Yasawa Islands II

1) Tavewa Island
Tavewa Island was nice. The island was great as all of them. Nice beach, nice vegetation, no roads or streets, no cars, a dirt path and limited electricity. The resort, Coral View, had probably the worst toilets and showers I have ever seen though. I got quite fed up with that because I was so disgusted and you still pay a lot of money for it. Our bure was in a way quite sweet but so tiny, they literally managed to fit ina double bed and that was it. We couldn't have even put both our bags on the floor and opened them at the same time.
So Chris made a deal with them and upgraded us to a delux room which was a new bure with a privat clean bathroom. Still only cold water, but at least clean, so I was happy again. Some of the resorts here are just taking the piss. Our tiny bure with the really dirty shared toilets and showers still cost GBP50 which is a lot of money here considering our tour guide made $20 a week!!! It's so expensive here and it's not much you get.
We just chilled out again for the rest of the day by the beach, had dinner and settled for the rest of the evening with a bottle of wine in one of the hammocks. I love them, they are so comfortable. If I ever have a garden big enough, I am getting one of them. The next day we spend the morning by the resort beach and after lunch went to another beach that was recommeneded for snorkelling. The snorkelling wasn't that great and due to the wind there were loads of jelly fish, which put me off a bit. So I went for a long nice walk instead and left Chris to fight with the jelly fish.
I did find some nice big shells though, my Mum would have loved it and gone crazy. . I bought one, which was cleaned already from one of the local boys. In the evening we had a crazy hat competition. Great! To my surprise, after I was stressing that we would be the only ones without hats, as everyone was working on theirs, I managed to convince Chris to make us some hats and so he did. Have a look at the pics and then it's needless to say that we didn't win. :-) quite funny though! :-) We looked well stupid.
We had quite a few drinks and as a result I couldn't do my dive the next morning... dough!!!
Just relaxing and then on our way to Manta Ray Island!

2) Manta Ray Island
The resort on Manta Ray Island was fantastic! Really nice clean bure, no bathroom but the shared facilities are really new and clean. First time I have actually seen someone cleaning. The food was amazing. We tried to stay for an additional night but unfortunately that didn't work. We went swimming with Manta Rays in the afternoon and that was absolutely incredible. We only saw one but it was so impressive. That is certainly the most impressive creature I have seen. It was about 5 meters wide and swims so elegantly, almost like flying through the water. And they are huge!!!
I felt quite sorry for it though, as it tried to get away from us. I would love to be able to just on the bottom with a tank and watch them. Apparently if you leave them alone, they will come to you driven by their own curiousity, but the dive school didn't offer it, as the owner doesn't want them to be hassled. That certainly was one of the highlights of the Fiji trip and also of the overall trip.
After dinner and a few drinks we had an early night to make sure I am not missing the next dive too :-)
The dive was great, just outside Manta Ray Island. We didn't see much fish, but the coral landscape was just fantastic. Funnily enough the dive site is called "Fantastic"! We swam through deep canyons and gorges, almost like caves, really really cool....
Chris also did his introductory dive and liked it too. Apart from cutting his feet on coral when getting into the water it all went well and he was even taken down to 12 or 14 meters which is quite strange.
After another fabulous lunch we made our way to Waya Lailai to Eco Heavan Resort.

3) Waya Lailai
Eco Heavan is a bit more basic but very clean and our bure has a bathroom which was unexpected. The weather on our first day wasn't great so we just sat on the veranda of the main bure and met some nice people. Will, a Dutch guy and also the tallest man I have ever met - 2.15 meter!!!! Incredible! Also an Israeli guy who is a girls magnet, being a diving instructor, a salsa teacher and a tennis instructor. Quite interesting guy. Strange and scary how different their reality is, war just seems to be part of it. All in all a very nice evening.
The weather was fantastic the next morning and we had an early start as our hike to the very top of the mountain started already a 8.30am. It was a fantastic hike with absolutely incredible views over our island, the resort as well as the whole Yasawa Group. I have never sweat so much in my life though. The sweat was literally dripping into my eyes and running down my legs! Nice! :-)
Good training for Everest Base Camp....
After lunch I had a dive at a place called Coral Garden. Chris came with me on the boat to go snorkelling which wasn't as successful as my dive. The coral landscapes were great, like a garden :-) ha, ha, and I had the instructor to myself which was great. We saw a big boxfish and some great shells and fish and also a Whitetip Reef Shark. That one was probably 1.5 meters, so much smaller than the ones in OZ, so I felt absolutely comfortable with them.
After a nice swim we had some dodgy dinner with sea gras and all other sort of weird stuff, followed by some Fijan dancing, like the night before. Chris loved it.... NOT! :-)
We had an early night and while I went for another dive in the morning Chris went reef snorkelling and saw his first 3 sharks, only about one meter but still.... I had another dive which was nice but nothing spectacular. After I got my laundry back and finally had clean cloth again - Hurray!!! - we went to our favourite island - Bounty Island! Warm showers and nice food here we come...!

4) Bounty Island
Bounty Island was good but not as nice as the first time. We watched the sunset when we got there which was very nice and went for a quick swim before dinner. We then had quite a few drinks and I felt it the next morning...:-(
Chris figured out that the mystery about the original house from Celebrity Love Island, which everyone believed torn down. It is actually still there with the pool and also the bar but it has been modified.
As I was quite hung over, I just relaxed in the hammock, went swimming and snorkelling and in the afternoon we went back to the main island and had our last night in the West Motor Inn again, this time we upgraded to a Deluxe Room though which was much better. And I am no dreading the good bye.....