Fiji - Musket Cove 18/10/13

Musket Cove marina was lovely. Although it's a bit surreal going from the middle of the ocean, to anchored outside of a bustling Fijian city, to surrounded by palm trees and golf carts and prissy ladies complaining about how slow the washing machines are. I loved it there though, it's pretty awesome just parking up and having a shop, cafe, restaurant, showers and washing facilities all right outside the door. I even got an ice cream! There's a pool with a swim up bar, which I was tempted to jump into just to be able to drink at a swim up bar, but it was the middle of the day and the drinks were expensive. We only stayed two nights but it feels like we were there for ages. Most of the people are ridiculously friendly - there's lots of really sociable cruisers floating around. Although they're mixed in with some snobby tourists who appear to have flown over, hired a boat and parked it at a resort for a week. They've probably never even put the sails up. 

We went for a walk yesterday, which took all morning and ended up with me quite sunburned. The sun obviously doesn't care how much sunscreen I put on. We went all round the island to the resort on the other side, which was full of kids and not as nice as this one. Everybody seemed really rude and touristy, whereas most of the people we've met at Musket Cove have been laid back and chilled out. There were hammocks along the waterfront, which we sat on for  a second just to seal the deal on being in a tropical paradise.

Then in the afternoon we took Mike with us for a wander towards the other side of the island with our snorkeling gear to see what we could find. We wandered down onto a beach with pretty coloured rocks that looked promising for snorkeling and started organising ourselves, when a small motor boat went zipping past. Mike waved to them, being the friendly fella that he is, which caused them to turn around and come over to make sure we were okay. They were two locals were from a neighboring island and had come over for groceries and firewood. They told us there was no coral where we were about to jump in to, loaded us into their boat and took us to a better spot along the coast. I love the people here. 

I've never been snorkeling before, except for once in the Whitsundays with a mask that fogged up, flippers that were kind of dodgy and I was floating around on a pool noodle. So I was a little skeptical about the whole situation, but it's remarkable what a difference good goggles and flippers make. The ground was just sand, but the water was crystal clear. We didn't go out far enough for coral and Mike ended up walking back with our stuff while Garth and I snorkeled along the coastline, hand in hand. It was disgustingly romantic. We found a few fishes, lots of bright blue starfish and some yellow rays, so it was exciting enough to be a lot of fun.

Mike managed to convince one of the resort guys to knock down some green coconuts for us so we could drink the water out of them. I'm not sure if the guy was just really nice or if Mike is really good at sweet talking people, but we got coconuts. And they were delicious! I'd never had fresh coconut water before, so now I can cross drinking out of a coconut off my list. Although I need to remember to get straws when I can... And maybe one of those little wooden umbrellas. 

Now Mike has gone home and we're all alone. Which is a mixture of exciting, sad and scary and I can't decide which emotion is more predominant. You'd think I would be happy to get rid of my father in law, but he has been such wonderful company and has helped us sort out so many things, we're both legitimately sad to see him go. But he's left behind some good habits and I think his voice will be ringing in our ears for a while yet - I'm tempted to put up a sign that says 'That will end up in the bilge,' just so we don't forget all the things he's tried to chisel into our heads too soon.

We're parked up in a bay at the southern end of the Yasawas now, watching a beautiful sunset on one side of us and a huge full moon rising on the other. 

We spent all day getting here, which was boring with no wind and a stinky motor. Just before the halfway mark we got hot and anchored next to a pretty little island, jumped into the water and went snorkeling on the reef around it. It was low tide so we couldn't go over the top of it much, but we swam along the side and watched all the fishes for ages. There were some really beautiful ones swimming amongst the coral. I think our favourites were the little electric blue fish, which really stood out in amongst the parts of the reef that were more faded. There were some big flat fish with different coloured stripes all hiding in a hole together and they kept coming out then getting scared and running back in again. And I really loved the huge schools of tiny light blue fish all perched in amongst certain types of coral, scattered all along the top like flowers on a tree.

We've only got two hours to travel tomorrow to get to our next destination, which will hopefully involve more snorkeling! I've convinced Garth not to put the dinghy over our hatch tonight, so soon we'll go to sleep looking up at the stars.

Xxx Monique