"An Around-the-World-Ticket for Two, Please."

Mantaray day!

Posted by Sarah O'Neill , Saturday, 4 June 2011 19:10

We were not woken by Appy for mantas, so all made it to breakfast at 8am having decided not to get up for the walk. Appy was apparently still out looking for mantas for us! We had a good breakfast and sat around chatting with Elise, Jo and Stefan drinking tea for ages, it was lovely. Appy came back and said the water was a bit rough for mantas, but he would listen out for any radio calls from the other resort. Then at 9.30am Jay got us together for the coconut demonstration. We sat around while Jay showed us a big map of Fiji and pointed out which of the 300 odd islands he came from. He talked about island life, and how people who still live on the islands far from the mainland are money poor but friend rich. He said people on these islands are really happy and content and only work to provide food etc, no money is needed. It started off as a very positive picture, but he said when the children of a family needed to go to secondary school, the family would have to move to the mainland, which was very hard, and changed their life. They own no land like they do on the island, they had nowhere to grow their own food, and needed money to buy everything, but finding work was hard. It made me think how well the Waylailai island had it set up, that the resort was owned by the village and paid for boarding school for all the children. Jay also told us that anyone who owned a boat on the islands was like a millionaire, as it is the only way to get to the mainland if you need a hospital etc. After telling us a bit more about island life they began the ‘coconut demonstration’ where they ripped open a coconut using a sharpened stick to lever the outer shell off, and then Jay put a small ring made from a palm leaf down on a rock and balanced the coconut on it. We all counted down 3,2,1 and then Appy broke it in two with his bare hands, slicing down on it! We were very impressed! Ben and Stephan both had a go, but they only managed to bruise their hands not break the coconut!! They also showed us how to make a men’s basket for carrying things, (the women’s basket takes over 2 hours to make so they didn’t do that), and a plate for if there is a wedding etc and they need more plates. They also made a hat which they gave to Ben to wear!

Once the demo was over we were just thinking about going to the beach. There are 3 beaches in the resort, one for sunrise, one for sunset, and one in between them, so you can take your pick, and when it’s windy on one side, the other is lovely and sheltered! However, we did not have time, as they called that mantarays had been spotted, so we dashed off to get our snorkel gear and met by the boat. Appy and Jay took us, and Elise came to do the mantarays but also bought her bag as she was getting on the flyer soon, so they would take her out straight from there which was good. We were dropped off in the water, along with about 20 people from the Mantaray resort (who had all paid for the experience!). We could see the mantaray almost immediately, and luckily there was not a lot of current, and the manta was slow moving and easy to keep up with. It was not a hug one, probably about 1.5 metres across, but it was really cool and did lots of somersaults and gliding along very gracefully! It was a shame that all the people from the other resort were there too as it was pretty crowded and there were lots of flippers in faces etc! However, we had an amazing time following it around and watching it. Elise had to go, so we all waved goodbye from the sea, and she was taken off towards the flyer. We had a long time in the water with the ray, and then we were ready to head back for lunch. We were just waiting for Jay to come back and pick us up, snorkelling and looking around, and a tiny tiny little yellow fish began to use Ben as a lift! He stayed right in front of his mask, right in front of his eyes, as he was swimming, using Ben to push him along I guess! He came with him quite some way, all the way to the boat! Ben named him Yogi the yellow fish! Jay turned up and took us back for some lunch, as we arrived on the beach, so did a boat from the flyer bringing more people to stay. Jo and I decided we should welcome them, so Jay sang a song and we all clapped and shouted ‘Bula’ (hello) at the end! It was two young American girls, and an older couple from Australia. They had doubled the amount of guests, so now there were 8! We all went and sat down for lunch, a big plate of fried rice which was nice.

After lunch Ben and I went to get our first aid kit, as we had noticed that Jay had a cut finger and the plaster he had on it had been falling off all morning, so we were going to give him a better one, and some plaster tape to keep it on. I let Ben get on with it, and I am glad I did as I would have been a bit squeamish! It turned out to be a very bad cut that he actually did two weeks before. His finger was twice the size it should be and very infected. Ben said it was really bad, but he had cleaned it out and put some antiseptic spray and cream on, and bandaged it up. Jay had told him that a doctor (a guest) had visited the island last week and had given him some antibiotics as it was so bad. He was so grateful to Ben and really took a shine to him after that!

Ben and I and Jo and Stefan had all decided we’d like to go fishing that afternoon, so we asked Jay and Appy and they said they’d take us at about 2pm. Appy was going to take the American girls on a snorkelling trip, so we all went on the boat, dropped them off for snorkelling, and then the four of us and Jay went fishing. We had fishing line wrapped around a big plastic ring with a hook and some bait. It wasn’t long before Jay caught something, a big long sucker fish that we’d seen suckered on the mantaray earlier. I loved the idea of fishing, but not so much the reality when it came up flapping all over the place, and continued to flap long after that! The rest of us did not have much luck, but it was great just chilling out on the boat. We went to a different location and tried our luck there, Ben and Stefan decided to snorkel while Jo and I continued to fish. I finally caught something and was so excited, it was really hard to wind in and felt really heavy and big, I was a little worried! I joked to Jo that it would just be an old boot or something! As I was bringing it up I was yelling to Ben to come and take a picture as he had the underwater camera, he swam over towards the boat and started laughing, that it wasn’t a fish I had caught! Well, I continued to pull it up while Ben is laughing at me, and up I pulled a huge piece of coral! No wonder it was so heavy! I was so disappointed! So I actually caught nothing! Jo had a tug on hers later, and it felt really heavy and wiggly, so we were both winding it in, but it managed to get free before we could get it up, which was a shame as it would have been a big one! Jo did manage to catch a little parrot fish in the end, but that was all the group caught! We did have a fun afternoon though! Back for afternoon tea and then early showers before sunset! We got chatting to the two American girls, Casey and Michele, both from San Francisco. They had been to a friend’s wedding on the mainland for a couple of days, and had four days on Barefoot relaxing. It was nice to get to know them and they told us all the good places to visit when we go to San Francisco and LA etc. Dinner was quite different, nice sliced up potatoes, but then a very watery sauce with hacked up chicken bits and a few bits of courgette. I fished out some chicken, however, when I came to eat it I had two bites of chicken and the rest was bones. All sorts of odd bones, they literally just hack up a chicken and put it all in! There was also an interesting coleslaw type thing, that we all agreed was either cheesy, or curdled milk, not sure which! The kava did not come out that night, but we didn’t mind! Jo, Stefan, Casey and Michele and us all sat around talking, before Casey and Michele went to bed early as they were both super tired from the wedding. We weren’t too much later after them!