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View from the Breakfast Table 01
View across the water to Port Vila from Micheners Restaurant on Iririki Island In the morning, we arose late then ambled into the restaurant for our daily buffet breakfast. We have to say that the breakfast at Iririki Island Resort is absolutely DIVINE! Every day they have a selection of cereals (including bircher muesli with yoghurt), both fresh and preserved fruit, a couple of different types of bread as well as a fruit loaf and pastries (mm... chocolate croissants and these yummy custardy type pastries with sultanas in them), and a variety of hot foods (they usually offered two of the following in the heated containers: bacon, spiced sausages, potatoes, quiche, scrambled eggs with tomato and onion) with a chef on hand to cook your eggs to your liking (fried, scrambled, omelette - you name it, he cooks it!). The fruit over here is unbelievably good. Pawpaw/papaya (the yellow one, not the red one) is usually rather bitter in Australia but the pawpaw in Vanuatu was much sweeter with hardly any hint of bitterness at all so Kate was eating plenty of this, as well as a daily helping of mango :P The skin on the mangos was green but the flesh was most definitely ripe.
After heading back to the Fare to finish
View from the Breakfast Table 02
View across the water to Port Vila from Micheners Restaurant on Iririki Island getting ready for the day, we jumped on the ferry over to the main jetty at 11:45 and went for a short wander through town before heading up the hill to Nautilus Dive.
At Nautilus Dive, we were introduced to our instructor for the day, Peter, who was going to take us for a briefing and then intro session in the pool before we headed out on the boat to do a dive. After much jumping and heaving, and laughter from the others, Kate finally managed to wiggle her way into her wetsuit (Kate:- why are these things so damn difficult to get on?!) We were lucky that we were the only ones there for the intro session so we had Peter to ourselves. It took a while for Kate to get used to being able to breathe underwater (Kate:- argh, I'm going to drown! oh, I'm breathing air not water!). Isaac, one of the dive masters (and also an Aussie), jumped into the pool with us to take some photos with Kate's camera (Thanks, Isaac!! 😊) and got a few good pics of Kate making an idiot out of herself (Kate:- so coordination and grace underwater aren't my strongpoints!?!).
View from the Breakfast Table 03
View across the water to Port Vila from Micheners Restaurant on Iririki Island Once we were deemed as being suitably skilled in diving in the pool to go try it in the sea/ocean/bigbodyofwater, we all jumped aboard the boat with two other couples (an Asian couple doing the PADI course, and a couple from Tassie) who were coming along for the dive plus the two dive masters (Isaac and Malcolm - a pommy), Peter, and the skipper. We knew it was going to be a fun trip when within minutes of boarding the boat, Malcolm went for a nice swim off the side of the boat, care of Isaac :P It was an absolute cack talking to Malcolm, as it's not often that one comes across an Englishman with an accent like his (apart from in England of course) and it cracked us up listening to him. All of the crew were really nice though and fun/interesting to talk to.
It only took half an hour to get out to our dive site for the day, which was called Twin Bommies. Once there, Malcolm headed off with the Tasmanian couple and Isaac took care of the Asian couple and we then headed off with Peter. Due to both of us having recently been
How does this thing work again?
Aren't I meant to be UNDER the water? (and partially still) sick with a throat/chest infection, we were both having a lot of difficulty equalising so our descent was a rather slow one. Peter held onto Kate's camera for the first few minutes of our dive, as there's already enough things that a beginner diver has to concentrate on! Once he was sure that she was handling everything well enough, he handed over the camera, which she pretty promptly handed over to Scott :P Can't take photos right now, too busy looking! and swimming... (Kate:- yes, that's right - I didn't want to take photos *gasp*) There were lots of different fish swimming around in the bommies - too many to name them all (plus our memories aren't that good!). Peter did point out a stonefish though. As our dive drew to an end, we slowly made our way back up to the boat. When we were around 6m from the surface, Peter started pointing animatedly for us to look behind us. We turned around to just catch a glimpse of a very large tail disappearing into the gloom. As we were wondering what the hell it was, it turned back to come have another look at us.
Smooth...
Scott shows Kate how it's done We were absolutely stunned when we realised it was a dugong! These animals are on the endangered list in Australia and you don't see them often so Kate was extremely stoked to see one on her first dive. Unfortunately, it was a bit too dark and we were a bit far away to get a decent photo of it but at least we got to see it in the flesh.
When we got back to the resort, Kate realised that she'd forgotten to sunscreen a few areas and was really badly burnt (Kate:- my poor hands and face! At least I was smart enough to wear a long-sleeved shirt). To complete our fishy day, we headed to Michener's Restaurant (at the resort) for a seafood dinner (mmm.... seafood platter!! mmm.... lobster... mmm... poulet fish). It wasn't cheap but it sure was good. We did our best to demolish it but alas, we weren't able to eat it all (though Kate made sure she polished off the fruit before the platter was cleared away). Scott finished off the meal with the most decadent coffee he's yet to experience (see photos)
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