 |
| Annie preparing to scuba |
 |
| There she goes! |
We wake up early in anticipation of our diving/snorkeling
trip and have a cup of coffee before sending Annie and Paulie off to get
breakfast. They have to do a refresher course in the pool before our 9:00am
departure. Hudson, Sam and I eat our
breakfast around 8:00and meet them near the dive shop to get all the
appropriate forms filled in and walk out to our boat. The tide is out so we have quite the walk
through the mucky sand with water about ankle
deep. In the mornings there is the most surreal
view of people seemingly walking on water out
 |
| Sam on the boat |
|
 |
| Hudson on the boat |
|
to their boats. It’s magical!
We get to the boat and meet our guides and buddies who will be joining
us. There is Scuba Sam, Api, Mark &
Adam from the dive shop and Andre who is getting his rescue diver license. We glide for a while and then Adams says
“ready for lift off?” and he floors the boat with the nose pointed skyward in
about 1 second flat. We ride for about
10 minutes before arriving at the edge of the reef. It is the craziest thing here to see the
waves breaking about a half mile from shore.
The waves meet up against the reef which causes the surf break and makes
Fiji one of the best locations in the world for surfing. There is in fact a
huge competition planned here for around March of this year at an offshore
location called Cloudbreak. The site got
its name from the mist that hovers over the waves as they roll into shore
giving the appearance that clouds have formed over the ocean. However, it is only for the most experienced
of surfers. If you are not familiar with
the reef break, you don’t want to be learning here. You can essentially tear all your skin off your
back if you fall the wrong way. Back on
the boat, the divers get into their gear first and flop backwards into the
water and then we snorkelers get in and swim into the current to view the
beautiful corals and the sea life. We wander through the reef for about an hour
and then return to the boat and meet up with the divers. We have snacks of coconut and pineapple and
some have tea – how British! We rest up
for a few minutes and speed off to another site where we repeat getting in the
water and enjoying the underwater scenery.
We see lots of Blue Tangs, Parrot Fish, Angel Fish, a Lobster, A “Nemo”
Clown fish, Sea Anemones, Eels, and loads of other unidentified creatures. After another hour we return to the boat and
head home. Back on shore, we regroup and
clean up. After lunch we decide to go
into town to do a little shopping. Annie
opts to stay at home and nap. We arrive
in Nadi about 45 minutes later and look for a Barber Shop first thing. Hudson had decided to get a buzz cut and we
want to strike while the iron is hot. We
find one, he sits down andin no more than five minutes later, he is a new man. We pay FJD$6 ($3.50US) – what a deal! We venture along the main street of
Nadi. Fiji is comprised primarily of
native Fijians (65%) and Indians (33%) with the balance being European,
African, or other nationalities. As a
result, the majority of the population is a cross section of South Pacific
Islander meets New Delhi transplant. It
makes for very interesting shopping and eating experiences. We window shop a bit before arriving at the
local farmer’s market. We have decided
to make a curry that night and we visit a number of stalls to find the bare
minimum of ingredients. We find a spice
vendor who sells us one meal worth of curry powder mixed with chili spice. We then amble among the stalls, but quicken
our pace as it looks like a huge storm is looming in the distance.
No comments:
Post a Comment