The decision to jet to Fiji 2 days early proved to be a great one, luckily. After arriving and adjusting our clocks to Fiji time (same actual time, but nobody bothers using a watch so they just do things when they can be bothered) and stood outside the airport for 2 hours waiting for our hotel to collect us, which was a 5 minute drive away. After spending the first evening chilling out in the bar and playing weird games with coconuts we decided to stay another night and spend the next day planning our week on some islands and getting boat tickets etc. So off we went into town, and before we knew it we found ourselves in this taxi which moved down the road like a crab, no such thing as an MOT here. The driver said he would take us to see a nice lady who could book us some tickets etc at a good price, so we said we`d have a look. After turning down a back road and then parking up outside what looked like someones house, we just said "nah it`s OK thanks, we`ll go around the corner into town, we`re not going in there. "but it is just back entrance to shop, no parking in front". "well, lets walk around to the front then shall we?". "OK". So, it did turn out to be a real actual shop with proper people inside and not a machete in sight, and we`d soon found ourselves the proud owners of tickets for a 6 night stay on some islands. Including boats, rooms and 3 meals a day it was just over 300 squid each for the week. If we`d have done it all separately ourselves we would have paid about 600, so we were happy with the deal. We met a nice couple from Guernsey who were doing a similar trip to us, and we met up with them later on, so we`ll write some more about that later on.

Saturday morning, or was it Sunday? Not sure, anyway, the next morning we were up nice and early to head off, and after a 5 hour boat trip we were there at the Coral View Resort. The staff all lined up for us on the beach and shook our hands before herding us inside for a welcome song. Everyone has to sing, the cooks, receptionists and even the maintenance man. After our arrival lunch we were shown to our Bure (village hut) and then invited straight back down for afternoon tea and cakes, we like. And from that moment on it was just a case of swinging in a hammock, dipping in the sea and then back to the hammock. We signed ourselves up for some cave swimming, a bargain at only a fiver, and dived into this little boat and hit the seas. BOOM! is the sound humans make when bombing into the water in a huge domed cave, and what a boom it is. We were daredevils and decided that we`d swim through into another cave which involved some swimming through and underwater tunnel into some pitch black scariness with just a small torch the other side to aim for. When the guide said "swim to the light" I thought here we go again, more bright white lights trying to trick us into following them to the other side. Not going to fall for that one just yet mister. Once inside it was weird, not scary but very odd. Obviously you can`t see a thing until your eyes adjust and start to take in the tiny bit of light available and then you swim through to the end. It is when you reach the end that you`re told snappers and eels live in there, nice. STUPID QUESTION ALERT: The guide told us that this particular cave was one of only a few that are safe to go into, because most of the caves there are simple to swim into, but then impossible to get out of again because of the layout, and so you have to stay there until you die. At this point, a very intelligent American (as if) asked: "has that ever happened to you?".    And then, when I sarcastically responded "obviously not" she looked at me like I was no better than someone who stood outside a synagogue handing out free bacon sandwiches and sausage rolls.

After two nights at Coral view we headed off to our next island, Manta ray Island. It is here where you can swim with huge massive Manta Rays, but not until the season starts at the end of May, which was rubbish. Yet again we weren`t disappointed when we arrived and were taken to our bure on the beach. If you want to do some great snorkeling, go to this place. You only need to swim out for about 2 minutes and then there is a huge coral wall, coral gardens and all sorts there. This tempted us into to going for a dive the next day, and we had a great dive through some coral caves that were in pristine condition, amazing. Obviously, no day trip is complete with an American for entertainment, and today is was the guy who knew it all about diving because he`d done 50 or 60. Nobody saw him the whole time because he kept floating up to the surface, and when he wasn`t busy pretending to be a yo-yo he spent his time looking confused whenever he was asked to signal how much air he had left. This is one of the most basic and important things you need to know when diving, and he couldn`t do it. Instead he just tried showing his guage to the guide, who was 10 metres away! People like that shouldn`t be allowed out, all his rig was dangling down and could easily have got caught on some rock. That night we were entertained by some people from a village who danced for us, made us dance and then gave us a nice sing song. We met this guy who had spent 15-20 years as a marine biologist, so the next day he took us snorkeling. Best snorkeling ever. We learned what you can touch, what you shouldn`t touch, and what you definitely don`t want to touch (unless you like pain and death). we didn`t want to leave but we were getting shouted at because our boat was boarding so we had to get out of the water. Poor little Rach was in a bit of a panic in case we missed the boat (I wasn`t, I`m on Fiji time) and she cut her little legs on some coral. Naughty coral.

Next stop, Kuata. We had electricity for around 4 hours out of the 48 we were there, and even then it was only the bar that had light bulbs. If you lookup the word remote in a dictionary it will probably have GPS co-ordinates for this island. The staff were nice enough, but the food was something else, it was out of this world. But not in a good way. Lunch always seemed to be suspiciously similar to the previous nights dinner, and dinner looked like a close relative of lunch. One big vicious circle of food. The nice couple from Guernsey (Scott & Emma) were now on the same island as us so we hung out with them and had a real good time there. If they hadn`t been there then it would have been a boring couple of days, because as fun as we are, it`s nice to have a laugh with other people. We all sat down and sampled some of the National drink, Kava, which looks like muddy water and smells like ginger, but tastes like muddy water. It consists of some roots from a certain tree ground up into a fine powder and then mixed with water. You have to s it on a special mat to drink it, you must finish your first bowl so as not to offend the locals and you have to do some weird clapping thing before and after drinking it. I`ve bought some of the powder to bring home with me but I`m not sure how I`ll get on through customs in USA because 10 little paper bags of brown powder looks a bit dodgy, but apparently they know the crack at customs (no pun intended). Nice and early the next day it was time to go and track down some sharks to hassle. Myself and Scott jumped into this boat and off we went while the girls lay under the sun concentrating on their tans. We got to a reef about 5 offshore, jumped in and were instantly (and nervously) in shark infested waters. We dived down to the bottom and try and catch one but they`re a bit too quick for us and our bare hands. I loved it so much I went again the next day and took Rachel with me so she could check the little fellas out.

Rachel - Russ has gone to get a decent meal of MacDonald`s so I`m taking over. i normally would try and embrace the local food a bit more but poor Russ and his fussy tummy have persuaded me otherwise.little russy doesn`t cope without food very well and hes looking a bit slim. Anyhoo, sharks were absolutely terrifying. scared to death when i first got in the water and so screamed and almost drowned with a snorkel in my mouth. russ was diving down trying to catch one which was funny but i just looked from a safe distance. they were only about 2m long but it was still terrifying. what made it worse was that i puked up on the way over because the boat was so rocky. We went on a village visit which turned out to be a shopping trip. I was expecting to be embraced into the Fiji way of life but instead we got taken to their school and took some pics then we went for a walk around the village ending in a market.It was very nice to see but nothing like what i was expecting and everything was quite expensive. We had the option to do some weaving which cost extra so i made a bracelet. Russ refused out of principal.

The final island we visited was called Bounty island also known as celebrity love island. Emma and Scott were due to go home but we`d had so much fun that they stayed an extra night with us. This island was tiny. Literally you can circumnavigate the island in 1 hour which we did. We started by swimming the island but completed it by walking taking a grand total 45 minutes. The boys turned into children after breakfast and had bounds of energy from that moment on. They were going mental and needed constant entertainment by first canoing around the island and then playing jumping games off of the rocks. russ banged his bottom by jumping off the jetty into a school of fish and concrete block and came running over to me for a cuddle. bless the wee man. They then stared terrorising the fish  until we were called to make the journey back to the mainland. Me and Emma however did the sensible thing and lazed in a hammock gossiping. its a hard life. We missed a bus back to the hotel so shared a taxi back with some girls we me. bed by 930 after an amazing but knackering week.