Fiji, Naviti: We Finally Saw a Manta Ray

Fiji was the fifteenth country that we visited in 2007, and the last one in the South Pacific before changing gears and travelling in a campervan around New Zealand for a month. By the end of our Fiji trip, we would have spent five weeks on various islands and it was going to be time for a change. During our week in Fiji, we decided to explore two of the Yasawas Islands, Naviti and Nanuya Lai Lai. First, though, we had to get to the main island of Viti Levu from Rarotonga, one of the islands in Cook Islands where we had been relaxing for the past few days. The Nadi (pronounced Nan-dee) International Airport was located on the main Fijian island of Viti Levu and the town of Nadi was a good place to start our journey to the Yasawas Islands.

We were lucky to have been able to book a direct flight from Rarotonga to Nadi because most of the flights on Air New Zealand, the airline carrier that we flew with during that part of our year-long trip, flew via an airport hub in Auckland. We had fortunately booked ourselves onto a Friday flight, which did not require the extra connection. When we arrived in Nadi after a tumultuous flight, during which we had to listen to an extremely loud and obnoxious group of English lads getting drunk, we were happy to be heading through immigration so we could get away from them.

She suggested we listened for the island drums that would signify the start of each meal or tea

When we arrived at the immigration hall, the queue was really long and we ended up having to wait for almost 45 minutes before getting our passports stamped. The group of guys was somewhat behind us in the queue, but that didn't stop us having to listen to their rude and irritating discussions. In fact, every time the snaked line turned a corner, we passed them. Since they had sat in the row behind us on the flight from Cook Islands, they thought this gave them precedence to speak to us like we were all one group of friends. Let's just say it was one of the longest 45 minute periods of our lives; it didn't help that it was late in the evening, too, and that we were pretty exhausted.

There was no real plan or itinerary for Fiji. We hadn't done much trip planning at all because we became lazy and complacent living on islands for the past month. It was well-known that Fiji was more set up for backpackers than the other South Pacific island nations we had visited - French Polynesia and Cook Islands - so we thought we would wing it when we arrived in the new country. The first thing that we needed to do was find somewhere to stay in Nadi after arriving so late. We had read that there was a morning ferry to the Yasawas Islands, and since we would only be spending the night in Nadi, we went for the cheapest option we came across, a hostel in downtown Nadi fittingly called Nadi Downtown Backpackers.

The hostel was somewhat of a dive and a bit scary, with groups of drunk people, both from Fiji and other island countries, running up and down the halls and getting into shouting matches, heavily pushing and shoving each other while we were trying to sleep. It was a Saturday night when we arrived and Nadi was hopping. We were a little hesitant in the country since it was our first night and we didn't know what to expect of Fijians or our visit there, but when we returned to Nadi Downtown Backpackers at the end of our stay, for our final night in Fiji, we were much more comfortable and laughed a little bit at our initial fear of the place.

Outside the hostel, there were groups of men hanging around, and some guys lying on the path (that's the same as a sidewalk for the Americans reading this), most likely drunk. There were a few clubs and bars in the area that had turned their music up loud enough for the entire town to here, so the energy on the streets was quite high. The free shuttle that had brought us to the hostel dropped us off in front of the place, which was located right in the heart of all the action. We walked in hesitantly, wondering what we had gotten ourselves into that evening.

The man working in the hostel checked us into a dorm room because they were out of private rooms for the night. We had the room to ourselves, though, and the room was fine. It was cheap, fairly clean and had a private bathroom with a shower and toilet. Once we dropped our bags off in the room, we headed downstairs to book our boat tickets and Yasawas Islands accommodation for the next several days. There was a catamaran that travelled each day from Port Denarau on Viti Levu, a 15 minute drive from the Nadi downtown area; the boat also returned to Port Denarau each day.

Most backpackers booked a 7-day, 14-day or 21-day Bula Pass that enabled them a hop-on, hop-off capability to travel between the islands in the Yasawas Islands chain on the Yasawas Flyer. The Flyer was a large catamaran that visited 17 islands in the chain. Each of the islands had a variety of accommodation options on it, from basic backpacker resorts to nicer, more expensive ones. In addition to booking a Bula Pass, backpackers also booked an Accommodation Pass that included five nights at their choice of many different options on the islands. The places of accommodation in the Yasawas Islands normally included three meals per day but, in some of the nicer resorts, an extra fee was required for meals. Any travellers staying on the islands for more than five nights would just pay for the extra nights once the initial five night pass was used up.

With us only having six nights in Fiji, it meant that we could only stay four nights on islands in the Yasawas due to the time required to travel there and back from Nadi. Since we didn't have the option of staying on the Yasawas for five nights, we couldn't buy the Accommodation Pass and we just booked our resorts directly. We also didn't have the luxury of a 7-day Bula Pass, so we booked individual boat journeys to get to the islands and back. We did all of this through the reception desk at Nadi Downtown Backpackers.

At first, we were suspicious of booking anything at the hostel because the place seemed shady and the man who worked there wasn't very clear when he explained the packages or options available to us. He also made several mistakes when calculating prices of tickets and accommodation for us. However, in spite of all that, we went ahead and booked our trip with him. Once everything had been booked, the man gave us a stack of vouchers that we were supposed to use for our boat journey and when we checked into the resorts we had chosen. At the back of our minds, we wondered if we just had been ripped off, but everything worked out in the end, barring a small mix-up on a transfer from the catamaran to one of the islands where we had to pay an extra $40 Fiji Dollars (around £12, or $24) to get from the Yasawas Flyer to Nanuya Lai Lai. That's another story, though, since we are supposed to be writing about Naviti in this one!

Above, we said that we hadn't really done much preparation for this part of our trip. The little preparation that we did do included us reading about the various Yasawas Islands to determine which two we wanted to visit. Knowing that we only wanted to visit the Yasawas part of Fiji, a country with over 300 islands in total, it slimmed down the amount of material we had to read through and research. A couple of islands stood out more than others. First, our South Pacific Lonely Planet guidebook said that during the months from July-October on the island of Naviti, it was possible to go snorkelling with manta rays in a channel at the southern end of the island. We failed to see any manta rays during our week on Bora Bora and we thought this would be our last chance in 2007. Second, we read that the island of Nanuya Lai Lai was a much smaller island and where the infamous Blue Lagoon was located. Since our parents would most likely be aware of this well-known film, we thought it would be a good choice and give us something interesting to mention in our travel journal, granting us some beautiful scenery for our last island visit in the South Pacific.

Now that you know how we got to Fiji and what we did to sort out our time there, we should tell you what we learned about the island nation. The Lapita people, named after their distinctive pottery style, were the first people to inhabit Fiji in about 3000 B.C. and evidence of their settlement exists throughout Fiji. Those people were followed by the Melanesians and Micronesians, who populated the northern islands from 1500 B.C. before moving to the southern islands in about 500 B.C.

The first European to discover the islands was the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, who first sighted Fiji in 1643. More than 130 years later, in 1755, Captain James Cook came to Fiji. In 1789, Captain William Bligh sailed through the Fiji islands after the infamous mutiny on the Bounty - no doubt in search of supplies. The British ruled Fiji from 1874, bringing indentured Indian labour to work the growing sugar industry between 1879 and 1916. In 1970, Fiji gained independence from Britain and, in 1987, it was declared a republic.

With a population of around 825,000, the indigenous Fijians make up about half the population and Fijian Indians most of the other half. However, there are people of Chinese, Pacific Islander and European descent making up the rest of the numbers. This has created a rich cultural mix and has brought Fiji to become the multi-religion country that it is today, with the main religions being Christianity, Hindu and Islam. English is the official language but Fijian and Hindustani are also widely spoken. In addition to its pristine beaches and clear blue waters, Fiji is also a mountainous nation with ancient craters and peaks rising to 122 metres and more, and rivers stretching for many miles. Fiji society is male-dominated with a hereditary chief system still firmly in place. Most of the village life protocol is retained in urban areas, so there is somewhat of a consistency between what happens across the islands, but sometimes coups do occur when political differences require resolving.

One thing that made our trip to Fiji interesting was that our dates there coincided with the Rugby World Cup semi-finals. We found Fijians to be very enthusiastic about rugby, and as soon as they found out that we were from England, it was all they spoke to us about for quite some time. They talked about the Fijian team and how well they did by getting to the quarter-finals, but mostly they discussed the England vs. France game, which was played on our first morning in Fiji. England won the game and advanced to the finals where they would play South Africa (and eventually lose, but not too badly), and rugby was the focus of our chats throughout the rest of the week. It was nice to see that many of the Fijians wanted England to win the final match since their team had been knocked out in the quarter-finals by South Africa.

When we left Nadi Downtown Backpackers after a restless night of sleeping there, we hopped onto a shuttle that was driven by Satish, the same man who had driven us the night before from the airport to the hostel. We were pleased to know that the vouchers we had been given from Nadi Downtown Backpackers were kosher when we checked in at the Awesome Fiji Adventures desk; we then boarded the catamaran without any problems. Whilst Kyle was checking in for our boat journey, Dan observed a couple of Japanese girls who had been given bogus vouchers and had to pay additional money to get on the boat. There wasn't much time to spare, but they did make it onto the catamaran, which only left at the one time each morning. On the boat, we decided to sit in the air conditioned section where we could spread our things out at one of the seating areas with a table, instead of on the top deck in the sun; it was a hot day and we didn't fancy getting sunburnt. The catamaran was very modern and clean, and had a small cafe section that offered snacks, sandwiches, drinks and other items.

The boat journey was well organised. Along the way, the catamaran would stop at each island on its route so people could be dropped off at the island or picked up from the island to travel further north in the chain. Before each stop, the Yasawas Island and resort name(s) were announced, and passengers departing for the island or resort were told to gather their belongings and move to the back of the boat. A few guys working at that section helped collect their bags, which would be transferred to a small boat that was waiting to take passengers to the various resorts.

Many of the islands were small and did not have deep waters for the large catamaran to dock in, so the smaller boats were used to ferry people back and forth between the island and catamaran. We were impressed with the efficiency of the system, and it was clear to us that Fiji really had the whole tourism thing pinned down and was doing a very good job of it, particularly for backpackers. By the way, once the catamaran reached the most northern islands, it started the journey in reverse, picking up passengers and transporting them to more southern Yasawas Islands or back to Port Denarau on the main island of Viti Levu.

One thing we noticed about the people of Fiji was that they were extremely friendly and helpful, always going out of their way to make things easy for you. We noticed this much more on the Yasawas Flyer catamaran and on the islands we visited than in Nadi, but that was really expected when we compared a bustling city to a peaceful island. To prove their friendliness, the Fijians loved saying "bula", which means "hello" in their Fijian language, anytime that we passed them. The amount of times that we said bula, or that someone shouted it out to us, was rather amusing, but we enjoyed the pleasantries nonetheless. Bula was a versatile word with many different meanings but it was primarily used as a greeting.

When it was our turn to move to the back of the Yasawas Flyer and wait to disembark the catamaran for the small boat that would take us to Korovou Eco-Tour Resort, the place on Naviti that we had booked for two nights, we were excited when we saw the view in front of us.

On approaching the island of Naviti and Turtle Bay, the section where our resort was situated, we saw a long, sandy beach that stretched across the entire length of the bay. There were three small resorts occupying the beach and Korovou was the one in the middle. As we approached the resort in the small transfer boat, we could see how nice it was and we looked forward to our two nights there.

The tide was out when we arrived at the beach and the small boat could not dock on the beach itself. There was a submerged concrete walkway and we were told to follow this for several metres to get to the sandy beach from the boat. We had our hiking trainers (that's the same as tennis shoes for the Americans reading this) on and had to quickly take them off so we could walk barefoot along the path. It was then that we understood why so many people on the Yasawas Flyer were barefoot; getting to the island resorts was not an easy, or dry, task!

Our bags were taken to the reception office by family members who worked at the family-run resort. That was nice because we didn't have to worry about carrying our heavy bags whilst walking along the slippery path to the beach. Once we stepped onto the beach and made our way to the reception area, we were greeted - Bula! - by many members of the family. We checked in and paid for the remaining amount of money we owed for our accommodation (we had just given a deposit when we received our vouchers from Nadi Downtown Backpackers), and the woman working at reception told us how everything worked at the resort. Meal times were 8:00am for breakfast, 12:00pm for lunch, 4:00pm for afternoon tea and 7:00pm for dinner. Eating at those times was a set affair and she suggested we listened for the island drums that would signify the start of each meal or tea.

The island of Naviti was very green with small hills in the middle of the island. The island itself was quite large compared to other Yasawas Islands, but our bay was secluded and it made the place seem fairly small. The island was still much smaller and less developed than the French Polynesia or Cook Islands ones that we had visited over the past month; there were no roads or electricity other than that supplied by a generator at certain times of the day.

The sun was shining strongly the afternoon we arrived and there was a swimming pool at the resort, so we decided to put our swimming trunks on and lay out by the pool for a few hours. Our bags were taken to the dorm room once we had checked in and we went there to change. The room was a long building with many windows, letting in a lot of natural light and whatever breeze there was that day. We chose dorm beds at the end of the room, which must have had over 20 double-decker bunk beds.

The resort was run by a large, extended family; all of the members lived on the island in buildings behind our dorm building. Each of the Fijians was helpful and kind, wanting to engage guests in conversation. The family atmosphere exhibited by the people running the resort spread to the guests staying at the resort, and we all got on quite well with each other from the start of our stay. Both of the places we stayed at on the Yasawas Islands were similar; it was easy to strike up a conversation with other guests, and the other guests started chatting with us, too.

That could have been because most of the other people we met during our time in Fiji seemed to be starting out on their trip and were harbouring a lot of energy and excitement, whereas we were on the last left of our journey around the world, having lost the initial massive enthusiasm to talk to everyone we met. Another thing we noticed was that the people we ran across travelling in Fiji were much younger than the backpackers or tourists we had seen in French Polynesia or Cook Islands, or even in America for the three months we were there before the other South Pacific islands.

Food was good during our stay at Korovou. For the two lunches we ate there, we were served a vegetarian pasta dish and curried potato and rice dish. For our two dinners, we were served a buffet with meat patties, grilled wahoo (fish), coleslaw and many vegetable side dishes on the first evening; the next night we were served grilled chicken pieces (on the bone) with vegetables. For our two breakfasts, we were served some thick Fijian scones with fruit one morning and a different kind of bread, still very thick and dense, the following morning. Afternoon tea was only that, but we bought a packet of yummy coconut cookies to go along with it each of the two afternoons we were there. All of the meals were served with pineapple, either on the side or mixed in with the food. The pineapple and many other vegetables were grown on the islands, but the meats were normally bought at the main island Viti Levu.

To try to see manta rays, we organised a snorkelling trip through Moses, who worked at the resort. On the morning of our full day on the island, we were taken, by our boat driver Moses (another Moses, part of the extended family running Korovou Eco-Tour Resort), on a trip to the southern tip of Naviti where an expansive and beautiful coral garden was located; nearby was the channel used by manta rays when they were in the area from July-October, giving birth. We had some beginner snorkellers on our boat, a couple of girls from England, and we taught them the ropes so they would know what to do and feel comfortable in the water.

At our first stop, we saw many unique and brightly-coloured coral formations. A lot of the fish we observed were different to those we had seen on the other islands we had recently visited, so the experience was excellent. During our second or third stop - we can't remember which one - we saw a baby manta ray swimming underneath us in the channel where we were supposed to see them. The baby was quite large, around 4-5 feet wide, and we wished that we had seen the parents because they would have been around 12 feet wide!

In addition to the amazing coral garden and manta ray, we saw a few bigger fish a couple of feet in length, and a long white-tip reef shark, a new species of shark that we had not yet spotted this year. Overall, the trip was perfect, with Moses having let us snorkel at four different areas. We each had our own masks that worked really well, which made a big difference from our last trip on Aitutaki in Cook Islands, when our boat driver hadn't brought any extra masks and the one that Kyle was supposed to used was busted. For that trip, Dan ended up having to alternate using his mask with Kyle using it, and we didn't get to see as much. When we snorkelled in the manta ray channel, the currents were very strong and carried us several metres away from the boat as we floated on top of the water, looking down at the fish and coral below us. When we had to return to the boat, we had a difficult time trying to swim back, even though we had flippers on our feet to assist us!

Lunch was served when we returned to the resort. After eating, we did a hike to the other side of the island to look at the secluded Honeymoon Beach. The hike was a short walk over a hill to the beach and only took us around 15 minutes to get there. We walked along a small path through dense vegetation on the hillside. On any other island, we would have been attacked by mosquitoes, but since that part of Naviti was secluded with few people living there, they had not built up a mosquito problem synonymous with other islands. The beach was beautiful and we were granted great views of the island from the top of the hill. Down at Honeymoon Beach, we saw a few houses where another family lived. They were not as well off as the family running Korovou Eco-Tour Resort and it was interesting to see how poorer families lived and got by on the islands.

To bide our time the first evening on the island, we played card games with a few of the other guests. S****head was again the popular choice and a game that everyone knew well. We had some Fijian beers that first evening, too, so had a good night. After dinner on the second night we were on the island, the Bula Dance happened. We had, fortunately, gone over to the internet room after eating so we could do some writing, and it was during that time that everyone who was staying at the resort had to get up and do the Bula Dance in front of the rest of the guests and Fijians. It would have been amusing to watch, but we were glad to have missed out on those festivities by hiding out in the internet room.

To move on to our next island, Nanuya Lai Lai, we had to catch the Yasawas Flyer again. That time, we were the people getting on the catamaran, whilst other people disembarked to stay at our resort, or one of the other two situated in the bay. Guess who was on the catamaran when we boarded that time? The obnoxious group of English lads whom we had hoped to never see again. They had confused Kyle, rather stupidly, of being a Scouser, and since he sounds the furthest thing from one, with his American accent, Dan had to laugh at that. Also, since they somehow remembered Kyle more than him, and failed to engage him in conversation, Dan was able to sit back and read his book. The guys were completely pissed (that's the same as drunk for the Americans reading this) and loud, causing many people to turn their heads and look in their direction. Kyle was glad that they ignored him after their initial greeting and he joined Dan to read as soon as he could.

Our next island was further north and we hoped that the rowdy English group was not staying on the same one we had planned to visit. They weren't and, luckily, they disembarked the boat before we did. In case we forget to mention in the next journal entry that we saw the English guys one more time during our journey south from Nanuya Lai Lai back to Nadi, we'll tell you now. They weren't heading for Nadi, but another island south in the chain. That time, they weren't drunk and were somewhat civil, so we didn't mind giving them a wave when they boarded the boat. We still avoided any conversation with them, though, and were glad that we would definitely not see them again, since we were leaving Fiji the next morning for New Zealand. Don't get confused, though, we still need to tell you about the next couple of days that we spent on the island of Nanuya Lai Lai, so click to the next journal entry to find out more about that fascinating place.