KIM – Once again sitting in the airport waiting for the flight to LA. I sooooo don’t want to come home! I really thought by this point I’d be more than ready, making my lists and anticipating lots of hugs from my boy Garrett – alas that’s not the case. I’m truly, deeply and madly in love! It is Fiji I must confess. One of the most magical places on earth and some of the most wonderful people on earth.
We left Christchurch as I said previously, cold, wet and windy, and arrived in Nadi to a soft tropical evening. People were singing and handing out leis (sp?) and we were whisked off to the Westin in very short order. Next morning on went the bathing suits and we had a lovely sunny morning soaking up the heat and contemplating the merits of all the young men on the beach. In the afternoon we headed off to our cruise ship the “Reef Escape”. Another lovely surprise – more singing and leis and kisses too! Turned out that although the ship has 60 cabins only 15 or so were occupied. Talk about being spoiled!
The crew of predominantly Fijians were the most fantastic people. Everyone from Graham the boat captain, to Florian the Purser, to Kapi the Bosun, to Cedric the Engineer and so on, were lovely people. I don’t quite know what is so appealing to me – perhaps it is that they seem to look you right in the eye and smile like they really mean it. Perhaps it is that they are a good looking people or simply their ability to really enjoy life.
So the people were fantastic, the islands were gorgeous and the sea – the sea is like a dream. I scuba dived every day with Matt, Rosie and Ben to look after me. The diving there is some of the best in the world – I’m no expert but even Matt the head diver was very impressed with some of the sites we were on which he hadn’t been to before. I saw green turtles, sharks, more coral than I could begin to name and fish like you only see in Cousteau movies!
We spent most of our time in the outer islands where people still live a pretty traditional way of life. One day we visited a primary school and the children put on a show for us to practice their english. Seeing the school made me appreciate how very fortunate and spoiled our children in Canada are. These kids though don’t think they are hard done by so they just get on with it. They all wanted to see where I was from and I must have taken a hundred pictures of the kids which I had to then promise to send them. Happy children!