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Published: October 15th 2007
Manta Ray Beach
Our beach at the first resort, pretty perfect huh!?So we left rainy Vancouver behind us and took the "short" journey to Fiji - just a bus to Vancouver Airport, a three hour flight to LA, three hour stop over in LA, ten hour flight to Fiji (delayed by an hour because some idiot couldn't get to the gate on time), two hours to Port Denarau and 3 hours on a fast Cat to the Yasawa Islands and our first stop on Naviti Island - The Manta Ray Island Resort. After thinking like most normal people would, that we could pick up some suntan lotion at Vancouver Airport, we were gobsmacked when instead of a shop similar to Boots, we had the choice of a Christmas shop, a childrens toy shop or some other random pointless useless shops selling crap!!! Consequently, the three hour boat trip out to the islands in the Fijian sun played havoc with our skin. Luckily, Heather still had her teeny tiny bottle of SPF20 she was given free whilst on her lunch break. This provided just enough cover for our faces (no wrinkles here thank you very much!!!) and our shoulders, although we both still had pink shoulders that evening.
Our first stop on Thursday
Chilling out at Manta Ray
All the girls soaking up the sun!!! 27 September was Manta Ray Island Resort, highly recommended by Scottish James in Vancouver who had worked there for a year as a scuba instructor. We were off loaded from the fast cat into a rickety wooden "speed" boat to be transferred to the gorgeous white beach and were greeted by the staff singing their Manta Ray welcome song. The resort itself was lovely, although a bit basic - however that wasn't really a bad thing - self composting long drop toilets and cold showers open to the sky were actually quite liberating!!! The food was fantastic and pleantiful, it was like being back at school when the drum called you for breakfast, lunch and dinner!! That evening we were invited to participate in the traditional Fijian Kava drinking ceremony. If you ever get to try it, it tastes like woody water which isn't surprising since its made from soaking a ground down plant root in water!!! However, its an important social ceremony to the Fijian's so just remember to clap and say "Bula"!!!! The resort had plenty to keep you occupied during the day so on Friday we took advantage of the free kayaks and headed off out into
On one of many boat trips!!
Just departing from the first village we visited from Manta Ray the bay. It was a slightly different experience to canoeing on the Bow River in Banff, but just as enjoyable if not more! We were joined on the sea by a hilarious French girl called Chrystelle, who had one of those typical strong french accents when she spoke English, with zis and zat making us chuckle at every stroke!! Unfortunately the following day, the clouds had rolled in and there wasn't much sunbathing to be done. Instead Vicky exercised her artistic streak and her and Chrystelle were taught how to make a coconut bracelet. However, these bracelets appeared to be intended for giants as Vicky could get it almost up to her shoulder and even then it still slipped off!!
For the first time for both of us, on Sunday we went to Church! The resort arranged a trip to the main village on a neighbouring island (where most of the staff were from) to see the school and attend the service to hear the choir sing. They live a simple life in the village with only about 200 inhabitants, some chickens, a cock and not forgetting the humungus satillite dish!? The choir were superb and filled the church with
Village Visit
We just loved this house - typical village life beautiful Fijian hymns which we could still hear as we headed back to the boat!! That afternoon we took to the seas yet again, this time in fins and snorkles to discover the coral and fish that Manta Ray is famed for. You only have to go 2m into the water before you are confronted with an array of underwater life. The sealife blew Heather away although Vicky is convinced Egypt is better, but either way there was so much to see and Vicky's waterproof camera case was put to good use (Steve - best present ever!!). Sunday night was also our last night at Manta Ray so we grabbed a Fiji Gold beer from the bar and headed to the other side of the resort to the Sunset Beach. We spent the evening with our new friends, Jennie - the Bognor Bird who works in Paulsgrove, Crazy French Chrystelle, Beat - our Swiss freeloader who hasn't worked for two years and Sandra - our German diver. We sipped our beer, chilled out to some tunes and watched what we thought would be a stunning sunset until the clouds ruined it with 20 minutes to go. Nevermind, we're sure we'll
Village Visit
This is the school!!! see the perfect sunset somewhere around the World!?So on Monday we left Manta Ray and headed for the exclusive resort that is Octopus (kindly recommended by Aunt Lonny!), one Island south of Naviti on Waya Island. It was something of a novelty to have hot showers and flushing toilets again, although Vicky took it too far and after having a scorching hot shower the first night reverted to cold showers for the duration of the stay!!! Jennie and Beat followed us to Octopus with both only planning to stay one night and ending up staying for three and four respectively, we must be fun people!!!! We also caught up with Ed, who was our bunk buddy for the first few nights at Manta Ray but left earlier than us to do his rescue diving course at Octopus. So all the gang was back together again :-) with two new recruits in the shape of Sally and Andy who arrived at Octopus a few hours before us. We spent the rest of Monday readjusting to our surroundings including the presence of children, yuk!! The weather had been getting better and better with endless clear blue skies everyday, so we got in
Sunset Beach at Manta Ray
The staff keep this beauty all to themselves!!! some serious sunbathing on Tuesday. That night we experienced the famed 'International Crab Racing'!! Sadly, Beat's hermit crab 'Rocky' failed to perform in the final and we missed out on a $30 bar tab! Heather then tried her hand at beach volleyball with Ed and Beat as her rivals on the other team, she still had the bruises to show for her team's winning efforts for days after. Vicky, Jennie and Sally cheered from the sidelines, at times heckling the boys trying to help Heather's side win!!
We'd already decided we wanted to try scuba diving after James had described what diving was like in Fiji whilst we were in Vancouver. We didn't get a chance to do it at Manta Ray, so we were determined to do it at Octopus. First up on Wednesday we did the basic skills in the pool with our instructor Manu. We learnt four skills and were ready to take it into open water - although we had to wait another day to do this as the boat was full that afternoon! That night we watched a movie under the stars - The Pursuit of Happyness - Vicky nearly slit her wrists because the
Sunset at Manta Ray
Words not required.... film was so depressing!! It didn't help when we were soaked by an almighty downpour just at the end of the film. The rain was that heavy that we had to use umbrellas to walk the 25m to the dorm! By the following morning the rain had cleared and we walked to the other side of the island to Nalauwaki village supposedly to see the kindergarten only to find out that the teacher had gone to the main island so school was out! We did however get to see the craft market where we picked up a bracelet each and were swarmed by cute little children who loved having their photo taken! That afternoon we finally got out into open water and did our first dive with Manu and Ed (now a qualified rescue diver - thank god!) at the Three Sisters dive site just off shore. Unfortunately we couldn't go out in the actual dive boat, as it had sunk two days earlier! So we were stuck doing backwards rolls in order to get in the water off another random boat they pinched for the afternoon! After Vicky's initial problems getting down - promptly solved by Manu adding more
Watching the Sunset
All the gang chilling out with a Fiji Gold watching the sun go down.... weights to her! - we began our 45 minute dive descending down to 12m (although Ed said we went deeper) where we swam around the coral reef. Again the underwater camera case was a godsend and we got some amazing shots especially of the lesser spotted Heather Starfish!!! We will definately be diving again, perhaps even for our open water certificates.
So once again we'd reached our last night on a Fijian island and we decided to go out in style. We began by losing the Octopus Quiz Night!! - although our team "The Moorish Idols" (Ed's favourite fish i.e. Gill from Finding Nemo) did win the talent round with a hair brained idea of getting the whole restaurant on their feet and doing a rendition of the Hokey Cokey!!!! We then proceeded to drink all the bottles of Rose behind the bar and had to move onto white wine instead! Ed then decided to throw a bottle of champagne into the mix! By this point we had some more new friends including Tony - the All American Jock and Sheridan who randomly used to work for Vicky's dad in Nottingham! So the evening was very enjoyable - even if
Fiji Gold!!
With a Fiji Gold beer and the sunset in front of you - what more could you ask for? the sight of Beat in a red dress and wig acting as a glamourous assistant was slightly unnerving, especially after a few glasses of wine (some people were getting confused)!!! The night finally ended the next morning at around 4am when we finally made it to our dorm beds, there were some very sore heads at breakfast the next morning and Heather's sunglasses didn't come off all day!! We would like to point out though that we did actually make it for breakfast at 8am - we never like to miss a meal! Obviously the boat trip on the fast cat back to the main island that afternoon was a quiet one! That night ourselvers, Ed and Tony stayed at Nadi Bay Resort and we also had the pleasure of Tony's company on the flight to Auckland, New Zealand!
So our Fijian experience included lots of new friends, good food, Fiji Gold beer, snorkelling, scuba diving, sea kayaking, international crab racing, beach volleyball, a bit of touch rugby, coconut bracelet making, 2 village visits, 2 beautiful sunsets, 1 movie night, 1 quiz night and 1 night to remember! And all that in 9 days!!!!!!
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Ben and Gary
non-member comment
Hello!
OMG! You two are doing loads!! Sounds like you are having a fantastic time! Hope you are taking lots of photos with your new camera..... we are looking at them on Facebook! Take care and keep enjoying your trip! Love Gary and Ben x