So beautiful it hurts my retinas

So we land in Fiji and the first thing that happens when they open the airplane door is this wave of warm pleasantly humid air that is so ridiculously refreshing after all the rain that we had to endure in Oz for the past week and a half. Off comes the sweater it's tank top time Baby!!! We get through customs ok and find Megan (Trent's sister) her 2 nursing friends (Kayla and Erin) and our travel lady, who is mildly confused about our water taxi vouchers but soon enough a driver arrives to take us to the port. We aren't able to go with Megan and her friends but meh we'll see them at the resort. We get to the port and the driver helps us carry all our stuff to the boat, we had to buy mix for our booze and water because we were told that people have gotten sick from the island water. The captain and the mate of this little motor boat (it's a fair size but rudimentary and cute) help us load all our stuff in and off we go. They answer all my silly questions as we go and laugh every time we dive into our purses for our cameras. They even stopped the boat so Rocko (the mate) could take a picture of Rainey and I in front of the most beautiful sunset I've ever seen, I couldn't look away I was seeing a large blue spot for hours after... I figure my contacts are UV protectant so I'm covered right? We get to the island and break out the Duty Free liquor and the water bottles, and lo and behold a little hung over the next day but that's what beach napping was invented for. We all went scuba diving on Friday; Rainey, Meagan, Kayla, and Erin took an Intro dive course and we all went out to the reef together we fed the fish and found Nemo and I got some awesome pictures I LOVE that camera... the Divemasters were equally excited about it, Bola (not sure if that's how his name is spelled) and I kept passing it back and forth, he's way better at the underwater shots than I, but I'm still focusing on not sucking my air tank dry in 20 minutes. Everyone seemed to have a good time and the Dive shop staff are all so fantastic.... I went out on 3 more dives throughout the weekend it was awesome. Saturday I went on a Shark dive; they boat you out to just off an island called Supermarket and there's a deep trench that you dive along (27m is how deep I went), and this is where the sharks usually live.... however there was some a**hole spear gun fishing (which is illegal by the way in Fiji) and all the sharks were scared away because of him (or attracted to where he was fishing?? I never thought to clarify that point with the Divemaster). After Supermarket we went to another site where the corral grew in large vertical mounds, saw a large Rock lobster and a Clam, sea cucumbers and clown fish (oh my) it was fantabulous. Sunday morning I got to dive down to the Salamander. The Salamander was a pleasure cruise kinda boat that would host evening party cruises or dinner cruises, it was purpose sunk 18 years ago and was completely fascinating. I got to see a Lion Fish (Fishy Fishy Fishy-and for those of you who do not get the reference you need to brush up on your Deuce Bigalow exposure) but my favorite part, and don't any of you dare laugh at me... The toilet. It is so surreal and kind of scary to see something as every day ordinary as a toilet submerged 25m and covered with oceanic growth. And then I thought about what kind of pose I would strike if I had a camera and could take a picture in my scuba gear on it... I think "The thinker" would be an appropriate one LMAO, so do I hold nothing sacred?!?!?! Sunday night was a blast we had met 2 more nurses from Alberta (Medicine Hat and Calgary) and we where all partying in honor of Megan's Birthday. We ended up at the bar (which has a sand dance floor by the way, so much fun!!) and Rainey kept darting in to change the song on the lab top that was hooked up to the speaker system when the DJ wasn't looking... I don't know how the next part happened but all of a sudden I look over and there's Rainey playing DJ with her I-pod plugged in. We had Country Birthday Times in Fiji, another surreal moment for the books. We had so much fun though and the other guests seem to enjoy it to, they let us keep going way after the bar closed, so we danced our feet off (I have cuts) until 3:30am. We slipped the DJ a 50 for being so cool.



I love all the staff here though most of them know us as "Canada" but all the dive staff know me by name. We got invited to have Kava with a few of the guys and that was interesting. Kava is a very astringent (the other girls thought it was gross but I didn't mind it so much) drink that is used in every traditional and non traditional Fijian ceremony out there, on our island though they drink it with the tourists or just to relax after the day is done. It makes your tongue go numb and after awhile you start to feel pretty mellow and chill. Someone told me that it has hallucinogen properties but you have to drink like 30 bowls of it, I stuck to about 15 lol. You sit in a circle and if you are in the presence of a chief or it's a formal ceremony then women need to have their knees and shoulders covered (very modest people these Fijians but very tolerant of us as tourists in fact high fives everywhere and we didn't have to cover for our Kava because we were just chilling with the Dive shop guys). There is a small bowl that gets dipped into the larger bowl of Kava and then passed to the first person who says "Bula" and drinks it then hands it back to get refilled and so on. There was casual conversation and good times in between but like I said this was just an informal chill out time but we were told if we don't say Bula and smile after drinking then the sun won't shine the next day. Bula is their word for Hello/Cheers and it gets thrown out there all the time; every time they see a tourist out it comes, it was awesome I just started saying it to them first it was like a game of who could make eye contact and smile and say Bula first when ever I passed anyone on the foot path. We met this awesome couple from Charleville, Australia Matt and Karen; Matt hunts kangaroos and they offered me a room in their house if I make it that way apparently there's lots of meat packaging and farm work there, right be a good way to get my Visa covered but when I went to add Karen on to Face book (I can't remember Matt's last name) there's like 20 Karen Butler's and I don't see a picture that I recognize... so I think I may be out of luck, that's too bad cause they were awesome fun. Our last night comes around and we are bravely finishing our duty free liquor and chatting it up with yet more awesome people, I had a wicked time visiting with Jo from Alberta (no lie I travelled all the way around the world and I keep meeting people from Alberta, Jo's from St. Paul), who is a writer we swapped books although I am now carrying around a small library, I'm ridiculous.

Crawl out of bed in time for breakfast and check out and to catch the little boat that will take us out to the ferry, and who do I see on the little boat coming in from the ferry but Ralph my friend from Byron Bay. We had been in touch via Facebook so I knew that he was coming but I thought we were going to miss each other... Although I guess we kinda did. But there was enough time for a "Hey!!! How are you? and Have fun" across the ocean, Lol I love travelling!!!! He's going to Hawaii after Fiji, lucky bastard (who am I kidding I wouldn't trade my Oz trip for the world). Plane ride home was pretty unremarkable and Rainey jumped on a flight to Sydney to meet Trent and Megan, so now its "All by myself...." Lol pretty much just got to my hostel and passed out for 16 hours, I think it's time to take it easy and recoup, my liver hurts.