21/2/09 We were late leaving for the airport, because our hostel changed its airport shuttle company overnight and their first one didn't leave until 10.45 am. That was OK for us, because our flight wasn't until 13.55 anyway, but the people who had already bought tickets for earlier lifts had to have them refunded and then get taxis in.
Now a couple of months ago, around New Year in Cairns, I lost my penknife. I was sure it was somewhere in my bags, but couldn't actually find it anywhere. As we were going through the security checks at Sydney airport, for the first time on our trip my day bag was pulled aside... the guy asked to search it, and what should turn up but... my penknife! We'd already checked our big bags in, so it had to be confiscated. I wasn't best pleased, as you can imagine, because I've had it for years. I bet they get to take everything like that home with them at the end of the day, as well! My mood lightened a bit as we got through to the duty free shopping section, however, because there was a girl going round with a tray of samples of the new sort of Bailey's - 'with a hint of coffee'. It's absolutely delicious; the texture is a bit thinner than the original sort, and the taste is great too. Dave didn't think it was as sweet as the usual stuff, as well. As I told the girl, I could drink it all day!
I got a window seat, but for the majority of the time it was cloudy underneath so I didn't get any photos until near the end, when the clouds cleared away as we were descending. It was sunset when we landed. As we were walking along the passage between the plane and the arrivals lounge, we saw and heard hundreds of small birds perched on the roofs of the buildings outside the passage windows, and as we walked out of the passage we were greeted by a four man vocal quartet, singing cheerful songs and playing guitars at the same time! After we had cleared passport control and Customs and got near the exits, exotic smells poured in. The climate was certainly tropical, too - as hot as Australia, but more humid. We were met by a woman from Awesome Adventures, who briefed us and gave us all our accommodation/food and activities vouchers, and then we got our free lift to our hotel. We were too knackered to go in the pool, so after we'd dumped our stuff in the dorm, I walked over to the internet place to check emails before going to bed - I came across lots of small frogs hopping around near the bushes on the way.

22/2/09 We had to be up early because our transfer to Port Denerau (the marina near Nadi) was at 7.30, and it was 10 minutes early so it was just as well we'd been in the lobby from about 7.15! It was an almost perfect day weather wise, with only a few really high and wispy clouds round the edges of the sky. After checking in, we got on the boat and off we went! It turned out that it wasn't just our tour group on it, though, but lots of other people doing other trips as well. The first resort we were staying at was on one of the most northern Yasawa islands, so the trip took about three or four hours. I stood on the front deck for ages, just looking at the scenery and taking photos. I couldn't get over how beautiful it was - it surpassed even the Whitsundays (with the exception of Whitehaven Beach.) Due to the cooling breeze, I got pretty sunburnt without even realising it until I got back downstairs into the aircon. There are a lot of lagoons around the Yasawas, and I nearly fell overboard with ectasy when we sailed into a particularly shallow and beautiful one, next to two islands joined by a sandy spit. The water was just so turquoise and clear, I wished I could just jump over the edge of the boat and swim around! As I stood out on the deck, I saw a few shoals of tiny fish skim a couple of metres over the water, obviously disturbed by the prow of the boat (Dave saw this too, through the windows downstairs.) Then I saw two or three larger fish further out, flying for about 10-20 metres parallel to the boat; they were about a foot long, and I could see their 'wing' fins clearly! I was really pleased to have seen flying fish so close up, because once at Koh Tao we saw some small ones, but it was in the distance so we didn't see them properly.
Eventually our resort was called - 'Coral View' - so we and the rest of the group went round the back, identified our luggage and were transferred to the island in a couple of much smaller boats, from the resort. As soon as we arrived we were given lunch (rice, with some strips of aubergine, some other vegetables and a couple of slices of pineapple), and then shown into the rooms/dorm. There was a free taster dive session offered, so we both took it, hoping it would be a proper session like we had at the Barrier Reef - but it turned out to just be for five minutes, and you didn't do anything beyond walking along the bottom ducking your head underwater, practising breathing. For anything more, you had to pay from about $120 onwards, so we just got our snorkels out and snorkelled around in the bay. We didn't see much, though.
Afternoon tea was at 4 o'clock, and after that we tried out one of the hammocks strung out between the palm trees by the beach. I got a good photo of Dave falling out when trying to get up from it! I went for a brief walk round to the rocky headland, took a couple of photos and picked up some interesting shells. As I stood there, a single kyak passed by in the distance, with a Fijian guy in it singing away.
After I'd walked back and had joined Dave for a bit, we went back into the sea to cool off. Dinner was at 7 - a hot buffet of a delicious pork and vegetable mixture, mushy aubergine, a fish mixture, rice, potatoes, salad, pineapple and watermelon chunks. During dinner a male vocal/guitar quartet performed, and afterwards all the staff sang a traditional welcome song, and because it was a Sunday, they performed a couple of dances as well. After that, Dave I played some cards before going to bed.

23/2/09 After an early breakfast, we went on our first special outing, a visit to a the significant Sawa-i-Lau cave complex on another island. They are all filled with deep pools, though you didn't have to go underwater to get into the first one. The water was only shallow enough to be able to stand on the bottom in a couple of places, and it was lovely and cool and refreshing. It was so deep in some places that some of the guys climbed really high up the walls and jumped in. The roof of this cave was very high. I even snorkelled for a bit, because the water was surprisingly clear, but didn't see any fish. Dave said it must be freshwater, because it seemed to be completely cut off from the sea outside, but I tasted it and it was slightly salty, so it must have been at least a mixture. After this, while we were all still in the water, anybody that wanted to could carry on into the rest of the cave complex - to get in, you had to swim underwater for a few seconds through a submerged passage. Dave chose not to do this but I did. It was a lot darker in the next cave, because the only natural light was what filtered through underwater from the first one - the effect was quite peculiar, because it made the water near the entrance look like it glowed in the dark. I really, really wished I had an underwater camera at that point, so I could have taken it in and captured the effect! We swam to the end of the passage, following our main guide, and as we passed through, we saw other caves lead off it. Once we had reached the end, he told us a bit about the caves. Apparently the local Fijians never come into these caves, because they are said to be the resting grounds of the ten-headed god of Uluitini (nine of them represent his nine snake heads, and one his human head), and he said that although he goes into the caves nearly every day, part of him always remains a bit afraid...
Lunch was rice with stirfried veg, and then Dave and I went for a long snorkel in an area round the front of the bay that we hadn't been in yet. It was a lot better this time - more coral and varieties of fish, and we saw some very large royal blue starfish. There was some dead coral around too though, which was a shame.
After tea, Dave and I sat in deckchairs until dinner. This time, after we'd finished and the staff had sung a couple of songs to welcome the new people who had arrived that day, we all played some games. Dave had gone to fetch our cards after the songs, and had stayed on for a while chatting to someone in the dorm, so he missed them. I won the first one, with a nice Danish guy who was my partner - it was where everybody was in the middle dancing, passing a stick around, and whenever the music stopped whoever was holding it was out, with their partner. Whoever was left at the end won. We were told to go to the bar, where we were given a can of beer each (I managed to exchange mine for a Sprite.) I didn't join in the other two games though, because I missed the start of the second due to going out to see where Dave had got to, and I didn't fancy the third (a snake dance.) Once the games had finished, Dave and I went outside and lay in a hammock for a couple of hours. It was a lovely walm evening, and all the stars were out, so it was quite romantic to lie there between two palm trees under the stars, with the waves lapping the beach only a couple of metres away and practically nobody else around!

24/2/09 After a breakfast of little sugar glazed buns (like hot cross buns but much smaller and without the mixed fruit and the cross on top), cereal & milk and some pineapple, we had to pack up and move our big bags out to the main building and label them with whichever resorts we were moving on to next. We'd taken our swimming stuff etc. out first, so that we'd be able to get some swimming in before lunch and our transfer straight afterwards. So the rest of the morning was taken up with swimming and hammock-lazing, and after lunch, the staff sang the traditional farewell song 'Isolay' (I don't know the right spelling, so that's just the pronunciation.)
After that we were transferred back onto the the big 'Yasawa Flyer' boat, and a couple of hours later Dave and I, and some other people, were transferred onto our next location; not an island resort this time, but a boat called the 'Wana Taki', which is permanently moored between two islands. As soon as we had dumped our stuff in the dorm, we were given free cocktail each, and then we could do what we liked. Some of us jumped over the side of the boat into the sea, a drop of about five metres - nice and refreshing. Afternoon tea was served, and a few of us ended up playing a game the crew had been playing, which the captain said had been brought over by the Indians over 100 years ago. It's a bit like pool, but instead of hitting balls with a cue, you flick a disc to hit other small discs into the corner holes. It's played on a square wooden board with narrow upright sides, and it can be played with two or four people. A red disc is the equivalent of the black ball, but it has to be potted penultimately rather than last.
Then whoever wanted to do it, which was nearly everyone, were taken a shortish distance away for a snorkelling trip off a nearby island. Again, there was some dead coral around, but also some colourful and interesting fish, starfish, coral and sponges. The captain dived down and brought up a large sea slug. Dave and I both touched it - it was very rubbery, not slimy at all. He said that the Chinese like eating them, which doesn't surprise me in the least! Some of the others had been fishing while the rest of us snorkelled, but they didn't catch anything.
I took some photos of the sunset, but clouds had moved over quickly, and soon after that it began raining. Dinner was lovely, and after that we did various things. Some people carried on fishing, Dave and a couple of other people watched two DVDs, some people stayed upstairs and some others went to bed. I watched some of the DVDs, but then I went upstairs to see if anything interesting was going on. I found a couple of the guys sitting with all the crew members, who were busy drinking kava and playing the disc-flicking game. Kava is a traditional Fijian drink made from water and a special sort of powdered root. It's non alcoholic but is tranquilising, as it actually numbs the tongue and the inside of your mouth. It looks and tastes like muddy ditchwater - I know, because they gave me some in half a coconut shell and said that I had to drink it all in one go! It's extremely important to Fijians, and usually there's an important ritual attached to it, but there wasn't this time because it was an informal situation. The kava ceremony is used both for ceremonial and informal situations. I played 10 and 7 card rummy with an English guy (Chris) and one of the local crew (William). William kept giving me helping after helping of kava, and I drank it all because I felt it would be rude to refuse, until finally Chris told me that in this situation it was OK for me to say I didn't want any more, because he'd already done it and been told it was fine.
After a while Chris, William, George (another English guy) and I went over the the back of the boat, because another much smaller boat had drawn up to us. It was filled with local spear fishermen and their catch, which included one absolutely massive fish which I really should have asked the name of but forgot. It turned out that they were seeing if the 'Wana Taki' crew wanted to buy their catch, but apparently it was too expensive so William told them they didn't want any of it. After the boat had gone, George and a couple of others started fishing, and as was very late by now anyway, I went to bed. (Dave had gone to bed earlier, when the DVD had finished and I was still playing cards.)

25/2/09 We transferred to our next resort today, but not until about 3.30 pm so there was lots of time to do fun things first. The weather was perfect again, as the rain that had started the evening before had cleared up during the night and it was now really sunny and hot. A lot of the others went out on a fishing trip in the morning, but Dave and I didn't fancy it so we snorkelled over towards the nearest land instead, because we could see that there was a reef there. It was brilliant - maybe because the water was deeper, the coral and sponges were better preserved than in the place we went the day before. In one place a rock came within about a metre and a half of the surface, and a small shoal of small bright blue fish swam around between the waving small fingers of a large sponge on top of it. We also some 'Nemos', aka Clownfish, for the first time on our travels (we hadn't seen any in Thailand or Australia, surprisingly enough.) We also saw lots of other colourful tropical fish, and some shoals of larger, plainer fish in the deeper water. Even in the deepest water, next to the boat, we could see the occasional fish swimming around on the bottom. On our way over we passed a couple of white jellyfish about a foot wide, swimming close to the surface, but luckily we saw them in plenty of time so we were able to swim round them. We stayed out for a long time, because there was so much to see, but eventually we started feeling lots of pinpricks, so we made our way back to the boat. They felt a bit like tiny stings, but without any physical reaction (swelling etc.) We had felt one or two on our way over here, but suddenly we felt them all over! We were puzzled as to what exactly was causing it. I thought maybe it was a sort of plankton, or some other drifting organisms which were too small to be seen as anything more than particles.
After lunch, I went kayaking with a Dutch girl called Inge and an American guy called Jeff. We kayaked quite far across the sea to a small deserted beach made up of broken coral as well as sand. I spent a lot of time beachcombing, because there were literally hundreds of interesting shells as well as beautiful pieces of hard coral. I picked up a couple of cowrie shells, one yellow and one pink, a conelike shell with a reddish streak curling round it up to the tip, a small piece of turquoise stone, and something else I've forgotten now. I'd have liked to have picked up a lot more, but knew I didn't really have much safe space to put them where they wouldn't get bumped around. I also noticed a lot of 'pudding stone' rock around - I was surprised by this because I thought it was peculiar to Hertfordshire, so I hadn't expected to come across any anywhere else, let alone in Fiji. The views from the island were so idyllic, I wished I'd brought my camera along (I hadn't brought it in the kayak in case water got on it.) Luckily, Inge kindly said that I could take some photos on hers, and then she could transfer them straight onto my memory card on her laptop later on, so I did that. Before we returned to our kayaks I couldn't resist a quick dip in the sea. As we paddled away, I was so overcome by the clearness of the sea that unlike on the Yasawa Flyer on our first day, I did actually fall overboard in ectasy (deliberately, I might add) and swim around for a bit, before getting back into my kayak and paddling back to the Wana Taki.
Dave and I didn't do much for a while after I got back, apart from join in with another jumping/diving off the side of the boat session, but then Dave and I got out a two person kayak and we went back to the small beach, so I could show it to Dave. I did pick up a couple more shells, because I simply couldn't resist, but we had to paddle back as quick as we could because we knew we had to get our stuff ready for the imminent transferral.
Our next destination was 'Wayalailai Ecohaven'. As soon as we had put our stuff in the dorm we had afternoon tea, and then some people went on the guided walk to the rocky summit of the island. We decided to leave it until the next day, because we were quite tired by now, so we just tried out the hammocks on the beach and took some photos. As I walked off the beach, I saw a glimpse of something purple in the sand, so I turned it over with my foot. It was a big purple cowrie shell, so it went into my growing collection...
It turned out that Wednesday was their 'Traditional Night', so when we arrived for dinner everyone had to take part in a kava ceremony first. Dave arrived a couple of minutes before me and sat at the front, not knowing the right procedures as he had missed the beginning. Due to this, he tried to just take a mouthful of his serving, and was told off and made to down it all! The kava is made in a traditional big wooden bowl, and when some is scooped up in half a coconut shell and given to you, you have to clap once, say 'Bula!' and down it all, then clap three times and say 'Vinaka!' (thankyou.) When the ceremony had finished, it was dinnertime - which was a buffet of food cooked in a Lovo (a traditional sort of underground oven.) This included a couple of big lumps of what looked a bit like potato; I asked what they were, and they said one was sweet potato and the other was taro. The sweet potato looked a bit different to the sort you get at home - whiter, and a lot more like a normal potato. Also being a root vegetable, the taro looked a lot like the sweet potato, but with long soft fibres in it. I didn't like either, though did I like the spinach, the chicken and a vegetable mixure. We had to eat everything with our fingers. After the food, they performed some songs and traditional dances for us.

26/2/09 The first thing we did after breakfast was... snorkelling with Black Tip sharks! A boat took us and a few other people out to a reef, dropping one of the crew off at another one on the way to do some spearfishing! Once we arrived, the reef itself was disappointing but the sharks weren't. They weren't too big, and aren't aggressive to humans, but it still gave you a thrill to see them swim under you. The crew members who joined us, being native Fijians, were completely at home underwater - they caught fish with their hands to give to the sharks, which was pretty much impossible for anyone else to do, and they could hold their breath for far longer than anybody I've ever seen before. They were comfortable sitting on the sea floor and swimming around for between five and ten minutes, at a depth which anybody else would have found very painful to the ears.
When we got back, and after lunch, some of us did an activity where you could swim from the island we were on to one opposite. We were taken round to the starting place by boat, but we weren't allowed to start swimming from the shore because it was too shallow for the boat to land without damaging the coral. It was very deep where we were dropped off - I don't think I've ever swam for a prolonged period of time in open sea this deep. I was slightly nervous about sharks, but we'd been told a couple of days ago that the only potentially dangerous thing that could hurt us was barracuda, and we didn't see any. We passed a couple more of the same sort of jellyfish that we'd seen near the Wana Taki, though, and felt a few of the tiny 'stings'. We were swimming for half and hour or more, and for quite a while the sea was so deep that you couldn't see the bottom as more than a dark haze. Then it came within view, with some fish swimming around next to the white sand, and then lots of amazing corals, sponges and tropical fish! It was beautiful - much, much better than the reef where we'd seen the sharks. Again, I think it was much better preserved than the other place because it was in deeper water. We were wearing our snorkels the whole time, so we could see it all clearly. We weren't allowed to swim right onto the beach of the other island, unfortunately, so we had to climb directly back into the boat.
When we got back to the resort we played a game of beach volleyball with some of the others, and some of the staff joined in as well - Dave and I were on the same team. We played two halves of up to 21 points each. Our team won the first half narrowly, and then in the second half we won 13 points in a row, all on my serve! The other team made a big comeback, so we were tied 20-20, but we managed to get the extra 2 points to win it. The sun was scorching us the whole time, and I was so hot and sweaty by the time we'd finished that I just ran down and jumped in the sea to cool off.
After tea at 4, Dave and I and four others went on our guided summit walk. Our guide said a prayer before we began, to ask for a safe journey, but it wasn't too bad - quite strenuous, but not overly so. On the way up, he showed us some kava plants, a breadfruit tree, two different sorts of banana, and some cassava plants. He also showed us a plant where the leaves are crushed and the juice put on cuts to stop the bleeding, and a tree (the only one on the island, apparently) which has leaves which dig into your flesh painfully if you brush up against it. (he said that he'd brushed up against it by mistake once when he was chasing wild pigs.) He took us up past three rocky columns sticking up off the top of the hill/mountain, nicknamed the Three Sisters, and then to a big rock nicknamed the Wobbling Rock. It looks precariously balanced, but you can climb on top of it safely, so we did. The guide pushed it a little while we were on it, so we could feel it wobbling. On our way back down he got hold of a coconut and hacked it open with his machete, and we all took turns in drinking its milk before he carved the flesh out into bits for us to eat. From a place we stopped off at on the way down, as the sun began going down, you got amazing views of the bay and a lot of the other islands in the distance.
The trip down was a lot more tricky than the way up, because this time the guide was at the back instead of the front, and it was easier to slip going down than it was going up. Also, it was starting to get dark, so it was harder to see roots sticking up etc. True to the universal truth throughout my life that something always tends to happen to me on whatever trip I go on, I had a bit of an accident - I stopped to take a photo, and then as I stepped onto the flat rock which was next in the path, just as I was about to return the camera to my trouser pocket I slipped on the rock and fell on my back. The camera went in one direction and the water bottle in the other, and although I'd cut my arm a little and hurt the base of the palm of my right hand, my concern was all for the camera. Luckily I'd put it back in its leather case, which deadened its fall on the rock, and it had fallen to my left and against the small crack between the flat rock and a rock which acted as its wall, rather than flying to my right and over the side down into undergrowth (where I'd never have been able to find it again.) I tested it straight away and it still worked fine, which was a relief! Dave had gone on ahead, but when he heard me fall he rushed back up to see if I was OK. I carried on down, but after a few minutes I realised that I'd twisted a muscle in my back in the fall. It wasn't too bad, just a bit painful, and I could walk OK. When we arrived at the bottom I took some photos of the sunset, and then it was dinnertime.

27/2/09 My back was painful during the night, but in the morning it was much better. It was raining during the night and for part of the morning, but then it cleared up. We had to pack up our big bags early, because we were transferring to our last overnight destination later on. The rain came back once or twice, so we didn't go in the sea. We just lay around in hammocks and played some cards, and I wrote for a bit.
The island we were transferred onto was tiny. Some of us played beach volleyball, and then the sun went down so I left to take some photos. Just as I finished, dinner was called, and then we did - crab racing! The crabs were only an inch or so across, and each had a number written on it. I chose number 8, but it didn't win. A circle about a foot in diameter was drawn in chalk, and then another wider circle was drawn round that. The crabs were all dumped in the middle, and whichever got over the edge of the outer circle first won. After that Dave went to bed, but I stayed up to play a couple of games of the disc-flicking game with some other people before going to bed myself.

28/2/09 Our last day in the Yasawas (though technically, the last island we were on is actually part of the Manamucas.) In the morning we were transferred onto a boat which took us on a bit of a cruise. We had a barbecue with pasta salad, potato salad and green salad for lunch, but before this, we were taken to a village on a small island. We all had to go into the village hall and take part in a kava ceremony to welcome us to the village. Our guide said that one of us had to act as the chief of our 'tribe' or group, because when Fijians go to different villages etc. their chief is always given the first helping... Dave volunteered, and enjoyed the status of officially being a tribal chief! I sat on his left, so I was the official 'spokesman' and was given the second helping (though our guide actually did our speaking part of the ceremony, in Fijian.) After the ceremony finished, we looked round the shell market outside, and some of the rest of the village, before going back to the boat.
After lunch, we went to the island of Monuriki, which is where the Tom Hanks film 'Castaway' was filmed. The sand gleamed white, it felt at least 40 degrees, and the sea was so incredibly clear and warm, it looked absolutely idyllic (apart from a couple of plastic bottles and old flipflops in the middle.) Dave and I took lots of photos first, and then snorkelled for a long time. In one section, shallow and very wide, the coral was so amazing I just floated above it and gaped, as much as you can with a snorkel tube in your mouth. As well as the fish starfish and sea slugs, we came across a long line of what I think were large cuttlefish! It's the first time I've seen any outside of an aquarium, so I was really pleased. It was funny to float above them and see how their edges rippled and undulated as they swam.
At 3 o'clock we had to get back on the boat, and we sailed for quite a while before reach the Yasaw Flyer, which took a couple of hours to get back to Port Denerau via a couple of other resorts. We stayed the night at Nadi Bay Resort Hotel, in the dorms, because we had stayed there on our first night in Fiji and we could get dropped off nearby for free, by a bus from Port Denerau.