Beachcomber Island

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Up early at Nadi Bay to pack my bags and go for a swim before the Beachcomber bus picked me up. Said goodbye to Danyel and jumped on the bus with Brett. Only took a small bag with some clothes, camera etc and left my rucksac in storage at the hostel. (will be back here after Beachcomber before i leave for New Zealand. Drove through all the posh resorts and picked more people up then arrived at the jetty. Got on the boat for beachcomber and went passed all the islands in the Mamanuca group ranging from huge forest filled islands to 10 metre sand dunes sticking out of the water with someone having a picnic!! Compared to the other islands I had been Beachcomber was really busy and more commercialised. Rather than a local fijian who aready knows your name asking you if you wanted to go fishing with him it ws announced to the whole island that 'the 12:15 fishing trip will be departing in 5 minutes, please make your way to the beach'. It still had the white sand, blue water, coral, bar etc and even a minuture golf course. Sat down for lunch and noticed the lads from Natandola beach were sat at the next table so spent the day with them playing miniture golf with a 5 iron?? They left late afternoon so I went and played rugby and volleyball on the beach with the fijians but while dazzling them with my speed and sidestep I managed to cut my feet open on the pieces of coral! Had some dinner then went to the bar with Brett and a couple of others from the Experience bus. A few Fiji Bitters later and we were doing the 'Bula' dance and generally making fools of ourselves. Eventually went back to the two tier 100 bed dorm in the early hours. The next day was pretty much the same, golf, swimming, sunbathing but no rugby (as i cudnt walk). Rather than going to bed when the bar closed we decided to build a fire on the beach and drink lots of wine. When the sun came up though I thought I had better get some sleep before i leave! There were quite a few arguments in the morning about paying. You are encouraged to put everything you buy onto your tab (everybody has a bed number) and pay at the end. People get very drunk and charged bottles of wine, spirits etc onto their bed and dont remember in the morning. Thankfully i opted to pay for everything as I bought it so checked out pretty easily and jumped on the boat back to Nadi.

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