Crossing the Inernational (Blind) Date Line

Over 24 hours in transit delivers us on Beachcombers Island, about 1km in diameter, bordered by white sand beaches and soft coral.  What a place to start the trip.

Once you cross the International Date Line and today becomes the day after tomorrow, everything changes.  Each introduction becomes a blind date, regardless of sex.  As a new Irish friend of mine said "It's like speed dating - Name, background, job - see you later".  Male or females, everyone gauges each other to see whether they measure up to your standards.  Until you realise that it actually doesn't matter, your're all there for the same reason and that alone is enought to make a connection.

Sitting in a world where time doesn't matter, you definitely tend to forget many of the trivial things that stress you out on a day-to-day basis.  And from what I understand, while we are snorkelling, the North American snow belts are receiving upwards of 50cm of snow.

Beachcombers turned out to be exactly what we thought it would be, a party island.  This is apparently a slow time of year for Fijian tourism, the island was quite quiet.  It wasn't nearly as busy as we would've hoped for.  Not a bad way to ease into island culture.  While Beachcombers found Kev playing guitar on the beach, participating in a Fijian choir and Kava Ceremony, it found me daydreaming.  I was expecting to be homesick, but I was not expecting it to hit me so soon or so hard.  Daydreaming - 'is this lifestyle really for me?' This question would soon be answered for me.

We left the island ready to move on to Nananu-I-Ra, based on the recommendation of a very tall friend, whom we trust completely.  However, we hit a snag along the way - our packs were set to depart from the island at 4:30pm.  However, we were on the 11:30am transfer which we needed to catch buses to make the two plus hour trip north to catch the transfer to Nananu.

Needless to say, on proper island time, we didn't make our buses, so we resolved to spend the night in Nadi.  Things definitely could have been worse.  Our bags found us without further incident and we were off to Nananu Island Lodge - Beachfront for Backpackers.