(written on February 21st from notes taken previously )
How can a phone that’s completely powered off have an alarm go off?
😶
Well… that’s exactly what happened this morning at 5 freaking a.m.
I had my headphones in (disconnected from my phone, as there was no point trying to use my white noise app when I couldn’t even power the phone on), the marshmallow ear buds acting as simple earplugs to help me not wake up with every position adjustment made by the several other bunkmates in the little dorm room here.
Yet, through my headphones, I heard the gentle noise of an alarm going off.
And then I realized that it was my alarm that was going off.
😶
With a non-functional screen, and a non-functional power button, I had absolutely no way to shut the alarm off. So as quickly as I could, I grabbed the phone, squished it into myself to try to muffle it, and got my little butt out of that dorm room as quickly as I possibly could so as to disturb my fellow bunkmates as little as possible.
Good gravy.
I wandered down to the open-air lounge room and there sat on a cushioned bench, out of earshot of anyone, waiting for the alarm to simply run its course, as I had no other options. 😒
Eventually, gratefully, the alarm shut itself off, and I wandered back to my dorm room and crashed for at least a little while longer before we all had to get up to prepare for the morning’s diving and snorkeling adventures.
I was grateful to be traveling with people who were going to be diving at the same place that I was snorkeling, which meant we were all going to catch the same shuttle from our little resort to the main dive center.
I wasn’t so grateful for the migraine that I was dealing with as a result of yesterday’s dehydration during my waterfall hike. 😅
[sigh]
The little shuttle van arrived on time to pick us up, driving us about halfway down the west coast of the island to the main dive center building.
There we were greeted by a very friendly staff. 😊
The American lady that was sort of running the place I think had live in Fiji for something like 30 years? and I believe was the daughter of the owners of the outfit?
Something like that.
She was super nice, as was the lady that drove the shuttle, as were all of the boat personnel and diving/snorkeling staff and guides.
Just a great group of people. 😊
It was hard for me to be super energetic, dealing with the effects of the migraine, the headache, the nausea, etc.
But I wasn’t about to cancel the experience.
I got my form filled out and my payment made, and then we got our overview of and instruction for the trip.
I got fitted with fins and matched up with… Pela? Gosh, I forget his name. 😕
Whatever his name was, he was my snorkeling guide for the day. 🙃
I also availed myself of the bathroom before departing, as there was no bathroom on the boat. 😶
It was just a short walk from the dive center building to the little harbor where the small rowboat-looking motorboat took us out to the larger dive boat (still a small boat) waiting for us in deeper water off shore.
The boat had two benches arranged back to back but parallel with the sides of the boat, with the captain and steering wheel up front, and the storage room and motor in the back.
There were several dive tanks and associated equipment set up on the backs of the benches set up for the divers to be ready to basically just pick up, cinch on, and drop into the water.
I think it was supposed to be maybe a 30-minute boat ride from where we embarked to our the first dive location, but something was up with the motor or fuel system, such that it died repeatedly, maybe a good 10 times? Before they finally got it going for good. 🙃
Multiple staff members rode on top (there’s a roof, not structural looking at all, more like something to keep you and everything dry in case of rain), they just sort of hanging out up there, basking in the sun, while the captain drove and the rest of us hung out on our benches chatting it up.
Boy was it a beautiful day, the ocean with seemingly barely a ripple.
Rainbow Reef, our destination for the day, is pretty massive, with something like 100 different dive sites? But the crew leader doesn’t know which dive site we’re going to go to until he actually gets out to the reef and is able to see the behavior of the currents.
Once the behavior of the current is recognized, then the dive sites are chosen–our first of the day called Jerry’s Jelly.
All the scuba divers dropped in the water first, and then once they were all set, I, the only snorkeler for the day, dropped in with my guide.
I was a little concerned that my mask might fog up because I’ve often had issues with that (though maybe only once since learning about the trick of using dish soap or baby shampoo to wash and rinse out the inside of the mask with before jumping in?).
Gratefully, my mask didn’t fog up at all.
Maybe within the first 30 seconds or minute of dropping down into the water, I saw a flash of light reflect off of a very large fish in the dark distance that I could have sworn was the shape of a shark. 😅
I mentioned it to my guide, but he didn’t really have much of a reaction that I recall.
Other than that little experience, I remember thinking during the first dive of the day that it was sort of… ho hum.
The experience I had at Barefoot Manta on the reef just off Sunrise Beach was phenomenal, in my opinion, and this dive… wasn’t quite measuring up to that one.
Not to mention I could explore that one at my own pace, and in my own way, and this one had a guide and a definite endpoint.
I’m sure it didn’t help that I had adjusted my mask a bit too tight, so the suction was too much, and I didn’t have enough experience with adjusting my mask on the fly, so I was too worried about making a change that might cause my mass to fog up.
So I just dealt with it. 😅
I’m sure it also didn’t help that I was dealing with the migraine headache and associated nausea. 😅
It was not just once that I had to focus on the nausea so as not to let anything more happen. And the normally I wouldn’t be so keen on having someone else dictate the time that I have to get out of the water, because of my headache and nausea, it was actually a bit of a relief when my guide mentioned that the boat was coming to pick us up.
Despite the negatives, it was still a really cool experience. I’m a definite water baby, so just being out there is wonderful, and to be able to be out there snorkeling with a whole bunch of this amazing Earth’s living creatures is… heaven. 😊
I also appreciated the guide pointing out different fish species of fish, coral, etc–sea creatures of several kinds.
I love snorkeling. 😊
I’m sure I would love diving as well. 🙃
Back on the boat, we all took a break, I, grateful for the supplied snacks. I also tried to drink a fair amount of water to stay hydrated, hoping to get ahead of the stupid migraine.
But that wasn’t to be: It just lingered right along.
During the break between dives, one of the crew gave me a long presentation (a binder filled with laminated pictures) of various species of creatures that live on the reef, many of which I’m sure I’d seen during that first snorkeling trip.
I spent a bit of time chatting with the diverse, asking them about the highlights of their experience. They had seen a shark and a sea turtle among many other undersea plants and creatures.
Good stuff. 😊
If that first snorkeling trip was ho hum, the second was anything but.
When we dropped in for the second dive, a spot known as The Purple Wall, I’m sure my eyes went wide, and I might have dropped my jaw, had doing so not simply filled my mouth with sea water. 🙃
It was spectacular. 😲
The moment my face broke the plane of the water, I found myself in fish central. It was like being dropped into the reef’s rush hour, fish above me, fish below me, fish to my right, fish to my left, and not just lots of fish here and there, schools of fish all around me absolutely everywhere.
It was so cool.
If I remember correctly, the current was also pretty strong, so we floated with the current along the reef.
Or maybe that was during the first trip?
Hmmm…
🤷♂️
Anyway, my guide drew my attention to a sea turtle swimming away from us, and later on, I drew his attention to a black tip shark that was relatively close to us (which I was both happy to see [because now I could say that I for sure had seen the shark instead of just thinking I had seen one in the distance with that reflection of light], and also a little nervous to see, because… well… it’s a shark. 🙃
There’s nowhere to escape to underwater. 😅
It was really exciting, though. 😊
The whole experience, both dives (snorkels? 🙃). There were so many cool undersea plants and creatures to see!
The colors and variety of the coral were absolutely spectacular–I think probably every color of the rainbow represented, and many shades of each. There were soft coral and hard coral. There were antler-shaped coral, mushroom shaped coral, cabbage-shaped coral, round coral.
I think one species called Christmas Coral? Or maybe it wasn’t the coral? (I’m out in the middle of nowhere right now and can’t look it up). Whatever it was, it was a little plant or creature that came in multiple colors, and that if you swam down to it and then used your hand to change the pressure of the water next to the creature, would immediately close up, displaying its bright color no longer.
There were huge sea cucumbers.
And there were a gazillion colors and variety of fish–brightly-colored fish, darker-colored fish, fish that were hard to see because of their camouflage, fish that were easy to see because of the incredibly bright colors and strong contrasts.
They were long and skinny fish shaped like super long pencils, short fat fish shaped like rectangular boxes with fins.
There were Dory fishes and Nemo fishes. 🙃
There were fish where the front half was a mix of bright colors in the back half was one solid color.
A little odd, honestly. 🙃
There were tall but super skinny fish.
There were fish with large upper fins that curled around and ended in long, skinny points.
There were tiny electric-blue-colored fish, maybe just an inch or too long, and there were huge coral groupers, that I think get up to 6 ft long and several hundred pounds.
We saw one of those biggies just as we concluded our second dive of the day.
What an incredible experience. 😊
Back on the boat, I explained to my guide how grateful I was and let him know that even though I didn’t look excited on the outside (the migraine symptoms of headache and nausea still taking a pretty hefty toll on me), I was indeed both excited and grateful.
I chatted it up with the scuba divers on the way back, I think again asking about the highlights of the dive, among many other topics.
Multiple divers has been diving all over the world, and some of the ones on the trip just keep coming back to this same reef year after year.
Once back near shore, we hopped from the dive boat back to the little motorboat to get back to the dive center.
After rinsing off, I just sort of hung out while multiple of the diverse recorded their dive data in dive logs and then spent a bunch of time looking through the fish-identification book that was provided.
It was about that time that I had a decision to make: Without having a map of any kind, nor a means of communication, should I rent a car and drive around the island not knowing exactly where I am or where I’m going?
Or should I pay for another snorkeling trip, which surprisingly, would actually be cheaper than renting a car for the day.
The right back to the resort was a little awkward for me. I was trying to make conversation with multiple participants in the day’s activities, but I think I might have been sort of getting in the way of or stepping on the toes of one of the other scuba divers who seemed to be much more interested in chatting with one of the female scuba divers than engaging in conversation with me. 😅
Back at the resort, I arrived to see that my rental car was actually still there, which I felt a little bad about.
I had told the guy when I rented it yesterday that I was going to bring it back at the end of the day and then rent it again later the next day. That strategy would allow me to pay for only two days of rental instead of three. 🙃
He was totally fine with that, but I had expected him to pick up the car from the hotel this morning.
He didn’t.
So when I was second guessing my decision to rent the car for my last night and day on the island, I had a little bit of guilt, feeling like, though he had told me he was going to pick up the car, since he hadn’t, it was probably just going to be a convenience thing, he not wanting to have to pick it up when I was just going to use it later that same day.
[sigh]
I didn’t have a phone to call him with either. 😅
It was about that time while back at the resort that I got a fun surprise: the Belgian couple that I’d met on the boat between Yasawa Island stops arrived at the resort!
😆
I chatted with them for a bit, and found out that they had wondered if they might run into me on the island, this resort being the only resort with a dorm option. 🙃 Apparently, they had decided to come to Taveuni in large part because of the conversation they had with me onboard the catamaran, as it hadn’t been on their radar before talking with me. 🙃
I love talking about and sharing my travel experiences and plans, and it’s fun to have other people want to join in. It feels… validating?
It’s also a little nerve-racking because when people choose to follow my lead or make decisions based on info they get from me, I feel a little responsible for the experience that they have. 😅
So there were a few nerves as well, but it was fun to have them there. They looked like a great couple. He was a neurologist, I believe, and she a psychiatrist.
Anyway, I eventually made the decision to repeat my snorkeling adventure again tomorrow instead of paying to rent the car again without a map to explore the island with. 🙃
It also seemed like a smart thing to do, given that this reef is apparently one of the best reefs in the entire world, and I wondered if I would ever make it back.
It also didn’t hurt that the snorkeling adventure was going to be cheaper and that the day would pretty well be perfectly structured with a morning adventure that would end in the early afternoon, at which point, I would have an easy walk to the airport.
Gratefully, the lady at the resort front desk called the car rental company for me, and I was able to chat with the gentleman and let him know that I wasn’t going to be using the car for another day.
Thankfully, he was cool about it. 🙏
I spent the rest of the night hanging out with the woman from Switzerland and the gentleman who seemed to be interested in her, Dominik (the wonderful young man from the Czech Republic, and the Belgian Couple.
Still fighting off my migraine, I ordered fish and chips from the resort restaurant and ate as I continue to chat with my fellow travelers.
After hanging out with everybody for a good long time, I headed back to the dorm room, where I cleaned up, packed up, and organized all my stuff, so as to be ready to walk out with it all early in the morning.
My checkout time was going to be while I was on the snorkeling trip, and I didn’t want to have to worry about trying to get back in the dorm room after getting back. I just wanted to have all of my stuff with me and be done.
I was a little worried about my phone’s alarm going off again, but given that I didn’t think that I had any alarms set in the first place, there was a good chance that there would be no alarm going off in the morning, as the one that went off this morning was probably just a one-off that I forgot to turn off when it was no longer needed.
Anyway, there’s probably more to say about the day, but my brain is tired, so I’m going to call it good here. 🙃
Sadly, no phone = no camera = no pictures for the day 😕
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 