October 21, 2010
It’s 5:30 am. The bedsheet was sticking to me because of the humdity and I am riddled with mosquito bites so, sleep is over. We are currently on the Mainland at Vuda Point Marina (breezeless) getting some work done on the boat. I should say Fred and Angie have been doing work on the boat and I have been hopping on a different boat every morning headed for Beachcomber Island. This is where I have enrolled in my second diving certification class, but we’ll get to that… Here’s a bit to catch you up.
After having a great visit in Birmingham with family and friends, I flew to LA to meet up with Fred. After some running around, drinks with an en fuego Tim Farley (surely a night I won’t forget), and a burger at the Apple Pan, we collected Angie and headed to the airport. Safely buckled into my seat on my direct flight to Fiji, I popped a Xanax in my mouth to ensure a pleasurable flight for me and everyone around me and we took off. I woke up 5 hours later expecting to groggily creep to the head and then back to sleep only to find us about to land in LA…again. Apparently, someone started having seizures just after we originally left from LA, but we waited 2.5 hours to turn around and fly back. I felt bad for the person that this happened to, but this event had really thrown off my measurements of self-medication, meant that we would be arriving 5 hours late, miss our ferry to the island, and I was going to need anything Xanax. Eventually, we made it. We hopped a ferry enroute to Malololailai Island and our mooring at Musket Cove Marina.
Fiji is gorgeous. Small, mountainous, haze shrouded islands lace every direction of the horizon. Malololailai is home to Musket Cove resort catering to honeymooners and quiet, relaxed vacationers. At the other end of the island is Plantation Island Resort, home to gaggles of kids. Plantation is where I began my first scuba class. I spent the first morning watching 4 hours of DVDs by PADI made in the early 1990’s- the acting was superb! Myself and one other guy watched these DVDs in the video room which happened to be in the daycare. Screaming, crying, hitting, pooping, and diaper changing was all around us. Musket Cove looked better and better every second.
After the videos, we were instructed to finish reading the book, break for lunch, and then resume that afternoon for more classroom skills. I had a lovely lunch on the beach and took a dip in the ocean. Later, we met with our instructor (who’s name escapes me, but the fact that he only had 3 teeth did not). We handed in our information cards to the instructor. He looked over my fellow student’s card, nodded, and picked up my card and frowned. Then he called someone and rattled off something to the person on the other end of the line in Fijian and handed the phone over to me. The instructor had called the “dive doctor” after noticing that I had checked “yes” for having asthma on my diver info card. In severely broken English (which is far better than my Fijian) he told me that I was disqualified from the course and could not get my certification. In true Ashley form, I started to go off about why this was ridiculous. The doctor hung up on me and the instructor simply put both hands palm up by his shoulders, shrugged, and grinned at me with his 3 snaggles. Plantation is dead to me.
Fortunately, we called another dive shop in the aforementioned Vuda Point, lied about my asthma, and I began the class there after our arrival in the Marina. As it stands today, I am a certified PADI Open Water Diver with 6 dives under my belt, including a wreck dive and a shark dive. My instructor was a Japanese guy named Eiji who repeatedly made me giggle every time he said “Crass take your regurator…,”. I shared the class with a 22 year old guy named Yassin who was part of a crew on a 65’ boat out of Isreal and a 10 year old boy, named Ben from Ireland who had been sailing with his parents for the last 2.5 years.
UPDATE: 10/26/2010
We have left Vuda Point! Vuda Point is the home to depressing heat, humidity like the breath of Satan, and throngs of fleshing insects because of the lack of a breeze. It’s a great place to get work done on your boat if you are a cruiser, but the simple act of using the marina’s facilities will have you wondering if you are melting and slapping yourself like a masochist.
After completing my certification, we headed to Pacific Harbor car by way of LauToka and Nadi Town.
As an aside, if you are in Nadi and referring to your Lonely Planet guide book as the bible in reference to restaurants, etc., avoid Tata’s. We had read that this was the roadside place to get great curry. Um, yeah. If you like your Vindaloo bone-in and you don’t mind your insides erupting like the volcano in Iceland! If you still think you want to try Tata’s and you are planning on driving down the scenic Coral Coast that day, just know that you will need 2 things : toilet paper and the highest percentage of deet bug repellent allowable. Bathrooms are few and far between and the ones that you do encounter will, without a doubt, be shockingly foul. A pitstop in the jungle is a better bet.
Apparently, this is the outpost for the Beqa Lagoon Shark Dive! Fred and Angie were super excited…. I wanted to be excited. Here they take you out to Beqa Lagoon or aka, the “shark corridor.” They dive master and others get in the water with the heads of tunas and bring in the biggest sharks in the area. Next, they have you jump in , swim, down, hold onto a chain and watch the tuna get devoured by Tiger and Bull Sharks. I saw photos in the dive shop of previous dives and nearly passed out. These puppies are not the little reef sharks that I was imagining. In fact, they could swallow me whole. Now, imagine my relief when the Shark Dive was full until the end of the month! Instead we dove on a wreck and coral which was beautiful and I managed not to have a heart attack. Now, I need the same luck when we get to Vanuatu next week…
Following Pacific Harbor, we drove onto Suva, the capital of Fiji, for some provisioning. Luckily, we hooked up with Raj, our friendly neighborhood cab driver and he took us to Fiji’s equivalent of Costco. Raj shopped with us, pushed the cart, suggested various items (which were vetoed) and then looked a little sad when he dropped us off. The next morning, Raj our cell to check on us, and was waiting downstairs. Raj, that eager beaver!
Fred and I left the hotel early and went for a run, partly for exercise and partly to get the lay of the land. 7am and people are still coming out of night clubs. This may not be shocking to some people, but I only see 7 am if I am out for exercise. In fact, we ran along the waterfront and apparently found the Suva version of makeout point…with the sun up!
Aside from that, Suva is not a bad city. I certainly would not walk around at night by myself, but during the day it is seemingly safe. There are tons of markets, spices, tailors, etc. everywhere. The city shows scars of burned buildings from the riots it experienced in the mid-80’s and earlier this decade. However, the Government House and Botanical Gardens are gorgeous.
In the days since we returned from Suva, waved a gleeful goodbye to Vuda Point, sailed back to musket cove, and are now currently in Denerau Point. We went back to Musket Cove to meet up and dine with fellow cruisers Lisa & Lester of Obsession from New Zealand and Lindsay & Steve of Jemellie from Jersey, England. All of the above are characters and we had a great dinner cooked on the beach grills. In particular, Lisa and Lester are a riot!!
We have now picked up Jeff, safe and sound this morning in Denerau and are currently in a slip in the marina. Both Obsession and Jemellie have joined us this afternoon and we are planning another dinner tonight. Things could get ridiculous.
As it stands, we are hopefully heading back to Musket Cove for R and R in 2 days for a few days and then we set sail to Vanuatu! I am looking forward to my first crossing, kava, more diving, and hopefully avoiding the stew pot of the cannibals!
