As you can imagine, our time in Fiji was pretty hectic. There's so much to do in beach paradise, that its hard to fit it all in between the sleeping, eating, reading, swimming... and generally slipping into 'Fiji time'. This was a concept of time quite different fro anywhere else - 8am would translate to mean "any time I feel like it, if you're lucky, before lunch". We found this difficult at first, but soon realised that it made perfect sence - it was just too damn relaxing to do anything quickly. Before long we were totally immersed into Fiji time and soon began to forget what the concept of time represented. It no longer mattered.

We were quick to leave 'the mainland' (it only takes a ew hours to drive around it) as we only had a week. Our first destination was a small chunk of volcanic rock about an hour, by suicidaly fast speedboat on choppy water away. We spent more time in the air than on the water on that journey and it was plain to see on everyone's faces...all of us looking decidedly queezy, except the mental captain of course. Our destination: an isand that it would only take a couple of minutes to drive around, if t had any roads, which thankfully it didn't. Unlike anywhere else we'd been, in Fiji we would be staying in resorts rather than hostels. There were no other resturants or bars in the islands anyway, so the resort provided everything. We were sceptical at this idea, having been 'going it alone' for so long, but we needn't have worried. Our resort on the first island was called Octopus, and it was f***ing amazing. The beach was breathtaking, the food incredibly good (Alex went up for thirds at any available opportunity) and even the 15 bed dorm was were in was spotless and comfy. Best of all though, Octopus had close ties with the local villiage and this enabled us to have a glimpse of Fijian life, which though basic, was beautiful. It also meant that we got to meet the numerous, incredibly cute kids of the villiage. They were all fascinated by our cameras, and loved to have their photo taken. We later found out that the resort heavily supports the villiage, providing completely free schoolig for all the kids and other things like solar panels in return for having use of the land. In fact the only downside of Octopus was the new owner who was a schmuch, but we just stayed well clear of him.

Not only was the beach beautiful from the sand, but just a few meters out were huge coral reefs. We'd thought the snorkeling in N.Z. was good, but this was another world. We saw fish of every imaginable colour (including clown fish) bright blue starfish, a school of squid who eyed us up and one of the most poisonous snakes on the planet - a sea snake. Only after coming across it on the reef did we learn how deadly it was. After a day of walkin around saying "f***, we could have died" we found out that their jaws are too small to bit humans anywhere but between your fingers. We bought a disposable underwater camera to try and capture some of the stuff and hopefully airport security hasn't ruined it.

When we weren't snorkelling we spent our time in the pool and taking part in some of the resorts events, the best of which was 'international crab racing'. First you catch a crab, next you name said crab.

Alex's = Absolutely Crabulous

Fern's = Inpincible

Unfortunately there was no prize for punn names and we won nohing. Fern's crab was huge but seemed to fall asleep, going out in the first round. Alex's fared better storming through th heats but losing his way in the final and walking in circles. We also got to experience a Fijian Church service which we understood none of, was boring but included moments of brilliance. The singing was incredible. It was 5 part harmonies and the like for a simple hymn. We felt like bored kids in assembly again during the sermon though and entertained ourselves by making friends with the local kids (who also looked bored s***less). it really was worth sitting through for the singing though.

It was the boss' birthday on one night we were there and he held a party on the beach and gave out lots of free tequila in an attempt to get girls drunk enough to go near him we think. We danced on the beach to his awful DJ'ing and, once everyone else had left, fell asleep under the brightest stars we've ever seen.

After four nights, our time at octopus was up and we caught a boat down to our next island 'Bounty'. Aficionado's of awful celebrity reality T.V. may remember 'Celebrity Love Island'. This was it. The show was filmed here...not that thats any kind of a positive endorsement. It was beautiful though, and unlike Octopus it was more classic dessert Island. It was literally sand, palm trees and sea. The island and snorkelling was even better than at octopus but the resort was definately worse. Luckily friends we had made at octopus (Ben and Becky) got us to switch dorms when we arrived as it turned out the main dorm had bed bugs and rats. Nice. Our smaller dorm was fine though. We only had a couple of days on bounty but one of them was awesome. We hired kayaks with Ben and Becky and decided to paddle around the Island (It was so small you could walk around it in 20 minutes). On the other side Fern spotted a baby turtle in the water. We told Ben and Becky and they fished him out but he wasn't moving. We came across a couple more and they all seemed to be dead but suddenyl one of them started moving! It was so cute! We played with it for a bit letting it flop across our hands and waddle around the kayak. We named him Bob - because he liked to bob up and down in the water. Safe in Ben and Becky's kayak, we paddled him back to the dive centre of our resort, where they immediately became very interested in little Bob. Apparently one turtle lays her egss on the island every few years, and no one really knows when this will happen. If they are lucky, they might get one turtle a year who survives. They thought Bob had been born that day and were really grateful that we had brought Bob in. We walked them to where we had found him in search of the nest, but with no luck. Bob was sent to a turtle sanctuary a couple of days later to make some turtle friends. We also saw loads of little reef sharks in the water that afternoon and you could watch them zip along chasing fish.

The next day was our last in Fiji, but unfortunately we got less time in the water. Alex and Ben had been out but there were juvenile jelly fish everywhere which made it quite uncomfortable. The stings didn't hurt but felt tingly and strange and got a bit frustrating when you got loads of them. A girl not far away in the water got stung by a big jelly fish though, possibly a portuguese man of war they thought. Either way she was in huge amounts of pain and no one really wanted to go into the water after that.

A final ferry ride back to the mainland, a bus to the airport and that evening we were on our way to Mexico!