The flight form LA to Nadi was surprisngly good. We slept quite a bit, had some nice food ( a midnight snack and breakfast!) and it went quite quickly. As we passed the international date line we arrived in Nadi at 5am on Thursday 28th July, after leaving LA at 11:30pm on Tueady 26th...so Wednesday 27th never existed for us - hope nothing important happened!

After waiting in a long queue at immigration, we collected our luggage and headed into arrivals. We asked at information for where our 'Beautiful Pacific' rep Maria was and were shown to where she was sat, holding a sign with our names on! She greeted us and gave us each a shell necklace and a garland made from palm leaves - Dave looked very pretty! We hung around in the airport until 7am when our transfer to the boat arrived - a bus with no windows (natural air conditioning!). When we arrived at the port it was bustling with people waiting to get out of Nadi - a good decision judging by what we'd seen from the bus, not a very nice town. We boarded the bat just before 8:30am, as the sun was rising - our first glimpse of what we could expect for teh next 12 days! After setting off, the weather got quite hot quite quickly. We started off sitting on the upper deck, and were amazed when we arrived at the first drop off point, South Sea Islan. It looked like the island from Lost, picture perfect. Lots of other island drop offs followed, each one as spectacular. We moved downstairs to try and escape from the heat!

Eventually, after 2 and a half hours, we were approaching Waya Island, home of Octopus Resort and our own slice of paradise. The boat from the island came out to meet the Yasawa Flyer adn we all climbed aboard. We then got a first proper view of the island - stunning white sandy beach, clear blue sky, palm trees, beachside bures - perfect! The staff from the island came down to the beach to welcome us with a traditional Fijian song! As we got off the boat, Laura had a slip into the sea, but luckily she'd just passed me our camera filled with hundreds of photos from America! We shook hands with each staff member as we walked up the beach and they greeted us by saying 'Bula!' - heard everywhere in Fjij!

We were shown to some seats on the deck and given fruit juice while the staff carreid our bags up from the beach. One of the managers, Jim, talked to us for a while about the resort and what was happening that day. When we handed over our accommodation voucher we were told that our dorm was having a deep clean so we wouldn't be able to get in until later. We left our bags in the office, changed into our swimming stuff and jumped in the pool as we were so hot!

At the pool I'd spotted a couple that we'd met at the Green Tortoise hostel in San Francisco - Liam and Rachel, so we chatted to them until lunchtime. Lunch was served in the restaurant (with a sand floor!). All meals are included in the price and we got to choose from 10 items plus a daily special. We both had the special which was a club sandwich that day! In the afternoon we swam in the Ocean for the first time, using the 'natural' channel through the coral to swim in and out.

After showering and enjoying a cocktail overlooking the sunset, it was time for our welcome 'kava' ceremony. All the new arrivals sat in a circle and drank the traditional Fijian drink, made from the root of the pepper plant and tasting like dirty water! It was nice to experience the ceremony and to get to know the others that had arrived that day.

At about 7pm we heard the sound of the conch shell which signals that it's time for food. We sat with Liam, Rachel, Astrid and Thomas (from Austria) and another Japanese couple who didn't talk to us! The food was amazing - 3 courses of fresh delicious food! After dinner was the trivia quiz (there'a a different activity each night) and we were told to stay at our tables which would be our teams. The quiz was good fun and we didn't do too badly....until round 5 - the talent round! We had absolutely no talent between us and eventually decided that Astrid and Thomas would juggle and teh rest of us would stand behind them and sing the circus theme tune. As the other groups performed we got very nervous as they were all brilliant (we were second from last to go). Our act lasted about a minute and we were all embarassed. Luckily, Liam injected a bit of comedy into the performance which helped a lot! Unsurprisingly, we didn't win, so we went to bed exhausted and jet lagged straitght after it finished! We both agreed that we were in paradise and would throroughly enjoy our 12 nights here!