Fiji

Bula! We're finishing up a week in Fiji, mostly spent at the Musket Cove resort on Malolo Lailai in the Mamanuca islands. After a long trip we got into our room on Saturday about 30 hours after leaving home. Sunday we took an island hopping tour and did some snorkeling, which was a nice way to see the area. That's actually all the snorkeling we did, because the cove at our resort was very shallow and didn't have much in it to see. Monday and Tuesday we went diving. No dive pictures, because the seal on the underwater camera failed right off the bat on Monday and it's dead. We bought a new camera and underwater housing today in Nadi, so hopefully we'll get some good pictures in PNG. We planned to do more diving in Fiji, but Andrea got an ear infection so we stopped to try and get that cleared up. Of the four dives we did three were fantastic, and one had us swimming against such a strong current that I never got anywhere. All of the dives had much stronger currents than anything we did last year in Morrea. Saw some great reef walls, a few turtles, and a lobster. The rest of the week we stayed above water, rented a Hobie Cat and sailed around one afternoon and kayaked across to the bigger Malolo island on another.

We've met some really nice people here. A family from Auckland that we saw at dinner several times, a couple from the Netherlands that have been sailing around the world for the last 4 ½ years (Musket Cove looks to at one time been primarily a yacht club and marina) and had just celebrated their 42 anniversary, a young couple from England who spent most of their days sitting on the beach. It's kind of strange to be surrounded by tourists but to be the only Americans, Fiji is just full of Australians and New Zealanders. It was kind of a mix with the Fijian staff at the resort. Some were fantastic, but I was surprised at how often we'd run into a situation where someone just didn't care enough to be helpful, I'd think customer service would be a bigger deal in a tourist economy.

Today we moved to a hotel in Nadi, because we've got an early flight to PNG tomorrow. That means that yesterday we started on the anti-malarial drugs :) We caught the earliest ferry, then got a taxi to drive us around Nadi for the morning. Visited the largest Hindu temple in Fiji (not all the large) and a lovely public garden. Then spent the afternoon in our room, which is the first air-conditioned place we've been in almost a week.