Diving on Boxing Day
26th December, Fiji, Nanuya Lailai (Yasawas Group)
Not far from Nanuya Lailai is one of the Yasawas' best dive operators (according to the guide books we'd seen), based at Tavewa. I had to get at least one dive organised before leaving Fiji, right? Today I arranged for an afternoon dive. Even as I mad enquiries about availability, I wondered whether it was the right thing to do - the water just outside our bure was very choppy. The wind was very strong although the people at the resort said that it was always windy, as there is nothing shielding us from the Pacific winds. Oh, and it was hurrican season, too. Toby, one of the other people at Sunrise (who we'd first met back in the transfer bus from Nadi airport to our first hotel), was doing his PADI Open Water dive certification at Tavewa and he reassured me that the diving was excellent no matter that the surface might be choppy.
Manda and I spent the morning just lazing about, either in the bure/shed or down on the beach. The cloud cover was light, but because of the strong winds it would be all too easy to get sunburnt without realising it.
We took a walk along the beach trying to find crabs in the numerous little rock pools that lined the far end of the beach. At low tide, it's possible to walk all the way round the island toward the Blue Lagoon (before we'd walked across the island cutting through plantations and rough ground). We only managed to walk a short distance, passing some of the other resorts along the beach on the way.
Nanuya Lailai Beach.
When I say resort, don't think of a resort in the traditional sense. All your preconceptions are likely to be wrong. Bear in mind that the accommodation is huts made from bound and dried coconut leaves wrapped over simple wooden structures, and the floor may be solid but may be just like outside - sand.
Traditional bure and our more conventional 'shed'.
As for the management, it's really just a little commercial venture for the villagers. In our 'resort', Sunrise, there are the beach-side bures - perhaps 15 of them - and behind them the villagers who largely live in the traditional way. The only link with them comes in the form of the dining room and the 'office', the latter being a tin shack with some high tech equipment - a CB radio to keep in contact with the mainland or the Yasawa Flyer. Electricity is a luxury provided between the hours of 6 and 11pm by a tempremental generator, and there are no roads, cashpoints, banks or post office. Is this like any resort you've ever stayed at before?
Whiskey's Reef
My pick-up for the dive was due at 1:30pm. Fiji time = 2:15pm. In a souvenir book called, appropriately, Fiji Time, there is a phrase that goes something like 'In Fiji time slows down so the rest of the world can catch up'. As ever, the boat ride (small powerboat) to the dive centre was fun - if your idea of fun is getting splashed every time the boat bumped along the waves at high speed.
Having got kitted up for the dive I joined a boat with about 8 certified divers which was bound for a place called Whiskey's Reef. It was on this boat that I met a nice couple, John and Melanie. They were quite entertaining - whereas Ohara and Robert (who we met on the Wanna Taki cruise) were entertaining because of the funny bickering, John and Mel were entertaining because of the one-way jibes (Mel taking the mickey out of John, John floundering and trying to defend himself probably for the umpteenth time). It soon became clear that they were not a couple but just very good friends - both were doctors and had trained together. Mel was Singaporean/English and could talk for England (or Singapore); John was a well-spoken English guy living in New Zealand and loving it.
My last dive had been in Crete, and back then I got buddied up with a supposed advanced diver (who spent the entire dive bobbing up and down like a yo-yo, unable to control hi buouyancy); this time I got buddied with a girl who was always lagging behind and did the weird thing with her hands throughout the dive. Normally, you use your fins for propulsion and keep your hands tucked in by your body to keep your profile as streamlined as possible (this makes it easier to 'glide' through the water and reduces the chances of knocking anything underwater like fragile corals and so on). My dive buddy looked like she needed fins on her hands as she was constantly scooping her hands inwards to steady herself. It looked for all the world like she was doing some kind of exotic Indian dance, as she kept your fingers splayed while she did it. Either that or it was some weird kind of gesture to entice all the little sea creatures her way (it failed in that respect).
I had taken precautions to ensure that my camera housing (good for up to 30 metres) didn't mist up by using anti fog spray and silica gel inside the casing, but alas much of the reef went unrecorded. Within a few minutes the pictures I captured were looking hazy. However, while the reef itself was interesting in its structure - lots of channels to swim through - there wer not that many fish, and the presence of so many divers in a small space did not lend itself to good photography (mob-handed, silted up views where some hit the bottom etc).
John the doctor - an ideal occupation for a diving buddy to have!
Fan coral at 18 metres, shortly before the camera fogged up beyond use.
It was also not the easiest of dives, with some sections presenting some challenging currents to get past. Often we would find ourselves at the mouth of some channel in the reef, stationary one moment, even while finning away, then suddenly being pushed down the channel by the current toward the next unsuspecting diver ahead.
After the dive, I waited in the dive lodge while our friend Toby was debriefed on the exam questions he got wrong for his PADI Open Water certificate. It was good news - he passed and was already itching to get back in the water. He would not be disappointed. On the way back to Sunrise we had the bumpiest boat ride yet and every time Toby turned his head toward the front of the boat, he'd get a faceful of water, comedy style as if someone were waiting with a bucket of water just for him each time. I don't think that was quite what he had in mind.
Travelling Friends
Among our group on the island were a couple of American guys, one from Florida and another from California (who prononunced 'Yeah' like it was a two syllable word: 'Yeah-uh'). At first they looked like brothers - both with long wavy hair, big eyebrows and well honed tans. The smaller of the two reminded me of that guy from the TV show Chips (y'know, the Latino one - can anyone remember 'the other guy'?). At dinner, Manda asked them: "Are you travelling friends or are you " ...
Well, at this point I was wondered where this question was leading and had already filled in the rest of the sentence in my head with "or are you a couple/gay?". I wasn't watching their reaction, but Manda realised right at that point that they were looking a little shocked but she wasn't sure why. Perhaps they were expecting the question to end the same way?
"... or are you brothers or cousins?" Manda continued. "It's just that you look so alike".
I breathed a mental sigh of relief, as did the American guys I suspect. You see, we hadn't just noticed their likeness to each other but also their apparant likeness of each other. They did seem very couply. I mentioned later to Manda that I wondered where that question was leading. Having also come to the same conclusion about these guys, Manda then realised how her completely innocent question must have sounded and cringed at the memory of asking it, recalling those looks of shock which, with hindsight, could be explained!