An early start this morning, rising to clear blue skies and brilliant sunshine…what a change from the New Zealand rain!
We were picked up at 7:30am by our transfer driver, for a half hour drive to Denarau Port. It was a busy weekday morning driving through the streets of Nadi; children were off to school and the locals off to work.
Our driver Stephen dropped us off at the port and gave us our tickets to board. We checked in our bags and went for a wander around the shops, and admired the other boats in the new harbour.
When boarding started we hopped on the large yellow catamaran called ‘Awesome Adventures Yasawa Flyer’ and took some seats in the air conditioned lounge.
As we left the port and started our journey to the first group of islands off the coast of Nadi, we realised that what we were about to see we had only before dreamed of! The first set of Islands was the Mamanuca Islands, and our first stop was South Sea Island – an idyllic place stretching no more than a hundred metres across.
The Yasawa Flyer catamaran did not go into each island, instead a small local boat came out to fetch the travellers to take them back to paradise.
After a couple more stops in the Mamanuca Islands we reached the south of the Yasawa Islands; stretching for 90km north, the chain of volcanic islands has a well earned reputation for it’s beautiful white sand beaches, turquoise lagoons and rugged landscape.
As we passed each island the above description didn’t disappoint! We then arrived near Nacula Island, which would be our home for the next 15 nights. As we looked out from the boat at the clear blue pacific ocean we were speechless at the beautiful setting before us!
After a journey of nearly 5 hours we boarded the Blue Lagoon Beach Resort boat and said good bye to the Yasawa Flyer.
We made the short trip to the resort and arrived to the staff singing us a traditional Fijian welcome song.
We were shown to our lodge room, and made ourselves comfortable.
Next stop was the restaurant for a delicious lunch; we were offered a choice of 7 daily chalk board favourites or the special, which today was reef fish in a coconut sauce. We chose the Fijian special and tucked into an amazing lunch, with a treat of a Bombay Sapphire G&T to wash it down (our first Bombay Sapphire since starting our trip may we add!). As we sat at our table looking out over this beautiful palm fringed beach and turquoise sea we felt very lucky!
Our afternoon was spent on the beach, call it settling in to our new surroundings!
We then enjoyed a rum and coke whilst watching the sunset over the south pacific ocean.
Dinner here is a communal affair, so at 7:30pm every guest sat down together to enjoy a veritable feast - ‘curry night’!! Even the food here is perfect!!
Next was ‘Retro Movie’ night, where we all sat on the beach watching Tom Cruise’s film ‘Cocktail’ projected onto a white sheet that was carefully strung up between two palm trees.
Paradise? We have to agree!
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