 metres off the island's main beach. The island also contains the Big Mama Yacht Club, the Pangaimotu Island Resort and a vanilla plantation. The Pangaimotu reef was declared a national marine reserve in 1989. The first

mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...

in Tonga was held under a tree on Pangaimotu on 2 July 1842. It was conducted by

Jean Baptiste Pompallier Jean-Baptiste François Pompallier (11 December 1801 – 21 December 1871) was the first Roman Catholic bishop in New Zealand and, with priests and brothers of the Marist order, he organised the Roman Catholic Church throughout the country. ...

and Father Chevron.

References

Islands of Tonga Tongatapu {{Tonga-geo-stub