We stayed in nadi 4 nights before heading off to the furthest island in the yasawas. Originally the plan was to get straight out of the main island and get as far away, a lot of people say it's very touristy and that the furthest you travel away the more beautiful and pristine Fiji becomes, however unfortunately also the further you travel away the higher the costs rise and we couldn't afford our total 10 nights in the Yasawas!
Our welcome to Fiji was lovely! Lots of people say Fijians are some of the nicest people you will meet. We had two guys dressed in flowery shirts with guitars singing 'Bula' to us as we walked through the airport. Unfortunately the mood went downhill as we crossed to the otherside of the airport to the cashpoint and found out Amy's card had been blocked. We found ourself quite a nice resort though, nadi bay, in between the airport and the town with a pool which we made use of for the days we were there.
The debit card saga continued... $80, 3 days, a large number of international phone calls later, the bank were absolutely useless it was just a good job I was travelling with her and could lend her some cash otherwise she would have been sat at the airport. We had a supermarket down the road from the hotel which was handy we stocked up on water and pot noodles as our budget was tight and restaurant meals were expensive! There was a shared bathroom but we sussed out we must have been the only ones using it apart from the Mosquitos and lines of ants.
So our 4 days consisted of lazing by the pool, rescuing frogs from the water and dodging mangoes falling from the trees with a crash. The resort had a games room with pool tables which was cool apart from me loosing a number of games- the table had a lean to it.... And they set up a movie theatre downstairs. They showed decent films, the first one was The Great Gatsby but unfortunately was interrupted by the debit card fiasco and another phone conversation that involved the bank not listening and wasting time going around and around with the same questions. The second movie was Olympus had fallen, this was quite graphic but fairly good, unfortunately and frustratingly the film cut out 10 mins to the end so I'm still not sure how either ended!
The Fiji skydive idea didn't happen as there was quite a bit of cloud around and as it's a very expensive experience we decided to wait until we get better conditions, maybe in Australia! I had also been contemplating a shark scuba dive and had just built up the courage to go and book it when I found out there were additional costs as you have to stay over night. I decided against it and booked a normal dive with a island day trip.
The day trip was on our last day there, I left Amy by the pool as she didn't fancy the dive. The boat left early and after a half hour trip we saw the little island of south sea, it's one of the smallest islands, non-inhabited, with opportunities for snorkelling, lying by a pool, diving, and taking trips on their glass bottom boat. We did the dive in the morning, I decided to go with the other 2 people and do the wreck dive. My first wreck dive, it was different and very interesting to go down to 27m and see the boat, it was about a 15m yacht, sunk about 10 years ago with lots of fish calling it home, I even got to swim right through the inside which was quite narrow and apparently quite impressive for an open water diver with 5 dives under their belt! It was good, a little claustrophobic but another new experience. There were lots of big grouper fish down there with little teeth and that did look quite evil! As I was lowering down into the boat to swim through I looked to my right and a big one was staring me down, right next to my face which did make me jump! We looked around the rest of the boat and then continued up onto the reef. There wasn't as much beautiful coral to see compared to Koh Tao but it was good and I got to see some different things. We saw a feather star, a large coral from the sandy sea bed that when touched sinks right back into the sand with no trace of where it was. I was able to hold a giant sea cucumber which felt nothing like I was expecting! Very weird fleshy muscular thing with a soft furry belly! Swam past two nemos sticking close to their anenoeme, stroked the open side of another coral, a big leafed plant with jelly like protrusions which felt so squishy and soft, and lastly saw coral stuck to rock which when touched changed from pink to white which was vey cool to watch! All in all a good dive, and we swam back to the beach to return to the dive shop. We were given a BBQ lunch with free drinks. I got chatting to a group of Australians and with the free drinks this turned into some drinking games, mostly cheers to the governor and some nice swims in between. It was a good day on a beautiful island under the sun with a good dive, I had lots to go back and tell Amy about.