I Bless the Rain Down in... Fiji

For a few months I have been talking about going to Fiji to satisfy my visa requirement.  I'm on a 977 temporary work visa, good for a year but only 90 days at a time (more on that saga in the next post).  I got the approval from my client to make this trip instead of going all of the way home for a week, just to go back again for Christmas and then again when the project ends in February.  I'm glad I could save them the money for the plane ticket.

On Thursday afternoon I flew into Nadi, one of the larger islands of the more than 200 that make up Fiji, on a 4.5 hour flight.  My resort had an office in the airport, so I met with an employee who arranged to have me driven out to the pier.  From there, a driver took me and another late arriving guest on the half hour (somewhat choppy) outboard motorboat ride to Beachcomber Island, pictured at left.  The other guy on the boat, Darren, was from Oregon and in Nadi for a conference.  On a whim he decided to take a few days off.

We got to the island and had to jump into a bit of surf since there was no dock.  As we walked up to the buildings, we were greeted with a drink from the sand bar before we checked in.  I was put in a 10 bed dorm with some other random travelers while Darren had rented a private 'bure'. The resort took up the entire island and you could walk around the whole thing in 15 minutes. There were multiple paths once you got into the canopy of trees that covered the central portion with sand paths to the different buildings.

The first night was pretty quiet for all of the hype I had heard.  The high season doesn't start until 'schoolies' start to vacation in late November, which is a post-high school trip for a lot of Australians.  The next day was sunny and Darren and I took advantage of the boat trip for free snorkeling a few hundred meters off the island's shore.  I got a few pictures with my underwater camera that haven't been developed yet, so I'll post any good ones.  A few of the things I saw: crown-of-thorns starfish, blue starfish, sea cucumbers, clownfish, parrotfish, and unicornfish among others.

We met a few cool people during the day, mostly Brits, and I stumbled upon the second unicorn sighting of my life (unrelated to the fish mentioned above).  I documented my last sighting in this post. This was unicorn 2.0.  Musical taste, height, looks, brains, accent, personality, all there.  The last unicorn I never expected to see again, but did.  This one was a world traveler from London, making it much more likely to be a true unicorn.

The resort provided all meals, which were a buffet mix of fish curry, chicken, fried eggplant, coleslaw, spaghetti, fruit and other random foods.  It wasn't bad, but definitely got worn out over the next few days.  The weather turned bad, as it was the rainy season.  It ended up raining that night (and every night thereafter), but there were enough people on the island to make it a good time.  The DJ played typical songs you hear in a club and we all got out in the sand and broke it down.  There are two types of beer on Fiji - Fiji Bitter and Vonu.  I definitely recommend the latter.

Darren left but I met a few British guys (Paul and Elliott) that came in on a boat the next morning.  The storms really dampened the air and the attitude of the island.  I spent most of the time hanging around with the guys and playing cards or reading my latest book, For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway.  We talked about going on one of the day trips that bounced between other islands in the Mamanuca and Yasawa archipelagos. Castaway and Blue Lagoon were both filmed on islands that you could visit for the day. Unfortunately, the chop was so bad that the boats weren't running. I saw enough surf to know that even if they had the trips, I would've been seasick.  The same went for scuba diving.  They had some great wreck dives planned at a boat and WWII plane, but both were canceled for the weather.  Even though they were in deep water (~26 meters), just getting there would've been really rough.

Piling in a bunk with the pommies

The night was mostly the same as the previous night - literally.  The music was pretty much repeated and most of the people there had been on the island for a few days.  We goofed off on the dance floor as most people weren't really dancing.  I had a nice, peaceful night in my bunk because all of the other bunkmates in my room had moved on and I had the whole room to myself.  They were putting all other guests in a massive 100 bed room that was separated on the guys and girls side.  The next day was spent much like the last, listening to music as we laid around under cover in the rain.  The girls introduced me to a British TV show called The Inbetweeners and I loved it.  I got the first 3 seasons off of Nicola's hard drive, so I'll be bringing that back to the States.  I found out that the guys would be in Sydney for NYE, so we're going to try to meet up.

All in all, it was a relaxing weekend, but the relaxing was forced upon me because of the weather.  I got to snorkel a few times, but no scuba diving.  I'd like to go back and travel between the islands on one of the 7 day passes.  The snorkeling was great right off the beach and at a better time I'm sure the diving would've been spectacular.

I also picked up a few good souvenirs (pictured below).  The first is a tiki mask that cost about $10.  The second is 3 cannibal forks in a hand carved frame.  I had no idea while I was there, but Fijians practiced this all of the way until the late 1800's.  Yum.  So I came back to Sydney on Monday and so begins another story...