Tavewa, Fiji
We hadn’t originally planned to go to Fiji
when we were organising our trip, but as we had to change flights in Nadi
between Auckland and LA, we decided to stop for a week. I was regretting it a
bit when I saw how much the hotels were but hey, it’s FIJI!. Fiji is an
archipelago of more than 300 islands and if we’d had more time there and more
money, we would have island-hopped. Instead we found a reasonably cheap resort
on the island of Tavewa
in the Yasawa
Islands and after one night in the capital Nadi, we caught the sea-bus to our
home for the next 6 days. 5 hours later we arrived.
I took 2 travel sickness tablets which knocked me out, so my
journey wasn’t too bad but I can’t say the same for Baby D. When I woke up
about half an hour from the island, I went in search of him as he had been
making friends on the upper deck. I searched the boat (capacity 45 people) 3
times, with visions of him having fallen overboard, before he appeared from the
toilet as white as a sheet, where he’d been being sick. The journey was very
rough for the most part, and 5 hours is no picnic.
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| Beach at our resort |
When we arrived, we were quickly shown to our bure
(bungalow) and we settled in. The beach at the resort was nothing special, it
was pretty rocky, the tide was out and the wind was howling. We walked down the
beach and gradually the beach got much better and the wind calmed down.
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| Bures |
I
wasn’t feeling too impressed with our choice at this stage, but things began to change once
we got to know the staff and the other guests during a kava ceremony. Kava
is a traditonal Fijian drink produced from the plant roots of a Pacific vegetable called Kava funnily enough, and the subsequent powder form is mixed
with water. It was stirred in a huge bowl called a tanoa,
and then there was a clapping and BULA
shouting ritual when each person drank it. It tasted a bit muddy, but
straightaway I could feel my mouth go numb. Apparently if you drink enough of
it your whole body goes numb.
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| Entertainment |
There was a group of 4 friends also staying at the resort
who were pretty experienced divers and they’d planned to do 2 dives the
following day. We saw them at breakfast and they invited us along to go to ‘the
cave’ with them, as their dives had been cancelled because of the rough
weather. With no time to think about it, we agreed to go, and the 6 of us, plus
‘the captain’ and the entertainment/excursions rep, Eli, were off in the
speedboat. Sawa-I-Lau
cave was the setting for some of the filming of the movie The
Blue Lagoon with Brooke Shields.
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| Sawa-I-Lau Cave |
The entrance to the cave was down some
fairly steep steps and soon we were in the first chamber which was also the
largest. This chamber was about 5m deep and there were red snapper and eels
living in there. We snorkelled for 20 minutes and then we were off to the next
chamber. To access this part of the cave, we had to swim through an underwater
tunnel for a few seconds, which was quite scary and claustrophobic.
Luckily, we
had our guide Eli and a rep from another resort there, to pull and push us
through the tunnel. Once we were through, it was pitch black and colder than
the first part, but there was a large float to grab onto, to get our bearings.
Once we had all made it through, we swam on to the next chamber. This was less
dark, as there was a long chimney or hole in the rock above our heads, casting
sunlight on us.
This part is called the spitting
cave because if someone was to spit down the chimney, it would make a loud
splash, compared to if someone dropped something down there, which would be a
lot quieter when it hit the water.
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| Our resort |
Back at the resort we chatted to our fellow guests and they
told us how they’d been down to Beqa
Island in the south of Fiji and dived with sharks. This is quite a
well-known activity, where the dive shop takes divers down to see all sorts of
sharks being fed tuna heads – NOT in a cage. Sharks include bull sharks, tiger
sharks and reef
sharks, and anyone with a bit of shark knowledge will know that bulls and
tigers are up there as having been the most aggressive to humans.
The dive shop in
the resort on the opposite island to ours also did a shark dive (again, without
a cage) and Baby D and I decided to do it. There was the potential of swimming
with lemon
sharks which grow up to 3.4m, bull sharks, reef sharks, tiger sharks and nurse
sharks.
We had to wait a couple of days as the dive was full, and in the
meantime, we went out with Eli snorkelling 3 of the reefs near the resort,
including one right outside, which had giant clams – they were about a metre
long! They can actually grow up to about 1.2m, 200kg and can live for about 100 years. One of the other reefs was called The
Cabbage Patch, because of the impressive coral which looked like an
enormous cabbage. The other reef was renowned for reef sharks but we didn’t see
any despite Eli’s best efforts to try and attract them.
That night, we started to gear up for the shark dive on the
following day. I was starting to get a bit worried, especially after speaking
to a middle-aged Australian couple on the beach who had tales of bull shark
attacks and then scaring myself by googling horror stories. I even had a
nightmare that night about someone getting their arm ripped off.
The next morning, Baby D and I agreed to cancel the dive,
until our diving pals talked us back into it (they were also doing the dive)
and off we went. I have to admit I was bricking it. We tumbled backwards off
the boat and down we went. It was fantastic. The reefs and the varieties of
fish were beautiful, and we soon spotted our first shark. As the other guys
were more experienced than us, they were diving a bit deeper with a different
guide, but they saw us and waved us over to take a couple of pictures.
Baby D
and I saw another shark but assumed it was the grey reef shark we’d seen
earlier. Back on the boat, the others informed us that there were 2 bull sharks
right next to us, and when we thought they were waving, they were actually pointing out the bulls. The one we’d thought was the reef was more likely to
have been the bull! I was so blasé about the harmless ‘reef’ shark – I wonder
what I would have done if I had known.
We also went to another reef, Eagle
Rock, renowned for having eagle
rays, but we didn’t see any. Again, the reef was stunning, so vivid and
teeming with life. We were so glad we did it, especially after nearly bottling
it. If we’d have had more money, we would have done it all again, which seems
crazy considering how terrified I was that morning.
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| Beach on neighbouring island |
The next day we were snorkelling again with some other
guests, including an Irish/Canadian couple. The Irish half of the couple couldn’t swim...what is it with Irish people and swimming - or not?! (Mum).
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| Sunset from the top of our island, Tavewa |
On our penultimate evening and after most of our new friends
had left, we packed a bottle of wine and hiked to the top of the island to
watch the sunset. The trek was pretty steep for the first half and really windy
at the top, but it was worth it for the views over the other islands, and I
spotted a shark-like shape swimming through the water – dinner time. I slid on
my arse back down to the bottom.
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| View from the top of Tavewa |
And that was Fiji. Plenty of water sports, good chat, great
people - both staff and fellow guests, and before we knew it we were back on
the 5 hour boat ride to Nadi, to fly to LA.
Not before having to quickly re-apply for Baby D’s ESTA for the US (visa waiver) because
we’d put the wrong passport number in, and then having to book another onward
flight. We’d booked one to Mexico City but this wasn’t good enough for the good old US of A, and we had
to book another one, from Mexico City to Bogota, before we could check in.
Stressed was not the word.
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| More amazing views |
Los Angeles
Once we were off the 11 hour flight from Nadi, we had 2
hours in the queue for immigration at LAX. Then another 2 hours to get to our
final destination of Costa
Mesa, as we were whale watching the following day out of Newport
Beach and a good pal of mine living in the States had ordered a GoPro for me which I needed to collect from a locker.
Through the patchy wifi at possibly the worst airport in the world,
we discovered that the Airbnb host for that night had cancelled as she was
sick. We were beginning to wish we hadn’t bothered stopping in LA.
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| Our boat |
Finally, we found an overpriced motel and the next day we made
our way down to the harbour for our whale
watching cruise.
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| Dolphins |
Bargain at $13 each! As soon as we’d left the harbour we
were surrounded by a pod of dolphins which followed us for half an hour; we
were told there were probably 200 to 300 of them.
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| More dolphins |
Just before we turned back to
dry land, the captain spotted a minke
whale which popped up a couple of times, and then back in the harbour we saw a
seal swimming by.
We were soon off to the airport where we were planning
on having dinner – in one of the 3 sandwich shops there. I swear that airport
is worse than Luton but the whale/dolphin/seal watching made up for the rest of
the LA experience.
Next stop, Mexico City.
#fiji #bula #tavewa #nadi #yasawa #bullsharks #sharks #diving #coralviewresortfiji #beqa #daveyslocker #newportbeach #dolphins #minkewhale #sawailaucave #bluelagoonfiji #aussie_bubbles #aussiebubbles
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