We left Navala early on one of only two buses and said goodbye to Bulou who shed a tear as we left. After a long bus ride to RakiRaki at the north of the island we caught a boat to nananu-i-ra. The lodge was really well set up and pretty friendly as usual and most of the backpackers were british, the island was nice, white sandy beaches and a fairly good walk over the top with good views. We'd only planned for one dive while we were there but ended up payi...

After a huge comedy breakfast we went to visit the village with Seresio (who turns out to be the chiefs cousin) The village is a real oasis, all the houses are made in the traditional style of bure. Each family has three bure, one to sleep in, one to cook in and one toilet. Seresio walked us around the village, took us into his cousins bure for a break, and introduced us to an adorable bunch of children, who loved having their photo taken and stroking clai...

We caught the bus to Ba (via the post office where we sent Sarah a parcel of shells by sea mail, god knows when it will arrive). We arrived in Ba, phoned Boulou to ask them to meet us in Navala, grabbed some food at the hot bread kitchen and some Pakora (some had raw chillies inside....eeek) and some indian sweets from a stall, then got on the bus. The ride was very long, dusty and bumpy and the radio on the bus was playing a recipe programme in Hindi. The ...

We went to the airport to pay for our flight change, and to drop off some luggage (the joy of no terrorist scares so lockers available) .We then caught the bus to Lautoka, a great journey through villages and sugar cane plantations. The journey was colourful as always, real characters getting on and off. The kids sit up, turn around to look at us and smile. This part of the island is heavily indo-fijian as they work and run the plantations. We arrived in Lauto...

Diving in the Mamanucas We booked ourselves into the West Motor Inn for a few nights and booked a 10 tank dive with Reef Safari for the next two days. The hotel was nice, bit shabby but the first night in a bed for ages, we were in luxury. We were picked up by James in his Jeep at 7:45am. James is the general manager, he’s originally from Southampton UK but lived in Oz for 7yrs. The outfit is brand-new so all the equipment is brand-new, we ...