Right, sorry for the long blog today! We have been on Manta Ray island since the 31st August and we've been having ball out there. We caught the Yasawas flyer (thanks to the Cheadle massive!) and arrived on the island mid-afternoon. We had a bit of a hoo-ha with our room - long sorry but in the end they upgraded us to a private jungle bure for two nights for our troubles! We had a great meal on the first night which was a relief as all the meals are prepaid for and you don't get a choice of where to eat as you're on an island with one resort! We wanted to stay on this island as there is the opportunity to swim with manta rays in season. They have spotters that go out early in the morning and when they find them they beat a large drum (also used for signalling meal times!) to let you know they've been spotted. At this point you get your ass down to the dive shop to grab your snorkelling equipment and off you go. Initially this wasn't on my agenda as I'm scared of open sea water (in particularly those inhabited by sharks!). However the dive instructors were so reassuring I decided to try it. The next morning Ian was up from 6am like an excited child at christmas waiting for the sound of the drum. The drum eventually went off at 7.15am (after I chucked Ian out of the room for pacing) and we headed down to the dive shop. We got our snorkelling equipment (and life jacket for me!) and went out in the boat. Getting into the water was terrifying and I had a bit of a panic attack when I got in. But after I'd calmed down, one of the local guides took my hand and swam along dragging me with him until we caught up with the rays. They were amazing! Averaging 4 meters across they are huge but very graceful, twisting and turning in the water almost as if they were putting on a little show for us. There were black and white varieties and we saw a good number of them. It was an amazing experience although not one I'd be too keen to repeat on account of the deep water! Still the experience also got me thinking I might give snorkelling a go on the island as you can do this straight off the beach so you can snorkel in shallow water you can stand up in! We did this in the afternoon and it was fantastic. There were tonnes of brightly coloured fish of all kinds including parrot fish, humbugs, butterfly fish, angel fish, moorish idles, sea cucumbers, bright blue star fish and we even spotted a moray eel. The range of coral was pretty good too. For shear numbers, Ian reckons this was some of the best snorkelling he has done. We spent the rest of our time on the island doing more snorkelling, wandering over to sunset beach on the other side of the island, sunbathing, reading, and having a good time in the evening with some fab people including four guys from London (they'd just finished school and I felt like their surrogate mum!) and a great couple from NZ who we may very well meet up with when we go over there after their kind offer of a place to park the camper van for the night or a trip out on the Bay of Islands on their boat! So kind! In the evenings we were treated to drinking games and other games including limbo, king-queen-castle (which involved me giving a piggy back ecery few seconds to a rather built bloke!) and high jump. We also had a Fijian evening with food cooked in a traditional lovo (earth oven) and the local villagers came down to show us some traditional singing and dancing. We got involved in the dancing eventually ending up with Ian leading a massive conga! In the evenings we had some amazing cocktails on account of our very generous friends and had such a relaxing time there we didn't want to leave. The only down side was the bugs which absolutely ate me alive (photo to follow at sone point)! On the last day we did very little except snorkel (Howellsey) and make cute little woven coconut leaf bracelets (me) while waiting for the boat. That evening we made our way to Stoney Creek resort back on the mainland for our final few days on Fiji. Manta Ray island will certainly gold some very special and memorable moments for us both. What a place!