Bula bula!

So we left French Polynesia with lots of great memories, setting the bar high for any future travelling. However, the next destination was not too bad either: Fiji!! Here it would be 'bula' instead of 'lorana'.

Our trip to Fiji was probably the most stressful we had so far. Our flight was going to take us from Papeete to Auckland, New Zealand, where we would have a two-hour stopover before taking another flight to Fiji. Trouble started in Papeete already, where our flight was delayed by more than an hour and a half, time we would not make up once we were airborne. When we finally landed in Auckland, it took us another 10 minutes before we could dock the gate. So that left us with a trivial 20 minutes to check in, get boarding passes and reach our departure gate for an international flight to Fiji...that meant...running!!! At the transfer desk, things got frantic. As it turned out, most passengers on our flight had a connecting flight. However, their Qantas flight to Sydney was scheduled to leave before our connecting flight to Fiji giving them the right to claim boarding passes ahead of us. We can tell you that the layer of civilisation in mankind is very thin...Fortunately, our Air Pacific flight to Fiji ended up being delayed as well, so we caught our flight easily although we had a few more grey hairs...

Despite all the stress we had in Auckland, we arrived safely in Nadi, Fiji. Unfortunately, our bags did not...both of them!!! Okay, okay, this was bound to happen, if you take 25-30 flights in one year, but it could not have happened at a worse time. Here we were in 30 degrees Celsius paradise at 9pm wearing our hiking boots (with thick socks), long sleeved shirts and just one pair of underwear each. In addition, our plan was not to stay in Nadi, but to travel the same evening to Pacific Harbour, a 2-3 hour drive away. Nothing could be done as we hopped onto a cab to Pacific Harbour. On our way we could clearly see the effects of the cyclone that had passed over Fiji only two weeks earlier, flooding most of Nadi. There was a huge mess everywhere and the road was horrible because it had been inundated for most part of the weeks before. Nevertheless, the nature was quite lush and stunning.

In Pacific harbour we stayed at Pacific Safari Club, which came highly recommended by Rafael (remember Rangiroa??) and Nadine (his girlfriend) who had spend some time here the year before. This is where Rafael perfected his shark feeding skills. In fact, Pacific Harbour is known amongst divers as THE shark-feeding diving paradise. And we were going to experience this the very next day...

At Aquatrek (http://www.aquatrek.com/), our dive centre, we could not fail to notice the next day that that things operated completely different as compared to the dive operations in French Polynesia. First of all, there were about 20 people on our boat, while we were used to boats with max 6-8 people (hail to mass tourism diving!!). Then, most people on the boat were backpackers from Australia and New Zealand, most of them with hardly any diving experience. We had not seen those before. Third, the briefing was quite chaotic and nobody really listened...surprisingly, considering that we where about to be surrounded by more than 20 ferocious man-eating sharks!! When we got into the water things did not get any better...total chaos! However, once everybody settled on the bottom behind a little wall at 20 meters depth, the show started and everything was forgotten.

Ahead of the dive, the dive guides had lowered four waste dispensing bins (NL: groene kliko's) to the bottom, filled to the brim with fish waste...more than 250 kilos in total!!! Total madness!! Sharks were lured in by opening these containers and throwing fish waste up in the water. By the time we arrived at the bottom they were all there: huge nurse sharks, lemon sharks, grey reef sharks, silvertip sharks, whitetip reefsharks and the very impressive and huuuuuuge bullsharks (which are known for killing people...!!).

On top of that, there were massive schools of fish (mainly mackerels) who circled around the kliko's as well. The dive guides would continue throwing fish waste around as the sharks and the fish went totally berserk. Other dive guides protected the fish handlers by keeping the sharks at bay with long metal sticks. However sometimes, the bigger sharks would come so close that they had to be pushed away BY HAND...WOW!! Although the water was very murky and visibility was limited to no more than 15 meters, the whole view and spectacle were very impressive and it was one big, amazing, adrenalin rush. The sharks were everywhere and we had to duck regularly to let them pass over (you could actually see their teeth!). We were told not to stick out our hands, since the sharks could mistake your arm for fish bate and just snatch it off... brrrr!! This was a truly unforgettable attraction, although it had nothing to do with diving.

Just as reminder: at this point our luggage had still not arrived and the two dives were done in our underwear (we arrived at the dive shop once again in our hiking boots). Much to the embarrassment of Thomas who was wearing a bright pink boxershort, which really works well in a male dominated macho society such as Fiji... In fact, Air Pacific is well know for loosing its luggage (one in every three bags gets lost) and the airlane is often referred to as Air Pathetic! Fortunately as a consequence, they have also become experts at retrieving bags (phew!) as no bag ever gets lost. However this can sometimes take up to one week!! We just had to hang in there. We had become very creative with the garments that we did have, for example Mischa had started to use her PLO shawl as a skirt, while Thomas opted for commando style under his new pair of shorts.

The next day we went diving in the Beqa lagoon off the coast of Pacific Harbour (again in underwear (pink underwear in Thomas's case...)). This turned out to be one big disappointment as the water was very murky (probably thanks to the cyclone), the corals very dead and colourless and the dive guide in a very bad mood. Although we wanted to leave Pacific Harbour, we could not as our bags had not yet arrived. The next day however, at 7 in the morning, we heard a very quiet knock on our door and were happily reunited with our beautiful huge and filled to the brim backpacks!! Jippie!!

Although Fiji's main island Viti Levu is beautiful, the archipelago consists of more than 300 islands and there was more country to be discovered. In setting our itinerary on Fiji we picked (taddah!) the best diving sports and went to Kadavu's Great Astrolabe Reef in the south and Taveuni' Somosomo Strait in the north. Given our excellent experience with flying in French Polynesia, we decided to board another little turboprop aircraft, which took us to picturesque and remote Kadavu in 1.5 hours.

There, we hopped on a small boat with all our luggage and took a 3 hour ride to our final destination: Waisalima Beach Resort, basically located in the middle of nowhere but recommended by the owner of the Pacific Safari Club Inn.

Shortly after we arrived we heard that the owner of the place, some weird Australian woman had been trying to sell the place for years. Given that the resort is pretty much run down and is desperate need of repair, we imagine that this will be a huge challenge. The bures had big holes in them, there was no warm water, no electricity and the cyclone had washed away most of the once splendidly beautiful beach in front of the resort. The owner had left to Australia and had asked a young American/Fijian couple to run the place, although they had no experience whatsoever in that field (actually no guests were expected during the more quiet months). So we were pretty sceptical upon arrival. However, that proved to be premature. We truly had a wonderful time! Since there was nothing else to do, we basically spend our days diving (which was fantastic) and relaxing by reading books in a hammock.

Furthermore the food was wonderful (thanks to an Indian influence on the Fijian kitchen, almost 50% of the Fijian population has Indian ancestors) and we had the whole place to ourselves given that we were the only guests around (all marketing efforts for the place had stopped). On the last day, they organised a Kava ceremony for us. Kava is a slightly narcotic drink, made from either the dried Kava roots or tree. It is a very important part of the Fijian culture. It used to be a ceremonial drink whereby villages would gather around the chief, drinking Kava and discussing anything that needed to be discussed within the village. As it goes, nowadays most men in Fiji spend large parts of their day drinking Kava, getting stoned, while the women work...sounds familiar? If somebody offers you Kava, they would find it very offensive if you say no. So we obviously accepted their offer. With some reluctance though because the taste of Kava is comparable to...well mud...yuk!! It was a great night!! Kadavu was really our little paradise and we left with much regret.

On our way to the airport, our luck ran out once again. The boat's engine broke down and it started raining like crazy (there was no roof or anything to hide under). The boat was only creeping forward and at that pace we would never make it on time to the airport for our flight to Nadi (and Taveuni the next day). We were starting to become a little nervous. The fact that we slowly were getting soaked to the bone did not help.... Fortunately the father of our boat driver was a mechanic. So we detoured to a little village on the coast where the engine was quickly reassembled. We arrived at the airport just in time...to find out that the airplane was an hour delayed...what's new...FIJI TIME!! ;-))

In Nadi, we spend the night in a real hotel, called Aquarius Fiji (www.aquariusfiji.com), drinking a nice cold glass of white wine (no wine on Kadavu) and a spicy hot curry as we celebrated our return to civilisation...only to leave it again the next day. On the agenda: the famous Somosomo Strait in between the islands of Vanua Levu and Taveuni.

Another turboprop flight of about 2 hours brought us to the island of Taveuni. From there it only took a mere 15 minute boat-drive to our final destination: Dophin Bay Divers Retreat on the island of Vanua Levu (http://www.dolphinbaydivers.com/). The biggest shock for us was that they actually had other guests!! Bleh...so we had to be social again...;-)

Luckily, the people in the group (an elderly American couple Graig and Annie and Sabine and Simon, a young Swiss couple on a world tour like us) were very nice and we ended up spending the best of 5 days together. Furthermore, the owners of the place, Viola and Roland were really sweet people who would sit with us during breakfast, lunch and diner and amuse us with their stories about Fiji, Fijians and running a dive resort in the Pacific. The diving was simply great. We have seen quite a lot of places already in the world but Somosomo Strait really ranks as one of the best spots we have ever seen. Here, you hardly see any sharks or big fish. No, Somosomo Strait is known for its hard and especially soft corals and the sheer abundance of fish. And we were not disappointed!!

After 5 days of hard core diving and great food and fun, we had to get back to Nadi. The last night we had diner with Sabine and Simon who had followed our advice and booked a room in the Aquarius, like us, and ended up in the room next to us. So we spend the night reminiscing the diving and our stay at Dolphin Bay Divers retreat and enjoying a big dancing and fire-dancing event that had been organised by the hotel.

Next it was time to move on to Australia. Wewere very exited and looking forward to see Marco and Nik in Melbourne. Finally some familiar faces again!!

Bula!

Lots of love!!

Thomas and Mischa