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Fiji, I can only possibly use four words to sum up my time here: Sharks, rum, coconuts, insects. All of these have combined in this paradise I have been a part of to make it one of the best two weeks of my life. Every day I found something new to do which did normally involve swimming with sharks and spear fishing … not your average afternoon activities but that was what I became used to and I loved it. I will try my best to describe the islands I have been to in this amazing place:
Day 1- I transferred from my accommodation on the mainland of Nadi to Port Denarau to check in for my island hopping trip. Deciding that I wanted to start at the top of the Yasawa islands I boarded the boat for a 5 hour boat ride to the island of Coral View. This was my first taste of transport by boat and little did I know I would be seeing and getting on easily over a hundred boats for the next two weeks. Parked up about 300 metres from the island we, along with our luggage, all got on a little wooden jet boat in torrential rain and somehow made it to the island. It's impossible to describe and do justice to these sorts of events but just imagine I'm a character in Pirates of the Caribbean and you may understand more of what I'm describing to you. Coral View was my first taste of the Fijian islands and the first thing I put my name down for was the suicidal shark feeding dive in the morning. I managed to persuade a few lads I had met to join me so we could share the fear that night together. I soon discovered that on these islands my morning wash would be in the sea, my evening shower would be in the rain water coming off the top of the huts and if I was hungry I would catch my own food. The rest of my first day was spent collecting coconuts and mangos to get us through to dinner and then taking up positions in the hammocks around the island accompanied by a bottle of rum each, which became a very very regular custom during the next two weeks.
Day 2- The morning of the shark dive and we were surrounded by torrential rain and wind. The waves were easily a few metres high and our dive boat barely fit us and all our gear on. The unbelievable journey to the dive site was only fitting for what we were about to do. On several occasions we nearly fell out of the boat and on one occasion the boat was on its side very nearly spilling us and all of the scuba gear into the water. Again I can't possibly do justice to not only the boat journey but the dive itself at how mad and just crazy it all was: So we jumped into the shark infested waters and wasted no time in getting to the bottom at 18 metres below the surface. What we arrived at just seemed like it shouldn't be real. Three 4 metre bull sharks and six 3 metre lemon sharks accompanied by eighteen blacktip/whitetip and reef sharks, it truly was insane as these killers feasted on all sorts of meat only 10 feet in front of us with only a few Fijians with long poles to fend off any curious sharks.. Being a shark dive the majority ran out of air fairly quickly as you're breathing so fast with the adrenalin, however three of us including an instructor had managed to stay calm enough to last for a little bit longer. This topped off my experience beyond belief as now we were outnumbered dramatically and food was running out. So the bull sharks moved closer and closer to us until they were within literally about 5 feet from us, now more confident since there were only three of us down there and no poles or anything protecting us was around. This, we decided, signalled to us that we should leave fairly quickly. Hopefully that gives a good enough description of quite how mad that experience was, without doubt the craziest thing I have ever done and I loved it. Still buzzing hours later we made the short boat journey to our next island destination, Bay of Plenty.
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