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Published: March 29th 2007
Just a quick blog, again with no photographs as we are in an internet cafe in down town Nadi.
We are in Nadi just for a couple of hours before flying to Los Angeles, Nadi is a bit of a shock as it is a bustling not very pretty town, but as they say 'It is what it is'...We have been on Malalolo Island which is just like the brochures, palm trees, beach front bures (little houses) and perfect holidaying....except it rained and rained for a couple of days, real monsoon stuff, but our first few days was in a really laid back resrt where they welcomed us with gutar playing and song at the end of the peir after a 45 minute small boat ride from the main island.
The food was good and there were sit on kayaks to play with and a dive centre. The snorkelling was amazing, but somewhere along the way Talitha persuaded us to let her do a 'discover diving' course. PADI the international diving instructors organisation allow 10 yr olds to dive so we thought why not. She did a pool session, then a dive on a reef with her instructor which
I joined them on (my very out of date BSAC sticket still valid in places like fiji...
It was amazing, seeing the coral reef and my little girl scuba diving.... She loved it so much that we agreed to let her do the Junior open water diving course involving a numver of pool sessions, theory lessons, videos and a test, and four more dives. She passed and t her credit the instructor said she was good for her age..
The last dive I joined her on technically we were diving together but there was an instructor with us and another guy. We saw baby sharks...(amazing) a moray eel (amazing) clown fish (nemos...) and just a myriad of fish coloured silver shoaling or hiding amongs tghe amazing coral. All in all an incredible experience especially for Talitha...
We had bought fins and snorkelling kit for us all including Ronan and he became a real fish in the pool so on a last day we took him on a boat snorkel to a reef. The technique was to put him in his inflatable swim ring and he could float looking through his mask and using his snorlkel properly. I held
From the hilltop
Exploring the interior of Malolo Island...not many tourists bother to do this, but well worth the efforton to him and the ring tightly (very tightly) and we did not stray more than a few metres from the boat. The reef was shallow enough that he could see it all...I suspect that will be a memeory for him, he was very excited about the blue star fish and the nemo fish etc etc... He just kept giving me a row because he wanted to 'swim' firther from the boat....
We changed resorts due to Talitha diving course, to a 'posher' but busier one. Less laid back but more facilites.
We kayaked a bit, I walked to the top of the highest hill on the first Island (incredible view)
Had a short windsurf onthese modern huge boards that are really stable so Talitha had a sail pretty quickly.
All in all instead of being relaxed and refreshed like i think you are meant to be, we are all knackered...The bat ride back to the mainland was good and now we just have a couple of hours before the flight to LA. I hope we will be able to blog from their ok. We have hired a motorhome so are looking forward to exploring a bit
Mangroves
Using the open top kayaks to explore of california. But amazingly it is only less than 2 weeks before we are home...
Once again sorry for no pictures but hey once you have seen one palm fringed beach on a coral reef fringed tropical island you have seem them all eh...
Oh the frogs...the rain brought the frogs out, loads of tiny little ones all over the place, and the occasional big one. big hit with Ronan...
Is there a down side, I am afraid so, The mosquitos...you had to spend the evening blathered in noxious chemicals to avoid being bitten to death, they were worse than in India, but not disease carrying so just annoying.
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Iona
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Nearly home time....Can't believe it!!
I can't believe it's nearly time for you to come home - the time has just flown by. We have enjoyed all your blogs so much - looking forward to hearing all about it in person, when you get back. Hope California's as fun as your other travels. See you all soon. Love from Monkstadt