Snorkelling Day!

Zac ate a record 10 hash browns this morning for breakfast. As well as his eggs and sausages….. Wow…..

This morning we had an earlier breakfast and then went down to the wharf at 9.45am for our snorkelling tour. We signed in and went and grabbed some snorkelling gear from the dive bure, then headed down to our covered motorboat where another family was waiting.

The ride out to the sandbar was only about 5 minutes, on an azure millpond sea, it was sublime. Once at the sandbar, the boat was anchored in the middle, with an incoming tide, and we were told that we could stand up on the sand atoll, but weren’t to touch or stand on the surrounding coral reef.

The kids and Jase put on their snorkel gear while on the boat, including flippers and were precariously dangling off the boat in all directions, while I laughed at them and decided to jump into the sea first and then worry about my gear later. I threw my stuff in and went in after it. I think in hindsight the kids had the better idea. Trying to put flippers on in waist deep water is surprisingly difficult. And there’s just no way to get kitted up delicately or with any class in that depth.

We all got ourselves organised and then Jason found that his snorkel was damaged. He had to go back to the boat to get it fixed, and then swimming back over to those of us at the reef. Caitlyn also had damaged equipment which was just so incredibly frustrating. Jase helped her with it, and in about 20 minutes, they swapped gear and Jase went back to the boat to chill out with the driver. He was content enough with this though, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Once again, I can’t say it enough, if you’re planning on going to Fiji and love snorkelling, buy your own gear and take it with you.

The reef was just beautiful and for the first time in years I could see beautiful coral in glorious shades of blue, crimson and pink, it was wonderful. The sea was warm and calm and the silence was only broken by exclamations of “Look at this!” “Come over here!” “ARGHHHH A CUTTLEFISH!!!!!!!!!!”.

For the record, I have only ever seen dead cuttlefish. They are used for lots of beauty products, and I had no idea that they even looked like a squid, however our 10 year old budding Marine Biologist knew everything he was looking at and was almost overcome with his excitement. They were pretty cool looking wee fish that’s for sure.

I had a moment of panic looking around for the kids and not seeing Zac. I was frantically swimming around in circles trying to see where he was, and then heard Jase say “Hi Zac” as Zac clamoured back onto the boat. I was so relieved, would be a bit of an oops to lose a kid on your watch. Lucky we have 2 spares, hehe! Had to have a wee chat about how not to freak your parents out.

The girls and I headed in about 15 minutes later, and climbed aboard the boat. The water level was now over our heads, and we were ready for a nice cold drink. The boat took us back to Plantation Island where we got a drink. Caitlyn and Amber then hired out their gear for a further hour and went off for another snorkel, they have the bug bad! Zach just went swimming, he is loving snorkelling but is finding the mouth part of the snorkel is a bit too big and hurts his mouth. I need to find a kids sized one for him I think.

We had lunch at the Beach Bar today. They do takeaway pizzas, and things like burgers and fries. It was great for the kids, good gut sticking food, but fairly average to be fair. But if the kids are happy, we are happy! I think in this day and age of Master Chef and MKR, we all have such high expectations of what we are being served when we have to pay for it. We don’t want food that we can cook at home, and the quality and variety of home cooked meals these days is outstanding… Things like resting the meat. Who knew about that even 15 years ago?

The kids decided to hire out a couple of water bikes after lunch and woe betide, there were only four seats over the two bikes. I graciously offered to stay on shore and read my book and hurried off before Jason could offer his sales pitch to not have to go. I was stoked! I found a deck chair on the beach, and nestled down for an hour of blissful me time.

They had a great time on the bikes, well the kids did anyway! Jase was exhausted as he was stuck on the bike with Zac who could reach the peddles but had no steam to actually work them and it was Jase lugging two bodies and a massive bike around on the water for an hour and he was knackered.

The rest of the arvo was flittered away with trying to climb coconut trees, playing cards, reading and just relaxing. I made the mistake of standing on an ants nest and the next thing I know, my feet and ankles were burning in pain. I looked down and saw that I was literally covered in hundreds of ants, my lower legs were black with them, and they were stinging (or biting? I don’t actually know how the little demons hurt you but they do) me all over my feet. I started squawking like a demented chicken and started slapping the ants off, with the kids helpfully slapping around my legs as well.

I got them all off and ran up the path to our bure and stood in the bowl of water by the door, to ease the burning sensation. My feet were red and covered in little blisters. The wee sods had got me good. After I dried my feet off and sprayed antiseptic and soothe bug spray over my legs, we headed off for dinner. I was very pleased that other than the initial sting, they caused no further problems.

Dinner was a roast, and the carvery Roast Lamb was just delicious, it was so juicy and flavoursome, I really, really enjoyed it!

We have had such a great day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!