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Published: December 24th 2006
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Having gotten a lot of sleep due to our early night we had no problem in rising the next day with plenty of time to book our onward travel to wherever it was we had to go. The night before we had asked how much a return ticket from Naviti would be to Nadi and were reasonably pleased with the price quoted. This morning the price had gone up, considerably, several times. Every time we paid for our ticket the man would phone on to Manta Ray and the price would go up, or he, and this was the last time, came running out of the office ten minutes before the boat arrived to interrupt us during breakfast to tell us that he'd made an error and there was even more to pay. In the end we were just so keen to get off Beachcomber and so adamant that none of us wanted to go back to Nadi for longer than we had to we simply paid the money that had to be paid and made our merry way to the boat.
Manta Ray Island, up in the Yassawas somewhere near Nananu-I-Ra and Naviti, is a fairly long way from
Beachcomber, a damn site further than we'd anticipated so we weren't particularly pleased about the four or five hour journey up as we were just kind of desperate to drop everything and get on to the beach to relax. Finally arriving and getting on to the smallest, most ill-advised boat to transport several people and a large pile of luggage we eventually washed up on shore and were ushered through the whole entry procedure, the usual spiel about when dinner was served, what facilities were available, a brief explanation as to what the term "waterless toilets" meant and were happily told that all fresh water at the facility came from a desalinization pump, and the pump was a little bit on the fritz so showers - only cold of course, there were NO hot showers whatsoever - would only be available from 4-7pm daily. But, I suppose it's very easy to overcome these obstacles when you find yourself on a tropical island with nothing but sitting, chilling in a hammock to while away the hours. The rest of that day we sort of amused ourselves, did some snorkelling on the reef that began about 10m from the beach, I decided
this was the time I was finally going to do some diving so I booked myself in for the morning, and just lay in the sun, reading, listening to music, chatting, basically doing all the things you expect to do on a tropical paradise. I was a little miffed when I was told I wouldn't be able to actually DIVE with any Manta Rays, something about protected species and national park, I don't know i wasn't really listening after the words "You can't actually dive with them" were spoken as I'd gone off into some sort of little indignant huff. But then you were allowed to snorkel with them, so I thought that would have to suffice and I would just have to hope for some other exciting wildlife on my dive to keep me entertained.
As everywhere in Fiji meals are sounded by a big wooden drum being beaten, but here at Manta Ray they also have another big wooden drum, down on the beach instead of by the food hall, which they would beat whenever they spotted the rays out in the channel. About once an hour they'd take one of the little flat bottomed boats that felt EVERY little wave in the ocean and try and see, and at whatever time of the day they were spotted, that's when the boat trip would go out. Well oh so lucky for me, the next day when we heard the drum beat from the beach it was about ten minutes until I was due to go on my dive. Bastards. So I went on my dive, lots of lovely corals and things, fish all about, a turtle gliding through the water, all very nice and easy with a maximum depth of about 15m, all very chilled out. The boat back to Nadi was another five hours so it left early afternoon. Kev and Sare waved me off at the beach, it seemed they were the only two people left on the island, and I spent the vast bulk of the journey out on the bow enjoying the sun and reflecting on the fact that I'd be boarding a plane to New Zealand on Monday and how I felt about that and wondering whether I'd have as good a time as I'd had in Fiji. Back at Nadi Bay Resort I decided that since I was going to only be there one night I would spring the extra cash, $3, for the air conditioned dorm and it was without doubt the best decision I'd made all trip. The difference was un-be-lievable. It was like a completely different hostel. I spent a day in Nadi, didn't really leave the resort too much, just to get to the internet in town and get some things done, get some laundry done, pack my bags and prepare myself for the next day when I'd be boarding a plane for the next leg of my journey, New Zealand.
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