Nadi and Helicopter Ride

Today was a busy day. We had a crew of people come to wash and wax Kosmos (yippee!). Eric briefly met with them, then the four of us (Adrienne, Christi, Eric, and John) headed to downtown Nadi (pronounced Nandi). Nadi is a much smaller city that Suva. Most of the buildings are two stories, with the occasional 4 story building. Like Suva, Nadi is clean, with no graffiti of litter about. Suva has some charm, Nadi has none. Except for the Hindu temple, the architecture is utilitarian.

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Tour of the Coral Coast, Viti Levu, Fiji

We were up early again. We were going to go on a tour of the Coral Coast of Viti Luvu, which is between Suva and Nadi. We were being picked up from the Sheraton, where Adrienne had just checked in. We had decided to get breakfast at the Sheraton. Regrettably the food was not good and the service was slow, even by South Pacific standards.

For the tour there was another couple with us, Hilary and Russ. We were in a 4 wheel drive SUV (sport utility vehicle) with seating for 7. We left Denaru and went through downtown Nadi. The drive to the coral coast was quite long. The scenery is mostly rolling hills with grass, scattered palms trees, and the occasional cow or horse. There is one area that is a pine tree forest. Pine timber is one of their major exports. There were several farm areas, mostly sugar cane. We saw lots of cut sugar cane ready to be sent off to the factory for processing. Sugar cane is their primary export. Continue reading

Visit to Bounty Island, Fiji

Eric and Christi took a taxi over to the hotel where we were meeting Christi’s dad, John. The hotel is at the other end of Denaru, so we got to see more of the island. From what we understand, part of Denaru is natural island, part of it is reclaimed swampland, and part of it is man made land from the swamp dredging. There are several gated communities filled with fancy custom homes on finger cays that all have private docks in their back yard. The taxi driver said the homes range from $750,000 to $3 million Fijian dollars. There is a golf course and a large number of exclusive resorts.

Much to our surprise, when we pulled up at the hotel, John was waiting for us out front. He had made great time getting through customs and baggage.

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Kart Tour of Vava’u Island

Today we went on a kart tour around the island. The karts look almost like dune buggies and are fun to drive.

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We drove for quite a ways along paved roads, getting a good look at some of the villages around the island. The towns we passed through consisted of a shop or two, a large church or two or three, several homes, some large, most small, most needing work. Most of the land along the road was cleared, with little wild vegetation. Continue reading

Exploring Some More Motus in Suwarrow

Last night we had agreed to head over to a couple of islands farther down the reef, where we could see more birds and snorkel. We met at 10:00 and loaded into John’s boat. It was low tide. When we passed Monkey Island, we realized that the “reef” around the motu was actually the island itself submerged by high tide. Oops. We paralleled the reef around Suwarrow the entire ride, and it looks like the reef is a solid land mass that can be easily walked in low tide. Later, John confirmed that you can walk around the whole island on the reef (except for the passes).

We passed several small motus (islands) before John stopped at a larger one. There were a lot of bushes and trees around. The ground was rocky with chunks of coral and shells.
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There were several white tropicbirds and boobies flying around and a couple of babies on the ground.
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The adults walked the length of the motu while the children fished. As we came into view of the next motu, we could see Continue reading