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Today was a pretty manic day. We had an early start after having little sleep due to a stressful announcement last night! I checked my email for the first time late yesterday evening and found out that our flight to Los Angeles from Nadi had been changed to Monday morning (rather than Sunday night). This was pretty inconvient for us, since we don't have very long in L.A. So we phoned the airline and they told us that we were able to catch an earlier flight - so we are now leaving Fiji a bit earlier and heading to the states tomorrow night! I'm not sure what time it works out to be NZ time, but we arrive in L.A. at 1.35pm pacific time.
The reason we had an early start was because we had booked a day cruise to a place called South Sea Island. It was absolutely beautiful! A tiny little island which you can walk around leisurely within ten minutes. The sand was beautifully white, the water was crystal clear and there were lots of palm trees and coconut trees. We arrived by catching a big Catamaran from Denarau marina. This part of Fiji is very fancy - and obviously designed for tourists. I'm not sure if everyone would agree but despite how flash and upmarket it was, I don't think this is how I would like to spend a holiday. The people staying in these places would barely get a chance to see the real Fiji - and isn't that the whole point of going overseas?
After catching the catamaran, we jumped on to a much, much smaller boat about one kilometre from the shore of our tiny island. Once we pulled up, we were greeted by Fijians singing and dancing for us. Everyone was absolutely stunned at the beauty of the island! It was beyond anything I've ever seen before.
The first thing Matt and I did was grab some snorkelling gear. For anyone that knows me well - I HATE swimming. I can barely swim and I don't like going near water so this was a big deal for me! We had a quick crash course with one of the locals in how to use our gear and then off we went by ourselves. I was pretty ridiculous at first because I found the idea of breathing with my face under water very difficult to comprehend, but eventually I started to get the hang of it. Straight away we saw amazing marine life! The fish were every colour and pattern you can think of - ranging from electric blue, to rainbow, to stripey black and white.
After snorkelling for the first time, we had our lunch. It was a big bbq with lots of fruit and salad. I had a yummy lunch with two bread rolls and NEW ZEALAND butter, leaves and tomatoes covered in a thousand island dressing, then for dessert watermelon, pineapple and apples. I noticed that the apples here aren't as good as they are in New Zealand - they taste a lot more flowery. Matt ate chicken, fish, steak and lamb sausages! He was very happy.
After lunch Matt and I went snorkelling again and went a bit deeper. We looked at some of the reefs and continued to see even more stunning fish!
We then decided to go for a walk around the island, do some sunbathing and so on. The view is beautiful no matter where you are standing, and there are lots of places to sunbathe - chairs, hammocks, beanbags, etc. We took some pretty cool photos which you will be able to check out on Facebook soon.
Whilst Matt and I were walking we overhead some people talking about a snorkelling trip. Now, remembering that I HATEEE water and swimming, I was pretty surprised by my response to this conversation. Without even knowing what the trip was, I told Matt we were going to do it. So we grabbed our stuff very quickly and just jumped on the boat with several other people.
I began to regret it quickly. I thought maybe we would just go a little bit deeper than what Matt and I had done just before, but instead the boat kept going... and going... further out in to the sea... And then we were told to put our gear on and jump in. BLAH. But I did it, thanks to Matt's encouragement - and also seeing a very young child who was about seven or eight put his gear on and climb in. Now I'm SO relieved I did it - after all isn't it these kind of learning experiences that make travel worthwhile? The sea bed was about 10m below us which meant we were able to see even more - including a big blue starfish :) Some other girl said she saw an octopus - that would have been pretty mean but I've been wanting to see a starfish since I was a teeny girl so I came out happy.
After, we watched a Fijian teach us how to crack coconuts and grate them. And then we shared it all around! YuuuuuuMmMm. Catherine Schroder - you would have loved it.
Matt and I did some more sunbathing after eating coconuts. And now we are VERY, VERY burnt. It's pretty ridiculous given how much sunscreen we used. So now we are in bed feeling pretty sorry for ourselves. We tried to have a cold shower when we got back, but there was no water coming out of the shower so we ended up using our bottled water to wash, hahahaha.
Our trip to a tiny tropical island came to an end with Fijians singing and dancing their farewells to us, and then catching the boats back to our hotel.
I'm not sure when I will be able to post again as this time tomorrow we will be flying to Los Angeles! Hopefully we will get internet access pretty soon, but can't make any guarantees.
Hope this isn't getting too boring for you, for us it's CRAZYYYYYYYYYY and hopefully we can upload photos of Facebook soon! :)
P.s. Despite all the beautiful beaches, exceptional marine life and new life experiences, there was a bad aspect today. We got stung multiple times by sea lice - the microscopic larvae of jellyfish and other ocean stingers. So now my arms are covered in blisters, woop. I felt stinging when I was snorkelling and asked a Fijian afterwards about it and he said to just stand in the fresh water shower and it'll be fine. The two other times I went snorkelling weren't bad at all but maybe that's because I had applied sun lotion very recently! So yeah, be aware of that if you go swimming in hot water D:
- comments
Mum Not bored at all - and if anyone is bored of hearing it they can always click the 'x' button :P South Sea Island I've heard of before although I am darned if I can place where -it sounds utterly spectacular though!!! ... enjoy your last day there - and make sure you cover up!! The flight to LA will be incredibly uncomfortable if you get even more burnt! Love you!
Mum Oh, and Johnnie says "Lolz!" at the sea lice!
Steph Sea lice are no joke Jonathan.
Aunty Claire You certainly making the most of the opportunity hun and I am really pleased you decided to go for the snorkelling hun. Like you say what is the point of holidaying if you aren't going to embrace the full experience!!! Make the most of your final day there and look forward to reading about the next leg in LA. How exciting! Love you and miss you. Stay safe xxx
Nan Not in the least boring merely fanning the flames of envy apart from the sea lice that is. Well that is another stage completed now on to somewhere completely different. Can't wait for the next installment. Love you xxxxxx
Gill No, it's not boring at all. I kept a diary of our travels 35 years ago. At the time I thought I'd never forget all the magical places we visited - but sadly over time, you do. So keeping a blog is a great idea - you capture all those funny little occurrences even when things don't go according to plan or you spend the entire day in an airport, or yet again, you have to eat fresh coconut or pineapple. I'm looking forward to hearing about LA.