Ahhh Fiji......Fiji Fiji Fiji........

Famous first words by ourselves on arriving in Fiji. I knew i was going to like Fiji when the customs officals stamped us through within 5 seconds (amazing compared to Oz & NZ!!). Walking into the unair-conditioned airport we got a bus with a few others to Nomads Sky Lodge in Nadi (pronounced Nandi) which later became our home. This is because we spent 6 days here, Nadi is notorious for not having anything to do but i suppose we were acclimatising to 'Fiji time' which has formed the basis for my life principles. We atayed in Nadi for 6 days because we wanted to go to Beachcomber after 2 days to see some friends who were there then but we didnt get round to booking it until the night before we wanted to go and we were told that there was no space so we stayed in Nadi until the 6th July - 3 days later.

The first day in Nadi, Pierre, Heather (who we met in AUK and was staying at Nomads the same time as us) and I went into the little town which is basically just a street (a bit like Guernsey) where we were ushered into a shop by a local woman, sat down introduced to 'cava' (cava looks like muddy water) the local drink which is a drink made from pepper root. Tis not legal in our countries but is supposed to prevent two types of cancer! (cervical & gut i think) After the little ceremony which i think was very well rehersed, we def weren't the only ones to have seen this, although i did enjoy this, being the chief may have been the reason for this. Being the chief didnt get me any perks or priviliges, it just meant i had to drink it first. All good fun. After this the people tried to sell us all sorts of souvenirs, island hopping package deals, cannabis, cava etc etc. Luckily i didnt part with too much of my cash (because i didnt bring much - haha 3 months in asia teaches you a thing or two) although i think Pierre & Heather did which got me off the hook.

The rest of the days were spent by the pool, one day we went to a beach about a 45 min drive away which was supposed to be the 7th best beach in the world and 3rd sexiest beach in the world. To this day i am still sceptical of both those acolades but still was nice and nice time was had although there were currents which made it hard to swim back to shore especially after a long 'get fit swim'. Our lack of fitness was starting to become noticed by this time on our gap year trip. A copious amount of reading was done in fiji, i read 3 books in 17 days one of which was particularly hefty.

On the 6th we headed to beachcomber for 2 nights where we met up with Sam & Freddie and others for somme sun, sea & partying. The Bula dance was learnt here which was danced every night at 10 to the sound of the local band. Everybody got involved with this adding to the already great atmosphere on the minute island. The second night was Pierre's 19th b'day, that night we drank a bottle of 58% dark local fijian rum which was "Fiji approved" between 6 of us, needles to say mixers were needed. This contributed towards a good night peaking with a midnight swim and resulting in the feelin of death the next morning. Bad! Beachcomber is famous for its 114 bed dorm which was by far the biggest dorm we ever stayed in.

Spent another night in Nomads before heading to Pacific Harbour on the south coast for the ultimate ..... shark diving!! The lonely planet write up was absolutely incredible about this, it got my adrenaline pumping just reading it, it took me from think "i really want to do that" to "there is no way i'm not doing that" this combined with the high recommendation from Marco who we met in Palau Tioman. We spent a night on the south coast followed by a early start the next day. We had a slightly unsettling experience when we got to the shop where we got our kit etc, each of the group of divers were telling the diver master the amount of dives they had done, the responses ranged from 4000 (from a off-duty dive instructor over from Florida) to 250 (a diving enthusiast) then when it came round to me 6 was my answer. We also only had an open water course certifying us to dive to only 18m when our first dive was 30m. That day the sea was quite rough as it had apparantly been for a couple weeks. Got kitted up and out ot sea on the choppy water had our briefing, then the engines cut out fish heads were chucked in the water which were eaten by 'something' and were gone in nano-seconds. Then it was one by one into the water and down. 30m seemed no different to 18m, if i hadnt known i woul dnever have guessed. Although at first being stationary on the bottom i was breathing really heavily for about 30 - 40 seconds until i calmed myself down. It took a while for the sharks to arrive, there was a huge cluster of fish surrounding a diver holding a piece of string attached to a wheelie bin full of fish. Then sharks arrived, grey reef, nurse and then some bulls, these bull sharks were only 2 - 2.5m long (babies really). This was cool but there was more to come on the second dive. On the way up we stopped at about 15m where there was a ledge of coral, and the divers fed the sharks some more (although only grey reefs at this point). Grey reefs can nip, but what made this experience amazing was that we were looking up at it. The sharks were being fed by the divers on the ledge, where we were hanging on to the ledge (ledge was our eye level).

After an hour on the surface de-nitrogenising and eating biscuits we went down this time to 18m, this time we were directly behind the feeders so we could see the 4m + bull sharks swimming to get the food then swimming off. This was also our best chance of seeing a 6m tiger shark (the shark that is responsible for the most human attacks). We were told that the signal for seeing the tiger shark was repeated banging on the dive instructors tank with a metal pole which is really loud under water. Although this was also the signal for going back up to the surface so i was hugely disappointed when i didnt see a tiger shark after frantically looking around after hearing the signal. Back up to the surface, purchased the dvd which was to arrive by post to my home address (and it did!). My evidence.

The afternoon after we did the shark diving we got on the bus back to Nadi in order for us to start our Yasawa island hopping. The morning of departure we were picked up by a 'Awesome Adventures' bus (whom we booked it through) early only for the bus to break down. It took ages for another bus to arrive and we were slightly concerned as we had to pay for the trip before we left. When we eventually got to the port pierre & I payed no problems but ryan had ATM problems and i had to pay for him. The bus was going to depart without us but we managed to persuade the captain to turn the boat around whilst we get our things together. So all in a mild state of panic, and to make things worse everything fell out my bag as i was running to the boat. Looked like a bunch of muppets we did!

First island was Coral View (one of the northern most islands) for 2 nights, first night we drank some rum and chatted to people. The following mornig we went cave swimming, water was pretty choppy and was about half an hour long in a little wooden boat. This was cool we had to swim under a rock to get into a cave then did a bit of climbing and jumping when we got out. That evening some of us walked to the summit of the largest hill on the island and watched sunset. That night we took it a bit easier, justed chatted as there wasn't anything else to do.

Next stop was the Aweesome Adventure boat which docked near the beautiful manta Ray island (famous for manta rays!) This was good fun, made friends, went snorkelling played various games, e.g. musical chairs, that game you pass a card using only your lips, pass the orange with your neck & (the game u go under the pole leaning backwards - forgotten the name of it noew). Drank loads of cava & FMU's (Fu*k Me Up - 5 shot cocktail) the cava made me feel ill but we had good night and made friends. Following day we sunbathed on manta ray, kayaked & snorkelled. Next stop was Kuata for 2 nights. This was alos a beautiful and quiet littlwe island where sunbathing was done. The second day i went shark feeding (only reef sharks though) still fairly cool i got to feed one whilst free diving down a couple of metres, i was a bit horrified by the way the leader (if you will) scratched the coral i.e. killing it to attract the reef sharks - definitely did not approve! One night we watched the local tribe singing & dancing and ate food cooked in the ground fiji style.

Next stop South sea island for a night, which is the smallest island, could be walked around in 2 minutes. Good fun played loads of beach volleyball, went sailing, sunbathed ate good food and had good fun chatting with our friends of about a week by this point. Pierre cracked a bottle of champers before we left as it was our last day in fiji & for his b'day aswell. Boat back to Nadi where we got a pizza with and went to the airport. There was about 8 of us backpackers on our flight to LA so we had a laugh whilst waiting for our flight. Flight wasn't great, you couldn't choose when to watch a film, they all started at the same time but its passed no fuss no muss.