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9/25 MK The important tasks had all been done, but the small things kept us up until the wee hours. We were so wired with anticipation I don’t think sleep was really a possibility, but at about 5am we thought we would give it a shot. Around 7am the phone started ringing...for the second time. So much for sleep.
The taxi came at 1:30pm. The bed wasn’t made, there were clothes in the dryer and dishes in the sink, but we were out of time. Our first stop was the ATM so Lisa could deposit a check. Immediately after putting the check in, and before getting her card out, the machine went black. Goodbye ATM card. We were hoping this wasn’t an omen.
Our route was a short flight to LA, a long one to Viti Levu (the main island in Fiji), a very short flight to Savusavu, and then on to our final destination of Taveuni. 4 flights in 24 hours was certainly a record for me.
In the airport in Viti Levu, we met 10 guys with twice as many surfboards. They were on their annual surf trip. Last year was Panama, this year is a small surf resort on one of the many very small Fijian islands. So small that they are the only guests. They have the resort, and the waves to themselves for the duration of their visit. Here we are embarking on a yearlong journey and we’re already talking about our next vacation.
9/27 MK The first thing you might notice is that there is no journal entry for 9/26. More on that in a minute.
A big HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MALLORY. Since her birthday was on the 26th, a day that apparently didn’t exist for us, we’re a day late in sending her our birthday wishes. We love you.
A short boat trip from our resort is the Rainbow Reef; a complex system of coral reefs that are teeming with life and are recognized as one of the top dive spots in the world. We'll be spending the next 4 days here exploring the reef and it's abundant sea life.
As I mentioned, you might have noticed there is no journal entry for the 26th. That’s not a mistake. The international dateline goes directly through Taveuni. When we landed here we bypassed the 26th and went directly to the 27th. I’m assuming we get that back at some point.
Actually, the dateline is about a 10-minute walk from our dive resort, which became our first activity. You can stand with one foot in Friday and the other in Saturday. Since this could cause a great deal of confusion for the locals, they ignore the dateline and the entire island operates in the same day.
Besides the trek to the dateline, our first day was fairly uneventful which made me very restless.
9/28 MK Day 2. We don’t plan to start diving until tomorrow so we signed up for a coastal trek. Turned out we were the only ones signed up so we had the benefit of a private tour. Our guide, Wani, is from the town of Lavena, which is where our trek began. It’s a small village on the opposite side of the island; about an hour drive from our resort. Along the way we passed a few small rivers most of which were equally inhabited by bathers of both the 2 and 4 legged variety. On the shores were numerous women doing their laundry on the rocks. Every time we drove by we would get a friendly wave, a huge smile, and a welcoming Bula! Fijians greet everybody with the word Bula. It means hello, but somehow hello just doesn’t do it justice. The way the Fijians say it with such a big genuine smile, it’s more of a warm embrace. By the way, besides being our guide, Wani is also the resort bartender and security guard. Clearly a man of great influence.
9.29 LK First day of diving in Fiji, and my first real day of diving anywhere. Still feeling jet-lagged, we rose at about 5:30 a.m. Michael sat outside our room on a lounge chair relaxing and taking pictures and I read my book in bed. It was a gorgeous morning on Taveuni – it seems the sky is always blue; the water more shades of brilliant turquoise than I thought imaginable; and the volcanic islands sit perfectly across the channel. We had breakfast outside by the water around 7 a.m. and then were ready to take the walk down the breezeway to the dive shop.
I have to admit, I was feeling a bit anxious. Hoping I would remember all of my recent dive instruction. I had my new husband/buddy to look out for too – this was a lot of responsibility. Down at the dive shop, we geared up and the dive guides loaded the boat. As I’m sure you’ve heard us discuss, Michael and I packed very sparingly so we didn’t bring any of our cold-water gear. The dive shop supplied us with shorty wetsuits, fins, and our requisite BC’s. I started to get nervous when the only other woman in our group had a rash guard under her wetsuit, a hood and booties. Looked like I was going to be cold. Ugh.
We took a short (and beautiful) boat ride to the middle of the channel so the guides could check out the currents. The deal is, since the currents are constantly changing, the dive master needs to check out the currents each morning b/f deciding upon our dive. Apparently, our dive guide did not like what he saw so he moved on. After just another few minutes, we arrived at the “Fish Factory” the site of our first dive.
I had a bit of a hard time clearing and therefore descending. Frankly, I was pretty tense, but finally made it down about 90 feet with my buddy Michael at my side and grasping the hand of the poor unsuspecting dive guide, Kantoa (ironically pronounced Kantor!). After the initial trauma, we had a nice first dive. We saw a beautiful blue ribbon eel – somewhat rare to see we are told. After an hour surface interval on a secluded little beach, we drove to “Jack’s Place.” This dive was to take place in a very strong current along a loooong reef wall. We really had to hold on to the descent line. When I first jumped in the water I was shocked at how strong the current was. I was barely able to hold on – my body was flapping like a rag doll away from the line. But again, after the initial shock, I made it down about 60 feet to a beautiful wall. I had to talk myself into relaxing and enjoying the fact that the current was in control and taking us along for a ride. Trying to take in all the colorful sites as we were swept by, watching for the guide and my buddy was about all I could manage. As you might guess, Michael was enjoying himself immensely. He was flying past me along the wall, doing somersaults and body rolls galore. He was testing out his underwater photography skills and just plain being silly. A good time was had by all.
We would like to thank the Byck's, Elwes' & Miller's for a great wedding gift. They gave us our first day of diving,, a couple of wonderful massages to help relax afterwards, and a bottle of champagne which we drank at sunset. Thanks for a great day.
9/29 MK Bula! We’re both very excited for our first day of diving. After breakfast, we met at the dive shop at 8:15am. We have 2 dives per day. All of the diving is on what’s known as the Rainbow Reef and our first site was called the Fish Factory.
Dive 2 was at a site called Jacks Place. We were told the current was strong and to be prepared for it. Nonetheless, once we hit the water we were amazed at how quickly we were swept away. It was pretty cool basically being passengers along for the ride.
By the way, this was Lisa’s first time diving since taking her test, and despite some nerves she was a champ. Deep water, strong currents, sharks, nothing rattled her. In fact, when our guide caught a large water snake, about 4 feet long, she was the first one to swim over and touch it. Sushi will never be quite the same.
9/30 MK Today we dove one of Fiji’s most famous spots, The White Wall. I will let Lisa describe it as my mask was so fogged up I missed most of it. I will say that swimming through the tunnels in the coral was pretty cool.
9.30 LK Our second day of diving and David Fried’s birthday. Wish we could wish him a happy day in person. He and Della are still in Spain on their honeymoon so I am sure they will have a great day.
Dove the famous White Wall today. It was apparently not fully “open” – that is, the current was not running in the ideal direction so that the fish would be feeding off of the soft coral reef. However, open or not, this dive was fantastic. We began the dive through a pretty narrow tunnel that sloped down. It was a little nerve-racking at first to be waved in to this sort of darkish tunnel, but once we looked in and saw the light at the other end not too far away, it was easy going and well worth the trip. The other side of the tunnel revealed a huge whiteish wall of coral teeming with beautiful fish. It was just spectacular. After about 20-30 minutes of floating down current along the wall, we had to head over the top of the wall through another tunnel, then back to boat.
P.S. I wore my neoprene shirt under my wetsuit and borrowed a hood from the dive guides today and stayed much warmer.
10/01 MK Today was our last day of diving at Garden Island. We decided to cancel tomorrow’s dives so we could spend time doing other things. That said, today’s diving was pretty spectacular. We dove Blue Ribbon Eel Reef and Sam’s Point. The highlights included another White Tipped Reef Shark and a Giant Turtle. We were able to get pretty close to both and had more time to get a good look. I was a little nervous swimming up to the shark as I was well ahead of the rest of the group, but once I was within about 15 feet he moved away. I was told I was being a little too aggressive swimming towards it, and just needed to go slower. Apparently if you move slow enough, you can get right up alongside them. Next time. In case you're wondering, Reef Sharks are not considered dangerous and are far more afraid of us than we are of them.
10.01 LK Happy 27th Anniversary to Mom and Dad Fried! Hope you guys had a wonderful celebration.
Diving was great today as Michael said. Besides the shark and turtle that Michael mentioned, I want to add both the descents and ascents as highlights. Unlike our other days of diving here where we could see the reef or the wall almost as soon as we dropped in the water, today the reef was about 40 feet below us and not visible to us when we first dropped in. All we could see when we began to descend was blue – the brightest most brilliant blue you could imagine. I imagined this might be what it looks like to be floating in space. It was just Michael, me and Kantoa floating slowly down a gorgeous bright blue emptiness. It looked and felt really cool. After what seemed like a long while, the reef came into focus.
10/02 MK We’re both glad to have passed on diving today as we’re feeling the effects of the nitrogen and could use some down time to catch up on a few things. Ie. The web site, our journals, and the laundry, which we did in the sink this morning.
10/04 MK Yesterday was a travel day. Travel days excite me. It means I’m going somewhere I’ve never been, and don’t know what to expect. I enjoy the unknown. That said, it was about 9am and we were packing when the phone rang. We were told our 10:50 flight was now leaving at 9:30…in a half hour. The airport is a half hour away and we weren’t even done packing. They call that Fiji time. Fiji time does not mean things happen late or early, it just means they never happen as scheduled. A phenomenon I’m sure we’re going to experience at many of our destinations around the world. Anyway, we made the flight so all is good.
Today we are at the Musket Cove Resort in Malololailai, which is a very small island in the Mamanuca group of Fiji. Try saying that 10 times fast. The resort is owned by an American couple who bought the land in 1959. In the 1880’s, the entire island was purchased by one guy for 50 muskets and 500 pieces of gold. Hence the name Musket Cove. I’m not sure how that translates to today’s dollars, but it sounds like a pretty good deal.
This resort is very different from our last one. The Garden Island Resort was about the diving. It was very pretty, but most everybody was there for one thing. Musket Cove is a little closer to a Club Med. A full waterfront, a few restaurants, bars, lounge chairs on the beach, and most likely drinks with little umbrellas. It’s very nice, but a little too sedate for me. It also lacks the native culture that we were surrounded by in Taveuni.
10.4 LK I lay in bed for a while this a.m. while Michael worked on his journal entry on the little patio outside our bure (Fijian for hut/house). I’m still not feeling quite right – I’m sure it’s jet lag or nitrogen or something that will pass soon, but I need to rest a bit more than usual.
We ate breakfast at the small café–like place right next to the spot where the big game fishing boats dock. We ran in to our new young friends – some kids we met yesterday from Sydney and Manly, Australia. They’re about 17 and come here every year. They confirmed for us that “Big John” takes people out early in the a.m. to surf Namotu - the famous reef break pretty near our island. We were tempted to try to meet up with Big John this morning but were a little nervous to be stuck out in a long-tail boat with John for 3 hours if we couldn’t surf. Thing is, the surf is supposed to be great, meaning there are regular nice waves, but they are also big and breaking right on a shallow reef. You have to be pretty good to surf here.
After breakfast we hired a
long-tail boat and a driver to take us out for a looksee. It was nice to get
out on the water. It seems to be much hotter here than in Taveuni, the water is
much w
On the ride back, we spotted a school of dolphins. They kept eluding us, but Michael managed to snap a few shots of them. Nice ending to a nice boat ride.
10/6/03 MK Another day in paradise. We started with some scuba diving this morning. The diving was alongside Namotu island so we had a chance to take a closer look at the waves, as well as the reef below them. The waves were smaller today, but still very nice. I’m hoping to come out with Big John tomorrow and sample a few. Hopefully he has a board for me to ride that’s younger than I am, unlike the one I saw on the dock the other day. Regardless, I don’t know when I’ll have another chance to ride Fijian waves and it simply must be done. By the way, Big John is a local entrepreneur. He runs something of a water taxi taking surfers to the waves which are all a couple of miles from the resort.
The diving was pretty good; not on par with Taveuni, but still good fun. We did get a close look at a pretty big octopus, and a moray eel. A first for both of us. I have to say these must be two of the ugliest creatures on earth. Not for the faint of heart.
After diving, Lisa and I took out a Hobie cat. The wind started picking up and we were flying along on one pontoon hiked out as far as we could reach when the unexpected happened. I guess my windsurfing experience doesn’t translate directly to sailing a Hobie. As we were hauling along with a full head of steam, the nose of the cat plowed under the water. If you surf, it basically pearled. This had the effect of slamming on the brakes. Of course considering our speed the inertia had to go somewhere, so we ended up cartwheeling. The front went down, the rear came up and Lisa and I were catapulted into the water. It was actually quite fun. The boat turtled (was completely upside down with the mast pointing towards the ocean bottom) when a couple of guys powered over to help out. With much effort, and a little luck, we righted to boat and sailed her back in. It will make a good story at the bar tonight. By the way, the bar here is very cool. It’s actually a tiny island consisting of a tiki bar, several picnic benches, and a bunch of bbq’s. You walk over a short bridge to get there. We plan to get some food from the grocery store and bbq there tonight.
Michael (Lisa's dad, my dad in-law), you would love it here. The resort has their own marina. Between the slips and moorings, there are about 50 sailboats of varying size. We met a guy whose been sailing with his wife for the past 8 years. They spent 6 years in the Caribbean and have been in the South Pacific for the past 2. They have no plans of stopping. Several of the boats here are looking for a small crew for the voyage back to New Zealand or Australia. We’re very tempted but it would mean cutting out other adventures, which we’re not prepared to do. Perhaps we’ll have another opportunity at a later date.
10/7/03 MK I’m sorry to say that surfing at Namotu will not happen for me. We went to meet Big John this morning, but it’s low tide and the wind is blowing strong. This means large messy waves crashing on virtually exposed coral.
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