(Written partially on January 28th from notes taken just after midnight [so close!] and finished on February 22nd 😅)
I don’t remember if I mentioned it yesterday, but there was a massive cockroach in the bathroom before I went to bed. I’d guess maybe a couple inches long? 😅
It happened to scurry under my foot as I was putting my foot down so it got… partially squished.
Squished enough to leave some juice on the floor, but apparently not squished enough to kill it, as it wasn’t dead under my foot.
In fact… it wasn’t anywhere to be seen. 😶
Being late at night, I didn’t feel like giving it more than a 15-second search to try and find it, and not finding it quickly, it was right back off to bed for me.
However, when I woke up in the morning for the day and walked into the bathroom, there it was, on its back by the toilet, some legs still moving; so I put it out of its misery and then flushed the remains down the toilet.
Gratefully, I didn’t have any crawling up my legs in my sleep (had that happen with a pet rat once). 😅
It wasn’t the most comfortable of nights, being hot and sticky; and without the advertised AC, there was zero reason to use any kind of blanket, so I didn’t.
I got up to my alarm at 6 ish, got dressed, and packed up my stuff. I drank some water, hoping to need to use the bathroom before needing to leave to walk to the bus stop, but I couldn’t wait that long, and I eventually just sucked it up and said to myself that whatever happened was going to happen.
😅
With it being that early, the heat of the sun was not beating down on me as I walked from my little homestay dorm room to the bus stop in front of the Fiji Gateway Hotel, which was nice. 🙏
I was quite early, so I sat on the bus-stop bench just people watching for probably 30 minutes–cars and trucks and buses full of locals going by.
I started to get a wee bit nervous that maybe I was in the wrong place (it was getting really close to the time for the bus’s arrival), but those mild concerns were dissipated rather quickly when the bus arrived pretty much exactly on time.
🎉
Clearly, it’s been a long time since I’ve used scheduled transportation. 🙃
The bus ride to the port was uneventful, check-in was smooth and easy, and the very large catamaran was nice.
The water in the harbor? Not as much. 😅
But I think that’s probably to be expected in a commercial harbor like this?
It wasn’t very long after we’d left port, however, that the water was clean and beautiful. 😊
Sitting on the top deck (on the top of the boat), I snapped lots of pictures as we traveled from island to island.
There were several stops to make at different ports and resorts before arriving at the Barefoot Manta Resort on Drawaqa Island.
The first stop was the teeny tiny South Sea Island, an island that couldn’t have been more than a couple of hundred meters across, if that. 🙃
Once we got out into the open ocean, the water all around the boat was so blue–a deep but vibrant, powerful blue.
😊
Then come closer to the first big island stop, that deep powerful blue started turning more into a brighter electric blue.
As we came around another island, standing on top of a maybe 40-foot? rock outcropping was a man dressed as a Fijian warrior welcoming travelers to that particular resort.
Fun stuff. 🙂
As we got further away from the mainland to the more remote islands, the water started turning into a bright turquoise color, the kind of thing you see on movies and television shows and what not.
Beautiful. 😊
Waya Island, so far, has been my favorite, at least standing from afar. The landscape stunning–bare rock cliffs (can you call them mountain peaks if the highest isn’t even 1900 feet above sea level?) jutting high above the green jungle hills.
[snap, snap, snap 🙃]
My first island, Drawaqa, definitely wasn’t a spectacular view like Waya, not at all. I believe its highest elevation is 67 meters? And it’s maybe a 10th the size?
I think Drawaqa is less than one square mile. 🙃
But spectacular, rugged mountain views weren’t why I chose that Island: I was there to snorkel, and I chose the two islands that, as best I could tell, had the best shore snorkeling. 🤿😁
On the little motorboat from the catamaran, I met an older retired lady, a kindergarten teacher by trade, named Carrie (from Montana).
We would end up hanging out for the majority of my time there on at Barefoot Manta. 🙃
As our boat floated toward shore, a greeting party came out with guitars or ukuleles (or whatever they were) singing a welcome song for us. ☺️ After that, we checked in and were given a tour of the place–info about the main dining area, the three beaches and when you were allowed to be out on which beaches (low tide exposed the reef on at least one of the beaches, so you couldn’t snorkel there during low tide).
They showed us where the science center was (there are scientists there working to take care of the coral reef and what not 😊), the little outdoor gym, the water equipment building, the bathroom facilities, and then for me, my dorm room.
We had gotten there pretty much just in time for lunch, so after taking my tour, I got back and ate the lunch that I had ordered.
I think it was something like $140 Fijian dollars for food in addition to the accommodation cost.
I think I mentioned that in a previous entry, though.
The food was great. 😊 My first bite took me back to a flavor I probably last tasted when my brother Jared made Tahitian food for me many years ago. My guess is what I ate (raw cube fish marinated in lemon juice, with vegetables, coconut cream, etc.) was similar to whatever it was that he made.
(feel free to correct me, brother!)
After dropping my stuff off at my dorm and eating lunch, I had tentatively thought about going on an afternoon scuba diving trip, but when I went to fill out the information, I forgot that, unless I’m going to be dishonest on the form, I have to have a doctor’s note saying that I’m okay to scuba dive.
I wasn’t comfortable being dishonest, and in some ways, it was a relief to not be able to go.
I would like to go scuba diving someday, though.
What I did do, however, was borrow fins from the water sports shop and head on out on a snorkeling adventure with Carrie, stashing my hat and sunscreen and whatever else on the shore.
The snorkeling adventure was fantastic. 😁
The water was really shallow, so we were really close to everything, and I had to be super careful to not do damage to the coral, which I think I might have actually done once. 😬
There were tons of fish all over the place, different kinds of coral, so many beautiful colors.
After snorkeling all over the place, even way out, far off Sunset Beach, we started heading around the north North end of the island, where, instead of coral, I ran into solid rock with channels going through it and a super duper strong current.
That section with the bedrock was actually my favorite section on the first dive/snorkel, so maybe species of fish, and different species than what I’d seen on the shallow reef earlier.
Unfortunately, the current was far too strong for Carrie, so though she tried to follow me, she ended up being unable to beat the current and stayed on the Sunset Beachside.
Noticing that she wasn’t with me, I started swimming back around to see where she was, as I was a bit concerned. That’s when she explained to me the issues with the current, so we split up, and I continued around the northern end of the island toward Manta Beach.
That curl around the northern end of the island was just… awesome. ☺️
Spent some time hanging out and chatting with Carrie looking out over the ocean at Sunrise Beach.
I love this place. Totally hit a home run with this resort stop. 🙏😊😁
The island can’t be more than 200 m wide, if that, from Sunrise Beach to Sunset Beach. In the morning, you can watch the sunrise from one beach, and in the evening, you can watch the sunset from the opposite Beach.
If you’re hot and want some wind, then one beach will be windy, while the other is calm.
If the evening Sun is too hot, you can hang out on the sunrise side, and if the morning sun is too hot, you can hang out on the sunset side.
It’s just so perfect! 😊
And my best undersea adventure was still yet to come!
Since I was only on the island for a day, I decided I had better make the most of my opportunities, so I decided to go out and snorkel Sunrise Beach.
Oh. My. Goodness.
😁
Man, I thought going around the northern tip of the island was amazing.
Wow. Just… wow. 😍
Not only was there a greater variety of coral and fish, but it was more relaxing to snorkel in that area, as The Reef was really shallow, just like Sunset Beach, except for all the sudden, it just dropped straight off, so you could hang out at the drop off without worrying about sinking too low and coming in contact with the coral.
Even though the sun was going down, and there was so much less light illuminating the amazing colors of the subsurface plants and critters, it was still just a phenomenal experience.
That’s tippy for my whole life, I think. 😃
By the time I got myself cleaned up and dried off with my stuff put at least somewhat away, it was almost dark and was time for dinner, so I walked over to the main eating area, finding a few Fijian staff members playing and singing to us, and the outdoor tables all decked out and ready for us.
If I’m remembering correctly, we had ordered our food a lot earlier in the day, so we didn’t need to order: We just waited for them to bring the food over.
To my delight and amazement, as I was walking over for dinner, I happened to look up in the sky and saw a boatload of absolutely massive bats. I’m talking bats with wingspans up to maybe three feet!
😲
I had never seen bats that big!
Not. Even. Close.
[cue the Wizard of Oz music 🙃]
Dinner was good, and I continued chatting with Carrie for a good little while before bidding her good evening and heading off for the night.
Earlier, I forget exactly when, I had spent a fair bit of time chatting with a fellow traveler named Avery (was he Canadian?), and he mentioned that everyone who was staying in his particular dorm had left the island, so he was alone. I asked him if he wouldn’t mind if I joined his dorm, and he didn’t mind, so I had gotten permission 🙏 from the lady at the front desk to switch dorms from the one I was originally in (which was either full or nearly full [four bunks, eight travelers]).
The dorms at Barefoot Manta are basically square, super-heavy-duty tents. 🙃
But I wouldn’t have it any other way. I loved that about this resort as well. I just… love this place. 😊
Anyway, after getting permission from the front desk lady, I went back over to the dinner area where Avery was sitting with a whole group of early 20-something girls. I interrupted as carefully as I could to ask if he was okay if I moved my stuff over, and he was, and they invited me to join the conversation when I got back, so once moved over to the less-crowded dorm, I headed back over to hang out with the group.
If I had to guess, it was maybe around 10:00 when I first showed back up to hang out with them?
It was quite a lively conversation/discussion, all sorts of topics, including the seemingly ubiquitous anti-Trump sentiment from Europeans (at least the vocal Europeans). My experience so far is that most (if not all?) Europeans who bring up American politics and Donald Trump immediately and forcefully hammer him and anyone who could possibly support him.
On every occasion that I’ve experienced this, it has been done without any attempt to “gauge the room,” so to speak and without any consideration that there could be valid perspectives different from their own.
It leads me to wonder… before being so vocal in their feelings, do they consider the possibility that some of the people with whom they are speaking might hold the perspectives and be the people they have so thoroughly and forcefully judged and condemned?
As one who is neither a staunch critic nor a staunch defender of President Trump, but who, nevertheless, has strong opinions about politics, economics, and social issues, etc., I think maybe it’s a little easier for me to participate in conversations where one side has been dressed down so thoroughly from the get go?
With all of that as a pretty hefty and heavy backdrop to the conversation, I ended up having a really amazing opportunity to share (gently and without any judgement or criticism), my fundamental belief that if we get to know people, if we dig down, regardless of where they might stand on any social/political/philosophical, etc., position, we’ll find that the majority of people have good hearts and honorable motives.
It was a wonderful experience to practice communicating three Lift the World ideas that are so important to me.
And it was encouraging and gratifying for the conversation to have gone so well with topics that are incredibly divisive. 😊
I was also encouraged by and grateful to have one of the participants in that conversation, after the conversation was concluded, ask me to keep them in the loop about my organization, as they were interested in being a part of it. 🙏🤍
Yay!!! 🤍🤍🤍
It was sometime after midnight when we finally disbanded in order to get some sleep. 🙃
Visits to the bathroom, the sink to brush teeth, and what not followed, as we all got ready for bed. Avery and I chatted just a little bit, and I took some journal notes for the day.
What an awesome day. ☺️
Oh!!! I forgot to mention that during my second snorkeling trip (my tippy!), I saw an enormous (to me, at least) grouper! It was probably six get long and hundreds of pounds.
Massive. It was massive.
It was swimming around below me where the sea floor dropped off from the reef. I had the super cool experience of seeing it swim over onto its side and stare at me with its enormous eye.
So cool! 😁
I followed it from above back and forth for a little bit before moving on.
Happy boy. 😊
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 