When we woke up the sun was brighter than it was yesterday. We looked into the water below us and could see all sorts of spectacular coral formations. Guess we missed the sand patch. At least it will be a pretty dive when we free the anchor.

We have been itching to use the kayaks since Tonga. This was an ideal spot, being both remote and sheltered, so we got the kayaks down instead of the dinghy. We decided to explore the islands, figuring that they were small and it wouldn’t take very long. We went to Vanua Levu first, curious about the huts on shore. We landed the dinghy to the left of the large rock next to the huts. This is the nicest beach we have seen since leaving San Diego. It is fine white sand. We realized that there was no way to go around the rock and we’d have to go over it.

Towards the top of the hill, we found a well used hiking trail. This really surprised us. Who would have thought we’d find such a nice trail on an uninhabited island? Was it really uninhabited? We followed the trail to the summit, where the views below and of the other islands in the distance are nothing short of spectacular. First shot is Navadra to the north, second is west end of Vanua Levu and last one is looking south.

We wandered around up at the summit for a while. The foliage on the island is quite diverse, with lots of different plants, along with many young trees. There are coconut trees along the shore, but higher up there are none. The foliage is not dense, so it is easy to wander between the trees and look around. We saw a lot of lizards and a half a dozen goats. Clearly there had been people camping up there. There was an area that looked like it had been cleared for camping and chars from campfires. We were appalled to see a lot of discarded water bottles and soda cans.

We followed the trail all the way back down, and as we suspected, it lead back to the huts. The huts baffled us. There are two huts, with a small single deck in front of them. Each is a single room with three sets of bunk beds with no mattresses. They were full of trash. They were in disrepair, yet somehow looked like they were pretty darn new, yet they seemed to be abandoned. The platforms the huts sit on didn’t look native made, it looked more like a western style construction. We had no clue what the huts could possibly be for. Near the huts, along the shore, were little walkways that had been dragged of debris and lined with coconuts. Coconuts don’t fall into neat lines, and coconuts rot. None of the coconuts were rotten. Clearly someone had spent a lot of time and energy in the very recent past on these walkways.

We headed down the shore to the big rock. We didn’t see any way up it, but we did walk around the base. We picked our way across large, black rocks. The shoreline between and around the big rocks was littered with multi-colored, hand size rocks. It is really pretty. We are surprised at the diversity on this tiny little island.

We got about halfway around and decided it was time to head back. There were lots of crabs along the rocks, which were dark in color like the rocks and hard to see. Once back on the sand, we noticed there were a lot of little white crabs that are hard to see against the sand. Nature is amazing in it’s placement of the animals.

We scaled the big rock by the huts and grabbed the kayaks. We had good timing, The tide was coming in and it looked like the kayaks would be washed to sea soon. While we were on the island, 6 boats had pulled in. We saw some people swimming and went to say hi. One of them was considering buying a Nordhavn, so we invited them to come by. We wound up hanging out with them for the rest of the day. In the early evening they said they had company coming over and invited us back to their boat to hang out with them and the crew of another boat in the anchorage. We were there late into the evening. Both sets of crew knew the mystery of the huts. Survivor Kids had just finished recording there and the huts were where the kids stayed. Apparently, while they were recording, no boats were allowed to anchor there, so they had been waiting for the camera crew to leave to come here. Checking out the other island will have to wait for tomorrow.