Four days in Fiji

Flying over Hawaii and landing in Fiji was a first for me.  The airport was as small as I expected and I was through customs in about 20 minutes.  Since boarding the flight to Fiji, everything was about 10-30 minutes late.. (Fiji time).  I took a 20 minute taxi ride for $20 usd and arrived at Denarau marina at around 7 am for my 830 ferry to yasawas.  With no one around I found it an opportune time to take out the drone and checked out the area.  Something about being in the middle of the pacific really made everything I saw seem a little more awesome than perhaps it should be.  The drone footage was average due to rather gloomy weather at 7 in the morning with heavy overcast but it was Fiji and I wanted to get it documented. 

With a grade and some test scores pending, I wasn’t fully on vacation yet, anxious to hear if my hard work paid off or if some decisions I made in prioritization worked against me.  I took some gambles and felt like I pulled it off but wouldn’t be sure until I saw the results; when I put that much work into something, I don’t easily forget it, even if I am in Fiji.   Receiving my grade set my vacation up well, I finished community college with a perfect transcript in engineering and comp science for my applications!

My ferry ride impressed me a great deal, I highly recommend if you are ever in Fiji to take the tour around the islands by boat.  Perhaps it was the fact that I just finished finals, but the islands really made an impact on me.  I had this huge smile on my face the entire time just fascinated by the visuals Fiji provided.  I conversed with another passenger and he said the same thing… in fact everyone I talked to (very well traveled people) said the same thing– very rarely do you get everyone in agreement that where we are at is one of the best places in the world.  Fiji is just truly unique from anything I’ve seen and I can only describe it like a chunk of Ireland in paradise.  Ireland had some magnificent views that made me really happy just to see them, and Fiji kind of had that same feeling, but the weather is absolutely perfect and the water couldn’t be better – hence the chunks of Ireland in paradise.

Fiji is extremely slow, and could be considered boring depending what you’re looking for.  Since I wasn’t looking for anything, I found exactly what I was looking for and then some.

Arriving at my resort with a few other guests was a lot of fun.  A polish woman and her newlywed from England on their honeymoon, a German woman that had been traveling for a year and myself got a quick briefing and shown to our rooms.  I grabbed some snorkeling and checked out the reef right in front of the resort – amazing.  They say it is one of the best snorkels in the world, and I believe it.  Manta ray season was over by about two months, but they said 20 foot wide manta rays can be seen when they are here… something I want to make it back for.

Grabbing lunch, I realized the food here is amazing (though for some reason there were one or two people that didn’t like it so I have to include that into this honest review)  I’m really impressed with the chef, as it is the only food I’ve had in Fiji I can’t speak about the food in general, but the food here at the resort is top notch (as I’m rereading this and editing it, I stayed at another resort on the last two days and it was not anywhere near the quality of food at Manta Ray).  The resort has scheduled times and course meals to eat.  There is a bar where you can buy snacks and pizza (which I had to try) but for the most part I just go to the community meal times.  Diving the following day was conveniently timed to be right after breakfast and returning before lunch ended. 

Isabella, the German woman was a certified scuba diver and I wanted to dive with her so I had to convince them to let me go on the more advanced dive, which they agreed to do.  I haven’t been diving in a while but remember diving really deep with a friend in the q course as well as scuba diving several times on excursions around the world.  We ended up doing a 40 minute dive at 18-20 meters and a 52 minute dive at 15 meters along a beautiful reef and in very clear waters.  They took us snorkeling off an island where I was able to track down a shark and pick up a supposedly deadly shell animal on accident.  I knew the rule about don’t touch but it looked so harmless and pretty…   Shame on me.

The dive group became well acquainted as we took photos and videos of each other, bonding over an experience unlike anything I’ve had before.  The dives were literally five minutes away from our resort and world class.  Fiji naturally provided us with more beauty than we really needed or I asked for. 

After the dives I was a bit worn out and burnt – decided to relax and fly the drone a bit as the weather was fantastic.  I’ve been doing my best to keep up with writing in this blog while also transferring go pro and drone footage (which takes forever due to micro sd).   After dinner I started compiling videos and distributing them to the other divers, we got some really good film and even the most experienced diver was amazed at the drone footage and gopro footage we were able to capture.  One thing I did not know was that I needed a dive house for my go pro, apparently if you go down 20 meters the stock case has a small chance to malfunction and gopro won’t fix it – since I was on the beginning of a long trip I decided to leave my go pro behind when Liam offered to let me use his case.  Really nice of him and I was able to film underwater.  Everyone was really nice at this resort, and it really made the trip feel like home (which is their quote in Fiji, “welcome home”).

I haven’t had time to drink alcohol with all the studying I’ve been doing, and honestly I don’t have an urge to drink now that I’m on vacation either.  I have a lot of things I would like to get done, such as documenting travel and I’d love to get the video edited during my trip as it is an arduous process and I expect to have tons of videos.  Just the first two days in Fiji I had over 500 photos and videos to process.  During my photo editing I was sitting in the main common area down by the beach and the staff grabbed us all together to play games.   We did limbo, some dancing thing, and a type of simon says game, it was fun.   I met five female law students from Norway and Denmark studying in Australia, a swiss teacher on a five month dive trip in the pacific, a few people from the Netherlands, and one person from japan.  As usual the conversations were really high quality and I just thoroughly enjoy meeting other travelers even though I don’t really go out of my way to talk to anyone, conversations happen, it’s a part of traveling and I always accept it happily.

Right now I am on day 3 (and now I’m on day four waiting for my plane as I edit this), laying in bed taking it easy.  The weather is gloomy again and I am enjoying relaxing.   I’ve met some good people, added them to facebook and will move on in a few hours.  I’m headed back to the mainland where I hope to relax more and possibly work more on these videos I have to process.  I feel like I’ll be doing more siteseeing than I want to do on this trip, so I am trying my best to do absolutely nothing whenever I can.  Technically my trip hasn’t even started yet as I wasn’t even planning on going to Fiji.  I hope to get the videos and pics posted as I go in case I lose my electronics on the way I don’t want to lose all the pictures I have taken.

 

Update, on day three I transferred to the main Island, stayed at smugglers cove, and enjoyed a sunset dinner on the beach, of which I will hopefully be able to post a picture. --->

I went for a morning run, did a very brief workout, and finished editing my video/uploading it.  I’m enjoying a desk in my room with stable internet and taking it easy as I wait for my plane to Melbourne.  As great as Fiji was – truly unbelievably beautiful and so happy I went – I really want to get to Australia!  So excited to land in Melbourne for some reason….  And Sydney, and EVERYWHERE else…  I have never even googled Australia, so I have no idea what I’m going to find but I just have this feeling from other’s experiences that I’m going to enjoy it.  Plus I really enjoyed my last group travel experience I did with the company I’m meeting in Sydney.  Stay tuned for more from Australia next!