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Gotta love jet lag. It’s 4am Fiji time and I’m wide awake even though I only had about 6 hours of sleep. Ken is out like a light…again.
Our vacation continues to be amazing. We spent Friday relaxing with a massage and some time just hanging out around the resort. The on-site Kali Spa is like something straight out of a spa magazine—we were led to an open-air bure with 2 massage tables, and while overlooking the ocean and listening to the occasional rain shower on the thatched roof, we spent an hour receiving a couples’ massage. Ken had a standard full body; I had a “jet lag” massage focused on my neck, shoulders, and legs. Ken said it was hands down the best massage he has ever had—he got to experience all of the little Asian touches that make spa treatments in this part of the world so unique—a focus on pressure points, deep tissue rubs, and little rituals like a light punch on the bottom of your feet at the end of the foot portion. We were both super relaxed afterward and ready to book our next appointment, which will happen today.
Friday afternoon we watched a
cooking demonstration of a dish called seviche, which is tuna marinated in lemon juice over night, mixed with fresh coconut milk, tomatoes, and onions, served with a root called kevasa. It was delicious, and interesting to watch the staff grind away a coconut on a traditional Fijian shredder that you sit on with the sharp part sticking out from between your legs.
Saturday we had our first set of dives. All of the other guests left in the morning, and so Ken and I were the only ones on the resort for a few hours before new groups arrived in the afternoon. So the dive master, which we call The Green Mile” because he keeps calling Ken “Boss”, arranged to take us on our own private dive. He and another guy (named Keni) loaded all of our equipment into a little tin boat. Ken and I have only dove off the back of big boats built for dive outfits with places to stabilize your tanks, a ladder to climb back up, and a cabin to get in out of the sun during the required time between dives. This little boat made us nervous, as we weren’t sure how we
were going to get in and out of the water with all of our equipment. But Green Mile made us feel relaxed—told us to do the dive on “Fiji time”, meaning we should just relax through it and enjoy ourselves.
The first dive was to a place just a short boat ride away from the shore called Nemo’s Garden. We got about 55 feet down and spiraled our way around a reef that was easily 50 feet tall. We saw a gigantic sea cucumber, a blue ribbon eel, lots of clown fish, a tiger fish, and tons of other interesting creatures and soft coral. Ken burned through his air pretty quickly because he was nervous and breathing too shallow, but I stayed down with the guide for a good 40 minutes. We managed to get back in the boat fairly easily by taking off all of our equipment while still in the water. They then drove us back to the shore, where we sat on the beach for an hour of surface time while Green Mile and Keni switched out our tanks (this is a full service dive outfit!).
The second dive was even more amazing—a place called
Ridge’s Coral. There were gigantic table coral that the guide said was 20 to 50 years old. We saw another sea cucumber, a huge starfish, clown fish, bubble coral (which was probably my favorite part), gigantic clams, and all sorts of beautiful soft coral. There was also this beautiful piece of pink coral that was swarming with little baby blue colored fish that would all pop in and out in unison when you swam by. Ken was better on his breathing during this dive, and we managed to get down to 65 feet and stay under for 50 minutes. An amazing, very satisfying dive! At one point while I was gliding through the water watching these bright yellow fish and black ones with neon blue outlines I thought, how fucking cool is my life?? I feel so fortunate to be having this experience! And with a man I adore!
A couple of new groups arrived while we were out, and we chatted with another Aussie, some Brits, and a bunch of Americans over our veggie lasagna lunch. (The food continues to be delicious!) Afterwards, Ken and I went to one of the open air bures where the spa staff
was doing free foot baths to advertise their services to the new arrivals—a coconut milk soak, sugar scrub, mango body butter, followed by oil massage. Amazing!
It rained on and off for the rest of the day, so we mostly spent the rest of the late afternoon in our bure. At sunset we walked out onto the beach, where the tide was way out, looking for fish and interesting shells. There’s a black cat on the grounds that keeps finding us. We named him/her Kava after the root. We were watching some little gecko-like creatures skitter around on the water, and then Kava attacked a few and munched them for a little early evening snack. Interesting to watch a cat in its natural environment. Then she/he followed us back to our bure, and we gave her/him the rest of our French fries from our afternoon snack. I’m sure we’ll be seeing much more of our vacation rent-a-cat! It was fun having her lead us on a little adventure.
Now if only I could sleep through the night….
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