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Arrived at my resort on mainland paradise, I mean, Fiji just as it was getting dark. The sunset was a mixture of beautiful shades of red and yellow and I observed it from a hammock on the beach. Another two guys were staying in my room so we chatted with drinks on the beach all evening. Called it a night early because my bus was picking me up at 7am the next morning!
On the bus I bumped into a guy named Adam that I had met in Cairns, small world. The bus took us to the ferry port and we boarded the boat to our destinations. I had an Island hopping pass which enabled me to visit as many of the Yasawa group of islands as I wished in 7 days. I chose Naviti island, in the middle of the group, to spend a few days at to start with. I arrived at noon when everyone there was seated down to eat lunch. I sat with the loudest table of the group and immediately bonded with them. The rest of my time there was spent in a hammock on the beach, and when I wasn't in the hammock I was in the bar. The resort was tiny, about 7 small rooms and one big one which was the 30 bed dorm. The staff were extremely friendly and accommodating to our needs, some of the guy staff were slightly too friendly and apparently only to blondes. The locals welcomed us with a few native dances, the "Bula dance"(a welcome dance) and the "Haka dance" (a war dance). We all got involved trying to learn the dances which was comical! Some of the group were slightly more drunk than others and we were woken up at about 3am by a huge crash in the dorm. I later on learned that it was Dan who had fallen from the one of the top bunk beds in the dorm, thinking he was in the top not the bottom. After a couple of nights at Coconut Bay the group split. Half of us chose to go onto another island, Waya, and the others chose to stay put.
Sunset on Waya was altogether a better place to be. The beach was cleaner and the resort a little nicer. Also they had a better choice of booze behind the bar. At low tide we were able to walk across throught the water to the neighbouring island, as long as you timed it right as to not get stranded there. The 5 of us started enjoying our G&Ts reasonably early in the afternoon so that reasonably early in the evening we were feeling the effects. Met some more cool peeps to sit chatting to all night. When we finally made it back to our dorm, myself and Alex were severely told off by others trying to sleep because we were disturbing them with drunken outbursts of giggles. Bloody kill-joys.
The next morning I wasn't feeling too chipper but had to get up early to go shark feeding with the locals and a few others from the group. At 8am we sailed out a couple of miles and were given snorkelling gear. After swimming around the same spot for about 10 minutes I saw the first shark. It wasn't very big, about a foot-long reef shark. After a little while longer more and more sharks came until there were about six swimming fifteen feet under us. The longest being about 5 feet long. The locals were using spears to kill fish which was amazing in itself, the skill they must have had to get the timing right etc. Then they would swim to where the sharks were and wave the flesh around in front of them to get the sharks attention, and go on to hide the flesh to then get them agitated. One of the guys hid the fish behind his back and the shark went for his face! At one point I felt a slight sting to my stomach area and when I looked to see what it was I noticed that we were swimming with approximately two-hundred small jelly fish surrounding us! There was no way of avoiding them so you just had to put up with it! Luckily I'm a hard nut and could take the pain, whereas there were some girls whining about it when I came to the surface. Whimps. I seemed to have gained a friend along the way, a tiny bright yellow tropical fish insisted on swimming a couple of centimetres in front of my goggles. Everytime I got him out of the way using my hands, he would reappear there a second later. It made me giggle anyway and it took my mind off of my hangover.
That afternoon I got the boat to the next island on my list, Beachcomber Island, famous for partying, partying and more partying. Only two of us from the oringinal group went. And then there were two. We got ready to jump off the big ferry onto a smaller boat which transferred us to the island and I couldn't see my backpack anywhere on the ferry, so I assumed it was already on the transfer boat. You know what they say about assumtions... (If not, watch Lock, Stock.) It wasn't until we got off at the island that I realised my bag hadn't come with me. Lewis and I found it very funny at first, stupid me and nevermind it will end up at the port etc. So we checked in and I asked to ring the ferry port to tell them the situation and to make sure my bag was on the first ferry out in the morning. I had to ring back when they cleared the boat only for them to tell me that sorry no bags had been left over, there was no luggage that was unclaimed. I wasn't laughing now. I panicked big time, I had nothing but a bikini, the hotpants and a boob-tube I was wearing. Luckily I always keep my passport and important documents in my handbag on me at all times! Naturally I immediately wanted to speak to mum but I was in a right state so I got her all worried (sorry mum). So much for a party, I was in a foul mood and went to bed at 9!!!
The next morning I sat in reception and asked them over and over to ring the ferry port back. The were most unhelpful but I persuaded them to help me with a $20 fijian note!!! Cheeky b*$&%^$. They located my bag as being on the ferry the whole time and the staff had obviously not had the energy to look for me the night before. So a night of tears and worrying for nothing! I was not best pleased but relieved to have my bag, which has had my whole life in it for the last 4 and a bit months, returned back to me. Losing that bag was such a strange feeling, I can't really describe it. It's all of my belongings that I've carried around since I left home and it was so upsetting to think it could have been lost forever!
Travelled to the airport with a guy I had met on the first island I visited and discovered we were on the same flight to Hawaii.
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