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We slammed onto the runway in Nadi in the middle of a tropical thunderstorm. Zero visability on the runway, and it appeared that the plane's altimeter needed recalibrating because we really walloped the runway.

We spent only 1 night near Nadi (pronounced Nandi) before heading out to the Yasawa islands. The boat trip north to the Yasawas is spectacular. It takes you past the Mamanuca islands which are a string of coral islands that look exactly how you would draw a desert island; a lump of coral/sand only just peeping out above the sea.

Fiji

Thomasin Turner
2006-08-21 15:19:57

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We slammed onto the runway in Nadi in the middle of a tropical thunderstorm. Zero visability on the runway, and it appeared that the plane's altimeter needed recalibrating because we really walloped the runway.

We spent only 1 night near Nadi (pronounced Nandi) before heading out to the Yasawa islands. The boat trip north to the Yasawas is spectacular. It takes you past the Mamanuca islands which are a string of coral islands that look exactly how you would draw a desert island; a lump of coral/sand only just peeping out above the sea. The islands are covered in palm trees and are surrounded by fringe reefs. Pretty attractive. The Yasawas are a bit further north and are rock based islands. They rise further from the sea and are more interesting - I think. They have communities living on them , whereas the Mamanucas don't. The Yasawas are pretty stunning too. A number of films have been shot there: Blue Lagoon and Castaway being two.

We stopped for a couple of nights in a place called Wayalailai. Then headed about half an hour north by local boat, to Octopus resort. Octopus is nice. Very nice. We intended to stay 2 nights but stayed for 7. We did a lot of snorkelling. The snorkelling is fantastic, masses of fish in all shapes and colours and hard and soft coral formations right there just off the beach. We liked the snorkelling so much that we decided to do the PADI Open Water Diver course and spent much of our second week in Fiji underwater. In all I saw 5 sharks!! Yes 5, the biggest being about 6ft - how brave am I!! The first time rather than get out of the water we started chasing it!!! There is definately something wrong there! It was a white tipped reef shark, about 4ft long. Admittedly, they aren't the most aggresive of sharks, but hey - its a shark, with teeth, and its close enough in the water for you to see. Now the visibility underwater in Fiji is good, but there ain't no need for binoculars, ...