The Ultimate Lei

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Polly:

We woke up early on the Monday for our 7.15am collection. As we walked out into the street, fellow travellers lined the kerb of the 6 Wailoaloa Beach hostels with their rucksacks. When the big yellow coach turned up it felt a bit like we were going on a Butlins holiday. We were all given colour coded tags depending on our first island destination before filing onto the coach.

The coach dropped us all at Denarau Port for check-in, before we boarded the big, yellow Yasawa Flyer high-speed cat. The boat departs the port daily at 8.30am, travels north through the Mamanuca & Yasawa island groups stopping at about 15 islands along the way. It reaches the most northerly island at 1.30pm then travels back to Denarau, calling again at all the islands for the southerly direction. Rather than going to each island shore, the boat stops briefly in the channel, where small shuttle boats from each island drop and pick up guests.

Some of the passengers were travelling on a ‘Bula Pass’ which enabled them to hop on/hop off for 7/14/21 days, but like us, many had booked one of the 6 pre-organised packages which worked out to be more cost-effective.

We had booked on to ‘The Ultimate Lei’, a 6 night/7 day tour of 4 islands. Our first island, Tavewa Island, was at the most northerly point so we spent the morning on the Yasawa Flyer, passing many islands on the way.


Coral View Resort

At lunch time a boat from Coral View Resort ferried us to land where, after shaking hands with every member of staff on arrival, we were served up lunch. The lunch, like most of the meals there, was a bit dodgy, but edible. The bures (beach huts) were fab though. Probably the nicest we had all trip. Our hut had a double bed, fan, en-suite with shower and toilet, and small patio.

That afternoon we went for a stroll around the island, as far as the high tide would allow, then chilled in the hammocks with a few beers. We were told by the barman that 'Happy Hour' was 6.30-7pm (half an hour?!), but when we got there it emerged that drinks weren’t actually cheaper in ''Happy Hour, just served with a smile, ‘Fiji-style’!

On the Tuesday we went on an excursion to the Sawailau Caves. Swimming in dark caves was pretty unique. To get into the inner most cave you had to swim underwater through a metre long tunnel.

That afternoon I went diving. It was just me and a dive master which was cool. We dived down to about 20m, the coral was amazing and there were loads of overhangs, teeming with life. We swam out over a sandy area, where I saw a ray, and some weird little things called garden eels. They’re like something from outer space.

While I was diving Ross took a walk to the summit of the island. The night before when we’d been chatting to some people, we’d missed the welcome talk telling us that if you climbed up to the summitit was necessary to go back down the way you came. Ross unfortunately went down a different way but got stuck on the other side of the island, not able to swim around a rocky outcrop with his camera. The only way back was up to the summit again - a 2-hour round trip in the midday sun. By the look of the photo he was rather hot and bothered by this point!

The next morning I did my 2nd dive - a shark feeding dive!!! About 10 of us went out on the dive boat and all descended together to a reef about 21m below. We stood in a line on the dead coral holding a rope while one of the dive masters emptied a wheelie bin of massive fish heads about 5m in front of us. Immediately, millions of fish swarmed in to eat, and a few small white tip reef sharks. Gradually the white tips got bigger, and then the grey reef sharks turned up. They were up to 2m and much fatter. The grey sharks were much more aggressive and started feeding on some of the larger living fish, shaking them to kill them. Then some of the larger fish got frisky and started attacking the small fish. It was basically a feeding frenzy. I have never seen so many fish in one place. The sharks were pretty cool, but as I had never seen one before, a bit scary. You´d turn around and one would be swimming about 2m behind you. Then they would swim directly at you, and dart away at the last minute. I'm really glad no man-eaters came to the feast as I would have pooped myself. Every now and then, as one of the grey reef sharks merged into visibility, my heart missed a beat as I tried to work out what it was. A girl we met the week before had just done a shark dive and she'd seen a tiger shark, a bull shark and hammerheads which was freaking me out a bit. I used up so much more air than usual! We did our safety stop at 5m, for 3 minutes, hanging onto a rope in open water. This was probably the worst bit, and I was so glad to get back on the boat. I'm so glad I did it though, finally facing my fears.


Manta Ray Island Resort

Our next stop was Manta Ray, on the island of Nanuya Balavu. This resort was based on a hill, with bures on the beach, stretching up to the restaurant at the summit. The bures were cute but basic, just a raised hut with a bed and a little balcony. The toilet facilities were a few minutes walk away and were environmentally friendly drop holes. The best bit about Manta Ray was the food which was outstanding. Each meal was an indian style buffet cooked to perfection.


Waya Lailai Ecohaven

Waya Lailai was our third island, and we stayed there for 2 nights. It had a really chilled out and friendly atmosphere. The staff were genuinely keen to chat and made everyone feel really welcome. We had a double room with a bathroom and a fan, but as with the other resorts, the electricity was turned off at night so you got a bit sweaty betty.
We went hand line fishing on the first afternoon with some of the guys on our trip but only caught some nippers.
On the second day a large group of us went on an outer reef snorkelling trip to see some white-tip reef sharks. We swam for about 30 minutes with 4 of them ranging from 1-1.5m. They were really different to the ones on the dive as they weren't in feeding mode. They were actually really cool to watch and moved so gracefully. They got pretty friendly and were swimming really close. The guide was swimming down and grabbing their fins and boffing them in the nose which was a bit inappropriate.
In the afternoon Ross did another summit walk, but this time he was with a big group & didn't get lost!
That night we went fishing again, but had no more luck than the previous day. I think the Fijian fish are very clever.
On the last day we relaxed in hammocks before getting the boat to our final island.



Bounty Island

I was a bit over-excited by Bounty as it is where 'Celebrity Love Island' was filmed. The lodge and pool have been lifted and relocated to the other side of the island though. We took a 10 minute walk round the island and saw the burnt out foundations of where it originally stood. Not sure why they moved it???
On the walls are signed photos of all the stars - Dangerous Danann, Fran Cosgrove, Liz from Atomic Kitten, Abi Titmuss, Whats-her-name Hervey, Jayne Middlemiss and all the other fabulous C list celebs. Psycho Anderton wasn't there though!
Our bure was air-conditioned which was very exciting AND they kept the electricity on all night. Woohoo! Unfortunately it stormed all night and wasn't all that hot outside.
We would have liked to spend longer at Bounty Island, but we had to leave at 9.30 the next morning as we had booked a day on a yacht - the Seaspray Adventure.

The Seaspray was a fun day out with more snorkelling and swimming and a nice way to end our Fiji holiday.

We joined the South Sea Island boat for our last transfer back to Denarau port and were lucky enough to see a dolphin jumping about 3m out of the water in front of the boat. The Yasawa Flyer ferry had broken down so we had a bit of a detour, towing it to the nearest island.

We spent the last night back at Travellers Beach before our 9am flight to Sydney on the Monday. We flew with United Airlines (Star Alliance group) on a jumbo which was odd as we'd booked with Quantas (One World group)? Very nice though! Amazing food, half empty cabin and surprisingly comfy.

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Photos

South Sea Island
Our journey north

Beachcomber Island
The famous party island

P&R on the boat ride to the caves
Chian, from Malaysia in the background

Coral View
Taken from the summit