Our friends first full day in Fiji turned out to be fairly interesting although not without it’s comic disasters.
The morning was pretty sane stuff. We took the bus into Nadi where we ate breakfast. We then visited the market picking up some kava, fruit and veg. Next stop was the supermarket. I managed to negotiate two taxis into taking back to Denarau with all our shopping for $10 each. Not bad.
Soon we were off into a windless motor over to Treasure Island. We moored where we’d moored previously and ate lunch before we all went snorkeling. While snorkeling the sea chop began to slowly increase. Not a disaster at all but it took away the possibility of having nice flat seas to bob around in. This gave Holly a few problems with her snorkel but she struggled on.
After the group snorkel Brian and Janine swam ashore while Ben and Holly took the the kayak. The rest of the afternoon was spent resting while the swell built further.
By 4pm we’d had enough of the swell and decided to move around to the moorings on the far side of the island where, although the wind was now up to 20 knots, the sea was a little (but not much) calmer.
Just before 6 we took the dinghy ashore. By now the waves had picked up further. We had to dinghy into the waves to reach the beach which meant we all got pretty soaked, particularly Janine who got most of the deluge. She ended up soaked through and had to buy a new dress for the evening. Ashore we dragged the dinghy high up the beach for protection and opened the drain to let all the water out.
We paid our mooring / landing fees and settle down for a drink by the pool. Although we’d discussed coming to dinner at 7pm with a number of staff we later learned the 7pm slot was fully booked and we had to wait to 7:30pm. We did eventually eat. Three of us order steaks which were supposed to range from rare to medium but all came fairly well done. Tasty but chewy.
We decided to return to Dignity for desert. We got into the choppy water without too much incident but by the time we approached Dignity I realized I hadn’t replaced the drain plug and we were filling with water. Too late to do anything about that. Dinghying down wind was a lot easier than before but turning to land everyone onto Dignity placed us facing the chop again. Helen was first onto Dignity and first off it again as she lost her balance and fell into the water. She flew out of the water fairly quickly and the rest boarded the boat without further incident. We raised the dinghy allowing the copious amount of water to drain out.
Desert was banana flambee using some rum Brian and brought. Everyone was fairly exhausted and we all retired soon after.
Today we plan to sail as far north as we can. Hopefully we’ll reach Sawa-I-Lau but if not we should be able to reach the Blue Lagoon.
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