Cave Diving - Night 150

Heavy, tropical rain fell all through the night. In my infinite wisdom I left both my towels and my swimming trunks out on the line. Even with the rain and the nets that we slept underneath, the mosquitoes still had a field day on my feet and ankles.

Breakfast consisted primarily of Fijian sweet

The Creature in the Cave

bread and various fruits and melons. On the agenda for the morning was a trip out to some unnamed caves. The 45-minute ride, each way, was provided by Joe’s Water Taxi. Their name itself certainly offers up no illusions of grandeur, and nor should it. Joe’s Water Taxi was nothing more than a 16-foot aluminum boat powered by a 40-hp Evinrude. The driver and his assistant would also function as cave tour guides. I was expecting some small caves filled with sea water, instead what was awaiting us was large limestone caves filled with cold fresh water. In addition to the main cave there is a side cavern accessible only by diving underneath a large rock. The whole journey takes about 3 seconds, but that can seem like an eternity when you are underwater faced with trying to find an airhole amidst the rocks. One of the guides went first so that we would have a flashlight to aim for. The whole experienced sounds worse than it actually is. One of the first ones through, it was eerily being on the other side in a pitch dark cave, floating in cold water with the only sound coming from the faint echoes of the others back in the main cave.

Atop Nanuya Lailai Island

We returned in time for a rather inadequate lunch. On our afternoon hike over to the Blue Lagoon we were caught in a brief, but torrential, downpour that turned the track into a mudslide. This time it was low tide so the snorkeling was even better as you narrowly floated above the coral with millions of fish hardly paying you any attention. I’m beginning to enjoy snorkeling as a calming activity. Rarely in our lives are we aware of our own breathing cycle, but when snorkeling it consumes you. Snorkeling is, no doubt, a highly Buddhist activity…a form of active meditation perhaps. If I were Robert Piesig, I would call my next book Zen and the Art of Snorkeling.

Dinner proved much heartier than lunch. Swimming all day creates quite the appetite. The night time entertainment was advertised as a fundraiser for the local Fijian school. We all expected school children and local music, instead we were subjected to a one-man dance show by Queen, the not entirely heterosexual head of the resort. Nonsensically dancing to some of the 1980s worst songs, his show was bearable only because we had been drinking Fiji Gold for some time.

Our Sunrise Resort Family

Spurred on by the lameness of his presentation, Ken and I cracked open my bottle of Bounty Extra-Proof rum to numb the pain. The rest of the evening followed with lively discussion by all parties on topics ranging from travel to politics to religion. Ollie, the self-employed financier from Denmark, admitted that one of his life’s greatest moments was meeting Bill Clinton in Copenhagen ten years ago. Having travelled widely, he claims to have never met another soul with that much charisma.

What I Learned Today: Don’t try to work Muslim girls….

written by

exumenius on March 8, 2008 from Suva, Fiji

from the travel blog: Kiwis and Kangaroos

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