THE Big Mama Yacht Club at the Pangaimotu Island Resort celebrated its 7th birthday on October 30 with a gathering of 44 ocean-going yachts.

The Halloween weekend party attracted a fair share of pirates mixing with hula girls, witches and other characters.

The yachts dropped into Pangaimotu coming from Tahiti, Cook Islands and Vava'u on their way back to New Zealand, Australia and beyond. Big Mama herself, 'Ana Emberson also invited yachting members of the Island Cruising Association and the Seven Seas Cruising Association that were in the Tongan waters.

The Big Mama Yacht Club, during the past years has established itself as the servicing station for the ICA and the SSCA.

'Ana said that Big Mama's birthday party will become an annual event, "it is the end of the sailing season, the end of October, when yachties are moving away from the region in preparation for the arrival of the cyclone season, from November until March."

'Ana was very happy but also overwhelmed with the generosity of the yachties in their contributions for the tsunami victims of Niuatoputapu. 'Ana is a Niuatoputapu girl and she has been collecting clothes, money and other items for the people of Niuatoputapu.