Keleti Beach

Keleti on Tongatapu's south coast is not a swimming beach in the ordinary sense: the shore is a shelf of terraced rock with pools cut into it, and the Southern Ocean swell breaks over the outer edge and pours into them, so the pools fill and drain with each set. At low tide with small swell they can be sat in. At any other time the shelf is dangerous.

What you actually see

• The terraced pools - basins in the rock shelf filled by breaking swell.
• The surf line - waves breaking on the outer edge of the shelf.
• The south coast - the exposed shore facing the Southern Ocean.
• The draining cycle - pools filling and emptying with each set.

When to go

May to October is the drier season. Low tide with small swell is the only safe combination. Winter swell makes the shelf lethal.

Honest expectations

The shelf is genuinely dangerous in swell and people have been swept off it. The rock is sharp and shoes are necessary. Facilities have come and gone and there may be none.

Nearby

Hufangalupe is east, and Nuku'alofa is north.