Fiji by Water

I'm afraid it falls to me again to allude to the influence on our plans of matters related to health.

After our time in Australia, the resort in Fiji seemed very clean and well sorted too. I'm afraid I let my guard down health-wise. I guess I assumed the resort would use bottled water for ice and table water in restaurants - don't laugh, some do.

I don't know if it was the glass of water in the fine dining restaurant or the ice the poolside bar cools glasses in. Something upset my tum from late on our fourth day in Fiji until well after we left.

At the same time and (as far as I can work out) for unrelated reasons, Clare's tum had a bad patch. This was a shame, because on day 5 we'd booked to go on a boat trip.

We were happy with the comforts and facilities of our Fijian-mainland coastal resort, but I did wonder what the resorts based on tiny islands would have been like.

We booked a trip on a tall ship, leaving from near the airport (a 90-minute coach ride each way) and passing several resort islands before stopping at a private island for snorkeling and relaxation.

Unfortunately, come the morning of day 5 we realised that neither of us were in a fit state. We turned up "not early" and then held the coach up while we tried to change the trip to day 7. Fortunately, we could.

It had to be day 7 because I'd booked my first scuba trip for day 6, following a trial session in the hotel pool, skimming along the bottom and biting people's ankles (and no, I don't confess to any other kind of sharking around the pool).

The dive was an interesting experience, but I don't feel compelled to do it lots more. I had great difficulty in getting my left ear to equalise to the pressure every time we went a bit deeper. Once equalised, I then needed to make sure I didn't float upward. This made it feel quite a "technical" experience, and really got in the way of focusing on the amazing shapes of the coral and the beautiful fish.

One thing to note is that the deeper you go under the water, the more bright colours get duller - and we went down over 12 metres on this dive. This dimming is especially true of red. About twelve years ago I went to Mauritius and maybe 50 metres down in a submarine. At that depth the bright red fire extinguisher beside me turned pure black.

Clare and I both love snorkelling, and we can do it together. It isn't technical and you can float around in your own time seeing beautiful fish at full brightness. I think we'll stick with that.

So, we reached day 7, our last full day, which we'd have preferred to spend idling by the pool, but we had the boat trip booked and paid-for. The trouble was that Clare had spent the last two nights with very hot skin but feeling cold in her core. We put it down to heatstroke (but see our future post from Honolulu). Hence Clare skipped the trip and stayed in the cool of the room for the day instead.

The boat trip was pleasant and interesting rather than fabulous. The transfers from our hotel to the boat were loooong - an hour and three-quarters there and nearly two and a half hours back. Fortunately I took my iPhone, loaded with This Week in Tech (TWiT) podcasts. The boat left from a marina on Denarau Island - an area of land only really separated from the mainland (Viti Levu) by a river, and dedicated to posh resorts (read: tourist ghetto).

The boat was a single-masted sailing ship, but travelled by motor the whole way. On the way back they hoisted the foresail, but it was only for show because I could see it was "backed" by the wind - making us slower rather than faster.

We passed some of the resort islands I'd looked at when trying to find somewhere to book. I found two things remarkable. Firstly that some of the islands were pretty small - one seemingly only a hundred metres across - I'm thinking: "stir crazy" stuck for a week in just that space (and that scope of facilities). Secondly, the islands were well in sight of the mainland, and so during your whole week there all you would see when looking out in one direction would be the mainland. I think that'd feel odd, particularly if the island's facilities were inadequate.

Mind you, in the past I have spent a week on a single resort island just 600 metres long and 180 wide in the Maldives which felt completely isolated, and that was truly wonderful.

The private island on which the cruise ended was also pretty small - maybe 250 metres in diameter - and treeless. The reef that was at one end stuck out of the water at low tide. I sat under the big thatched "canteen" roof most of the time, but others sunbathed and played volleyball.

I'm glad I went on the trip because I was interested by what I saw, but it didn't outweigh the inconvenience of the transfer journeys by much. The 7am to 9pm day was very tiring.

Weighing up our whole time in Fiji, we were pleased with our choice of a slightly larger mainland resort and were quite surprised when the total cost came to less than half of the price of our time in Phuket, with Hamilton Island more expensive still.

Money and, more importantly, time feeling well spent.