Taveuni Island

For our wedding anniversary last year, Richard asked what I wanted. I said go to a Fijian Pearl farm, snorkel the farm site, and pick myself out the perfect colored pearl. Given how unique Fijian Pearls are (think greens, blues, golds, reds, etc), Richard was agreeable to this. There are two islands that have pearl farms - JH Hunter on Savusavu and Civa Pearls on Taveuni. Unfortunately, both were hit pretty hard by TC Winston and were still in recovery mode and not offering farm tours. So we I kept holding out hoping they would restart them. Eventually, we heard the ticking of the 'times up' clock on our Fiji Time and I found deal on the airfare....even got the direct Suva to Matei flight! So we were booked for our last hurray to the third largest island in Fiji.

After the kids term ended, we headed out a few days later over the Easter holiday weekend. At the same time, a slightly menacing TC Josie was also heading towards Fiji!

TC Josie track from: http://fijivillage.com/

We debated whether to go or not, but it looked like weather would actually be better in Taveuni than staying in Suva with an empty house. We just had our suitcases worth of stuff and barely any food in the house....Taveuni was out of the cone of danger, where as all of Viti Levu (marked with Nadi) was likely to be affected....so off we flew! In a one of Fiji Airways smallest planes!

This little gem held 21 passengers plus the flight crew. We were so close to the Pilot and Co-Pilot, we almost felt like we should give them a high-five when we landed.....

The flight was nearly all over water. Which gave us the chance to see the islands up close from a different perspective. When we initially left Viti Levu, you could see a lot of run off in the water (ie brown mucky looking water).

Neat view of how village homes will cluster together in spots along the coast. We also spotted an atoll, but that photo didn't turn out. My inner scientist wanted to jump out of the plane and dive in right there!!

As we are on our approach, Taveuni island is the big island you see. The small little spit of land is Korolevu Island. Look at all the beautiful coral reef!! A lot less runoff here....beautiful bright blue colors back.

Here's a short little video of our flight:

We opted to stay at the Garden Island Resort. Taveuni Island's nickname is the garden island due how lush and green it is. The resort was located very centrally to a number of things we wanted to do while on the island.

By the time, we landed at the end of the island, found some transportation (not as many cabs as in Suva), and arrived at the resort it was mid-afternoon. We checked in and had a late lunch. The kids wanted to go swimming - though that didn't last long. Sadly, the weather had followed us (at least the outer bands of rain had). I spoke with the dive shop about going out the next day....weather dependent.  For dinner, we partook in some adult beverages with fun Fijian location names.

The next morning, sadly, it was very windy and the seas were quite rough.....so it was a no-go for me & diving (Richard was fighting this lingering cough illness and not feeling up for the dive). We watched the storm....even filmed a bit of it for something to do....so you can watch too! (And though our resort cancelled dives for the day due to weather, we saw another resort went ahead and took divers out - they were really getting tossed around as we watched them head back).

Being the garden island, it was a very lush island and resort. So whenever our room was made up they always decorated the beds, bathroom, and counters with fresh flower arrangements. Some resorts we've been to will but A flower here or there....but GIR would put big bunches of flowers all over. Clarissa and I loved it (and took photos). Mason and Richard really didn't express much one way or another. Here is a little collage of some of the flower arrangements.

In the afternoon, the rain stopped for a bit. So we borrowed some umbrellas from the resort and got directions to the International Date Line/180° longitude. This was one of the exciting highlights for us that we really wanted to see. There are only two countries that the 180° longitude passes over land - Fiji and Russia. There are several other Pacific Island countries that straddle the 180° longitude, but it is over water there (for this reason the International Date Line actually zig zags close to but not exactly down the 180° longitude so that a country can all be in the same day zone). We missed one of the turns and wandered aimlessly down some muddy roads...oops. We got some more directions and headed back. Eventually, we did see the sign and make it over....only one major causality.....me - I walked down an embankment and slipped....I got down first...lol!

So Fiji has a sign located on the line where you can be standing in today and yesterday (and appear to have islands as arms!). Or if really annoyed at them, you can put one kid in today and one in yesterday.....they shouldn't be able to fight then?!?

Or if your teen has done something really naughty, you can kick his behind back to yesterday! (Note all the mud on my legs....lol).

In true Fiji style, in a little church to side of this sign, there was a wedding going on. A gentleman from the wedding came over, invited us to join them.....we felt a little too muddy and politely declined. He had brought some wedding cake with him, so Richard and I both had a small piece. Afterwards, we went to get a photo from the behind the sign at a top of the island vantage point. To balance the beautiful Fijian sunset yin I regularly post, here is some annoyed Clarissa yang because we were chatting and taking too long.

On a sunny day, it is probably beautiful from up here. The land in the distance is Savusavu Island. There is a typically blue Somosomo Strait in between, but due to TC Josie it is all shades of gray.

It was starting to rain during our walk back down to the resort, but at least we had gotten out of our room and done something besides play Uno, go fish, reading a book, or iPad games!!!

We had a good chuckle everyday at high tide. There was some sort of hard marker/statue type object a little way out into the water, but at high tide only the top of it was exposed. In our opinion, it looked like a 'poop emoji' (#LifeWithKids). Here is my artistic photo of it. I title it "Bird on a Turd".

The next morning, we woke to rain and wind.....alas another bust for diving for me. As I had to dive, 24 hours before our flight, this only left one more morning to possibly go out.....fingers crossed for the next day. After we ate breakfast, we noticed that the weather started to clear a bit. We took advantage and called the front desk to see if they could arrange us a driver to take us to the waterfalls. Given it was Easter Monday, they weren't sure if they could find one as technically it was a holiday. We lucked out though and 20 minutes later, we were bouncing down the road and then off road! Once past Matei (the town where we landed), the paved road ends as we drove to the eastern side of the island. Bouma National Heritage Park is located on the very rainy eastern side of the island. The park was established between four villages, each offers a different tour to the park - hiking, ocean kayaking, cultural (I think), and the most popular waterfalls. The park protects a large portion of the island against development which is awesome and provides the villages with income. So we rode in a 4-wheel drive truck to the waterfalls park, it should be noted that one of the concrete low water bridges already had water from all the rain starting to get to wash over the base. As luck would have it, google helped me find a photo of the bridge on a dry day (it is the 6th picture down)!!!

With it already raining, the kids and decided to go ahead and put on our swimsuits before walking to waterfall. As I mentioned before Richard was fighting some sort of cough/cold fun and opted to not get soaked and then jump in mountain chilled water. So he used our lone umbrella (we are moving to the desert, no use wasting precious luggage space on multiple umbrellas). So while Richard paid our entrance fees, the kids and I got changed. We then headed down the trail. It was about a 10 minute walk. Here's a video of the highlights from the walk and waterfall. Sorry for the occasionally drops on the GoPro lens - with the rain coming down, TC Josie wind blowing it sideways, splashing from the water....it was bound to get droplets on it....lol.

So when headed down the trail, we were the only ones. I guess some people were hoping the weather would improve but gave up. Then suddenly we were surrounded by people as soon as we got to the waterfall. Someone from another group placed a stick on the shoreline at the waters edge (I circled it). By the time we left, this stick was completely submerged.

Obligatory waterfall selfie....

Clarissa played in the water a bit - it was very chilly! On a hot day I think it would have felt wonderful.

Mason ventured closer to the waterfall. I didn't get much on video - partially because Clarissa and I were laughing so hard and partially because the mom-danger-alert was going off - but Mason was attempting to swim right up to the waterfall. He hit a spot where he was literally not moving at all. Eventually, he swam sideways to the rock, but the current of the fall plus all the rain was strong!

So past this waterfall, there are two more waterfalls. Each another 10-30 minutes of hiking further from the last one. Given poor Richard was standing under an umbrella and how quickly that shoreline stick had gone underwater, we opted to not venture any further and head back. This was the best decision ever! When we were heading back over the concrete low water bridge, the water level was now at least a half meter (~2 feet) of water flowing OVER the bridge! Our driver's truck was able to handle the water depth and he knew the bridge well enough, he just gunned it and went (eeekkkk- 'don't do this during flash flooding' videos were flashing through my mind at all). We had run into another family from our resort when we where heading out to the waterfall. We all joked, had we known we could of shared a driver! When leaving, they were probably 20 minutes behind us. When we got back to the resort, we heard they had gotten stuck! Their driver had a van and for him the bridge was impassible and someone with a bigger truck was sent to retrieve them!! We were quite happy with our decision to leave when we did at that point, as we hadn't packed a bunch of snacks and would have had a lot of hangry people!

On our drive back, we made two stops (totally taking advantage of having a driver). The first stop was to the coveted Civa Pearl shop. Since the farm hasn't recovered enough since TC Winston (and were in TC Josie) our only option was to visit their retail shop. We had hoped to get some loose pearls, sadly being a smaller operation they only had ones that had only been set. So I finally got my Fijian pearl! It is a lovely blueish-purple color. I just recently got a chain for it, so I don't have any photos yet. The kids were a little disappointed they didn't get anything....tough luck buttercups (I did end up getting some loose less than perfect pearls later at local handicraft market).

Our second stop on the drive back, was at Restaurant Tramonto - the lone pizza place on the island. We had heard good things. It sat above some lava rocks, as well as have some wonderful views in 270°. In our minds, we set the bar for it to be as good as EcoCafe.....it was different, so we were a little bummed. Though, we ate it all up....so it wasn't too shabby!!

Some blue sky was starting to peek through between the clouds and it was raining less. It was starting to look like the majority of TC Josie had passed over...maybe a dive would be in the cards after all! We even got a bit of sunset that evening!!

The next morning, diving was a go! Hip hip hooray! In fact, on our way out to the reef, a rainbow appeared! A rainbow over Rainbow Reef!

I took mostly video and it was overcast...so color correcting was tricky...but the diversity and size of the coral blew my mind! Seriously, while diving I thought to myself 'Wow! I have only ever seen stuff like this in textbooks....but it is real and amazing!'

I mean seriously, look at the size of the coral mount compared to size of the diver! WOW! Which continued the whole dive, both dives - what an awesome reef! The video/photo really don't do it justice.

Some other exciting things I saw were a white tip reef shark at a cleaning station. It was super cool watching, the shark just sat there on the bottom with its mouth open and a little fish moving in between its teeth. You can see the shark, but not the cleaner fish. The other most awesome thing I saw was a blue ribbon eel! Just as its name implies, it is a type of eel that is thin, ribbon like and bright blue. Unfortunately, when I was geeking out, I failed to get it on video. During the surface interval, a huge (as in 1.5 meters/4-5 feet long and big enough I could see the scales) sea krait swam past the boat. Given all the rain, I wanted to make sure it was a snake before saying anything. By the time it was close enough/I confirmed it and everyone else on dive boat saw it too, it dove back underwater....so no photo of that either! Here's the dive video.

I felt some guilt for diving without Richard or Mason (but with sickness and rough seas they both passed). Though Richard had fun....he ended up buying another hand carved mask! The ones hung in each room of the resort were very unique (plain with large foreheads) compared to those found on Viti Levu. The man that carved them had passed away a few years ago, but Richard kept chatting the general manager and wore her down. She had an extra one tucked away and sold it to him! So we both had great mornings.

That afternoon, we had hoped to go to the natural waterslides. It was about a 10 minute walk from where we were staying, though we would need a guide. Unfortunately, due to all the rain the water level was high and the water was moving too fast. So it was deemed to be too unsafe to slide down. So we had a little photo shoot with some of the beautiful frangipani flowers that had been knocked off the trees (as it was raining a bit again as well).

They do smell lovely!

The other thing we had wanted to do while out on Taveuni was kayak out to Korolevu Island and snorkel around the uninhabited island (it would have been another island for our tally too!!). Sadly, weather conditions never cooperated (you can see it in the background to the right of the flower). We finally opted to just take a taxi to the nearby village and visit a local handicraft market.

As one would expect, on the date of our departure it was sunny, the wind was calm, and the rain was gone!!
Oh Fiji!!!

We had a late morning flight as well, so not a whole lot time do much. We did walk down the street a bit to the local beach (the resort waterfront was all rocky) and get a little black sand for the kids collections. On our way back, we picked up three colors of frangipanis! So Clarissa and I played with the wonderful lighting and made flower crowns. (Photo overload warning....couldn't pick a favorite....and you know the grandparents love them!).

It is pretty funny when your flowers fall out and mom just keeps taking photos!

Clarissa took photos of mommy too!

Seriously! Look at the beautiful weather behind me! What's the deal, Fiji! That wasn't very nice of you!!

Oh....and in case you are wondering, no one was safe from flower crowns!!!

Mason, Daddy, or our new carved mask....nobody or nothing was safe from the Frangipanis!!!!

We all got showered, packed up, and checked out. Though Richard's new acquisition was too big to fit into either of the suitcases we had brought. We hoped they would let us hand carry it on the plane. When we went downstairs the general manager saw the unwrapped masked and got it bundled up in some cardboard for us. The staff sang us 'Isa Lei' for the final time (I'll post it soon). They sang it in Fijian and English....after 2+ years, we heard it sung in English for the first time.

The airport waiting area is beautiful. Taveuni earns its title as 'Garden Island'. We checked in at the airport, we were told to hand carry our mask to the plane....so here are the kids and I chilling with our buddy!

Our little jet setter heading to the plane. She's got no clue how lucky she really is!

The water was beautiful on the flight back!! Having traveled the area a bit, we tried to identify islands from the sky. We think this is Leleuvia!

We saw the airstrip and though this might be where Mason had just been Ovalau....nope. Research shows this is a private, 2,200 acre/eight square mile island called Wakaya Island....which was apparently purchased by some Americans (possible fugitives) while we've been living in Fiji. Read the gossip here! Interesting!! Still pretty from the air!!

Every time we came out the mouth of the Rewa River, we would pass Bau Island (and everyone on the boat must remove their hat when passing). This is due to the fact, Bau Island is the chiefly island of the area. According to wiki, the official Fijian language is based on the Bau Island dialect. So it is a very special tiny little spec of land!

A few moments later, we were back on the ground (if you look up, I think that is some landing action occurring on the wing). Taveuni was a beautiful island with a phenomenal reef. Though we were not able to do everything thing we had wanted to do, we did get to have some neat experiences and we ate some delicious meals!

Beqa Island

So we had a bucket list of places to go/see before we left Fiji. Beqa Island (pronounced Benga) was near the top of that list for two reasons: fire walkers and shark diving! Planning it was a bit tricky, fire walking typically only occurs once a week (you'll have to watch the video to find out why). Beqa Lagoon Resort - where we opted to stay - fire walking occurs on Monday evenings (so we found a weekend with a Monday holiday...we opted to let the kids miss a day of school - real world experiences have a lot of educational value!). We also decided to wait until Mason was SCUBA certified so that he could participate in the shark dive as well (winning at parenting there!).

Beqa Island is actually really close to Suva! We have drove past it 100s of times. It is located right off Pacific Harbour (so only a 45 or so minute drive away) plus the boat ride over to the island. In fact I've posted photos of it many times on FB/instagram and a few times on the blog like...here with my cousins and here on Father's Day last year (though you can't see the island...we could...lol). The resort has worked out a deal with the Pearl Resort in Pac Harbour to use their Marina. So we left our car at the Pearl and waited for the boat to arrive. Once they arrived and we got our things loaded, then they had to go refuel....ahh Fiji Time....so we had some time to kill....so with beautiful scenery, why not have an impromptu photo shot?!?

We could totally be sunglasses models!!

Trying to be artsy, I was attempting to get a palm tree shadow and I was photo bombed!

Typically teens......I call this peacock teen....I perfectly line up the fanning palm behind his head....muwhahaha.....you don't play along, I still have fun!

Finally the boat was fueled up and we were on our way. We passed this small little island in the jetty mouth. You can see the edge of Beqa in the corner of the shot....it seems so close but it was breezy and a strong current so it takes surprisingly longer than you would expect to cross the channel.

We arrived at lunch time, so we dropped our stuff in our rooms (had to get 2 as there was a 3 person per room cap, but Clarissa would have been fine on the couch....but have to follow the rules [insert eye roll]), got signed up for the shark dive the next morning (priorities people), and then had lunch. Richard was pleasantly surprised to find that not only did they serve ice tea in big urns but they offered unsweetened as well as the southern staple of sweetened ice tea!!! We quickly discovered the resort was an American meca. We came across more American tourists here in one weekend than I think we had come across every other island combined!! We are guessing the shark dive is likely advertised in SCUBA magazines and people book a package and come out.

After lunch we hopped in the water to get some snorkeling done before we jumped in the pool (once in you will never get the kids out....even though we have one at home?!?!). The seagrass beds in back were "too slimy" for Clarissa and we ended up doing a little divide and conquer. Mason and Richard snorkeled the back side while Clarissa and I went to the sandier front side. Luckily we now have two GoPros.....so we both got some awesome footage! Richard got an eel in it's hole and I stalked a sea horse. Though the best footage has to be after Richard and Mason came back, I headed way out to reef in front (about half way through the video). I am playing with a blue sea star and then pointing to some Christmas tree worms....based on what I am doing and the fact I think if I would have seen this creature swim by I would have likely turned the camera and followed it a bit (at least panned the lens some)....but no.....totally clueless!!! I didn't know it swam this close until editing the video! Oops...situational awareness fail! I will leave you in suspense and not spoil the video.....(sorry for the shakey parts where we let the kids shoot some too!).

Here are some shots of the best creatures we also took in addition to the video! The coolest sea horse ever!!

A selfie with a six-armed blue sea star! We had only seen four- and five-armed sea stars until now!!

I think this is a threadfin butterflyfish (likely a younger one - since the 'thread' grows with age and I can't see it's 'thread' so it might not be very long). It also does not have the telltale spot. In researching, it seems common for the spot to not appear on the left side.

"Normal" five-armed blue sea star.

View of Beqa Island from the reef.

So after our fun in the sun and water, we got cleaned up. If you recall from over a year ago when my in-laws were in town we had some kalavata made (family colors - aka matching modern traditional Fijian dress). Well Clarissa has sprouted giraffe legs as we call them, Mason has flown past me in height, and Richard's shrunk length wise....so I was the only left with my sulu jaba (shirt/skirt) still fitting. So we decided to get another set made before leaving post and do some more family photos....so I apologize for to non-family....these next photos are primary for the grandparents! (I started with 64 shots....narrowed it down to only 12....it was tough....we had some kids with the goofy dial turned up to the max that afternoon!).

Switching up all the combo's of who was taking the photo.....

Clarissa was all about posing on sideways growing palm trees this trip!

Candid a kid caught of me fixing my flower. 

We found a nice stranger to snap a couple shots with all four of us!

Mommy and me shots (with attitude of course)!

I think Richard and Mason may have been done with this photo shoot! Goofballs!

The only nice solo photo of Mason....the rest were so silly! Clarissa decided to bring props into the mix.

We timed things perfectly! After we had finished and gotten some cold drinks (I got the special that day...we think it was called the "Blue Lagoon"), a local Beqa village had come to sing church hymns to us. They were all sung in Fijian, so I don't know the songs that were song, but when editting the video it made me sentimental thinking of how beautiful their songs are. Everyone starts singing as a child and I don't think there is a single Fijian who can't carry a tune. Watch the drone video later in this post to hear their songs. After the singing, Clarissa didn't let sulu jaba slow her down and headed to the playground.

As you can see by the sun-kissed glows on our faces. It was late afternoon/evening and the sun was starting to set. OMG.....I honestly have to say this was the most beautiful sunset we saw the entire time we live in Fiji....and as you have seen in all the photos I've posted on this blog...we have seen some beautiful sunsets! Since we had the camera with us from taking our kalavata photos it was perfect for taking the sunset progression photos. I also took a ton of photos of the sunset....and seriously every photo I took was even better than the last one. It was insane!! We have one user setting on the camera that increases the saturation a bit (but not too much or it messes with skin tones). I used that to take the photos. The only editing I did was a little crop or straighten if the horizon was wonky....I did nothing to the color or brightness/contrast - I tell you all that technical stuff because what you see in pictures is what the sunset looked like - I didn't edit them!! Again...photo overload because it was such an amazing sunset and each photo was a little better but different and all are beautiful. I whittled my 20 sunset photos down to these five...

Am I not right? A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!

There was also about thirty other people watching this phenomenal sunset with us....and I managed to creatively frame the photos to not get a single one....it looks like we are alone on the island!!  

After dinner was over, we had back to our bures to get our dive bags & cameras all ready and then rest before our big day.....I wouldn't say a restful nights sleep. Nerves do you get a bit....I am purposefully getting ready to put myself (and my child) down into shark-infested waters....is this the best decision....what could possibly go wrong.....

The next morning after breakfast, we left Clarissa with the staff and headed to the dive shop on the island. There are two operations in Fiji that do shark dives. The other operation is out of Pacific Harbour and goes down across the channel to a depth of ~90 feet. We opted for the resort dive as they only go down to a depth of ~65 feet. There was long safety briefing, that made us all feel better. They went over how the whole morning would go, the different species we might encounter, what to expect, what not to do (ex. I had to borrow their fins as my primarily white fins might catch a shark's attention...not something you want to do, we all had to have full wetsuit coverage - no skin exposed...again trying to not catch any shark attention). We would do two - 30 minute dives (with a surface interval in between) during which one dive master would feed the sharks. We were to descend, find a spot on the wall, kneel and stay behind the wall (but watch out for eels - they like fingers). There were about 4-5 dive masters down in the water helping stand guard, aid slow descenders (like us), or anyone who needed to surface early (ie a dive computer said time's up).

Here is a photo of the feeding dive master. The food was brought down in a trashcan. He would open the lid, pull out some fish heads (or whatever), then shut the lid for a bit, when read to get more food out he would open the lid and pull some more out. The little yellow guy in front is a Klein's butterflyfish (Chaetodon kleinii).

That is my most awesome shark dive photo!! Thank you GoPro burst mode!! My boss at the embassy loved it so much he encouraged me to add it to embassy internal website page! Yeah me! I counted SEVEN sharks in that photo!

That is my favorite, ooh that is a big shark photo.....no cropping done there....so it was close as well! Now I'm going to try to show ID photos of the species we saw before the video (it was overcast when diving so it makes ID a bit trickier).

Possibly the Black Tip Reef Shark (IDed by black on the tips of its fins). Similar to the White Tip Reef Shark that has white tips on its fin tips...I did not get any stills but they were seen on the dive.

Possibly a Bull Shark entering from above. We were warned they would somewhat cleared out an area.

Possibly Nurse Sharks. We were told they would linger towards the ground and somewhat grab scraps that were dropped by the other sharks.

Just a shot of lots of sharks! I think the 'best' moment was when I looked up and saw about 5-6 sharks swimming right over our heads. I was looking up as they said Bull and Tiger sharks will come in from above so I was watching for those. I tapped Mason on the arm and pointed up. For a second he had a panic look of 'sharks in front and above I am surrounded'...just a natural human nature response. I tried to do a sign language reminder of the briefing about the sharks like to get bubble massages after feedings....Mason nodded, visibly relaxed, and then throughly enjoyed the close up sharks just above us in our bubbles and in front of us! At the point, I thought....core memory in the making right here and mentally patted myself on the back!

I think one of my favorite things was the shark that snagged one of the many fish that had also shown up for the fish head buffet! There is nothing in the rules that says the sharks only need to eat dead fish heads!

So without further ado....here is the video....I tried to edit it down to the best shark swim-bys with the least fish photo bombs.....tough!

So Richard and I had decided to not attend any of Mason certification classes. We felt he would learn better without either of us there to lean on for assistance (ie before the second shark dive - "Mom help me with my gloves" My thoughts "?!?" - but I said "you are a certified diver you should know how to put gloves on...after the first dive and everything is wet so stuff is trickier"....he managed to figure it out). What we did discover is he is more of flat seas/shore diver.....not too much of a fan of a little chop. Mean mom with a sea sick darling selfie!

Richard had ear problems and couldn't get down on the second dive....he was sad.

On a happy note, the sun had come out, seas had calmed and we had a beautiful ride back to the resort!

Mason and I rode in back to enjoy the warm sunshine!

That afternoon, we took advantage of the free foot treatment we received as part of our stay. Richard really can't stand people touching his feet but powered through for Clarissa....

Afterwards, Richard flew the the drone....he discovered as I did...the best way to make friends is to fly a drone...lol!

Here is the drone footage from the afternoon and a little before this sunset (had to recharge the batteries). I put the footage to the music of the church singers from the evening before. See if you can spot Clarissa in the pool and the huge fire you see in the background is the fire prepping for the firewalking ceremony!

While Richard was flying the drone, I partook in a lovely massage in the open air treatment room hidden in the lush gardens with views of the ocean. Sorry...no photos of that :) Mason had some homework to do and Clarissa hung out in the pool! Afterwards we all got cleaned up for the firewalking ceremony. I'll post the video first and then some still shots....

Just prior to the ceremony, the fire was burning hot!

Leveling the hot rocks to walk on...they are not fire jugglers...

The people I've seen walking barefoot along asphalt roads in Fiji in the summer must have been Beqa Island descendants!

I think the best part was after they finished walking, they placed some dry leaves between some of the hot rocks and they quickly caught fire again! So while they may not have been walking on flames those were some hot rocks!! Afterwards we could take our photo with the firewalkers (disregard shy Clarissa and goofy Mason).

Afterwards we enjoyed another breathtaking sunset (maybe second best during our time in Fiji...lol). I posted one shot here, but of course there are more to share!!

More golden this evening! The silhouette of the island reminded us a lot of a certain movie about a Pacific Island heroine that we have watched many times.

Got some people this time to make it more interesting.

The moon made an appearance even!! How will I ever choose which ones to print out to frame?!?!?

After dinner, we headed to bed. We had to catch the early boat back, get to the kids to school, and I had to get to work!! (Richard opted to take a day off work). Beqa Island did try to tempted us with a beautiful rainbow before our departure! Sigh, that little rock you see off in the distance is Viti Levu...where we live.

It was a great weekend....sadly, we had to return to the job of getting everything ready for the yard sale in a few days, the rest of pack out prep, work, and school....but it was great escape for a few days, bucket list items got checked off, and we visited another island. After getting home and washing up all our gear, as I was putting it up....I got this photo of Isa Lei....if I could read cat mind's she is thinking "I like fish, why didn't they take me???"