Yellow Fish cruises: Day 51: Dravuni Island, Fiji

Good morning Fiji! Dravuni Island was our first, and frankly our best port in Fiji. In fact, I would say Dravuni is probably our best beach experience of this entire season (though, to be fair, we haven’t yet been to Isle of Pines). I love this little island!

Where in the world are we?

Dravuni is one of over 300 islands that make up the nation of Fiji.

Still pretty much in the middle of nowhere

We moved clocks ahead two hours in the past two days.

This means two things: we’re now 18 hours ahead of EST (or 6 hours behind, plus a day),

and it was darn hard getting out of bed this morning.

I woke up at 7:15am to see G had already left the cabin. I sprang into action, and joined him for breakfast in the DaVinci Dining Room by 7:30am. The Ruby Princess had already been cleared by the local authorities for passengers to go ashore on Dravuni Island. This is a tender port, but that early in the morning it was open tender, meaning tender tickets were not required. Still, we didn’t rush through breakfast. The last tender from shore back to the ship was leaving at 5pm; this was a wonderfully long day on the island. Over breakfast we planned our day, and decided to actually go to the island twice: this morning dressed to hike and this afternoon dressed to swim and snorkel. This eliminated the need to carry our gear while we hiked.

Day 7 breakfast menu

Unusual for a port day, the DaVinci Dining Room was open today for lunch. Headwaiter Mehai said it was because there were no ship shore excursions for Dravuni Island, and many passengers, especially those with mobility issues, would opt to stay on the ship. We didn’t intend to have lunch in the dining room, but here is the menu for the day.

Day 7 lunch menu, page 1

We returned to our cabin and gathered up water bottles and my hiking sticks and tendered over to the island. This is one beautiful place. The water is iridescently blue and crystal clear. The west side of the island is lined with a long, powdered sugar beach. And the landscape is dotted with palm trees. Even better, our weather today was perfect, in the high 70s and brightly sunny with a clear blue sky.

It doesn’t get much better than this

See that hill in the distance? Climbing that was my first goal of the day.

We walked past the many stalls selling local handicrafts until we reached the narrow path that led south to the hill on the end of the island. We had climbed this two years ago and the views were well worth the effort. I really, really wanted to reach the top today, despite G’s repeated urging that it might be too much for me at this point in my recovery. He reminded me that the parting words from my surgeon were a warning not to mess up the three hours of work he and another surgeon had put into my foot. But G’s efforts to discourage me only motivated me further. It was fairly easy going until we started to climb the first summit. The path was so narrow that my hiking sticks had to be positioned in the tall grass on either side of it, but too often I would plant them only to have them sink in or slip.

We made our way toward and up the path on the side of the hill

I made it about 3/4s of the way up this path before I realized G was right (I hate it when

that happens); walking up (and even worse, down) this surface was a little too much

Luckily, I hiked far enough up the hill to get some great views

The Ruby Princess at anchor

Looking down toward the tender pier

Those shades of blue...I’ll never tire of seeing them

If hiking up was hard, hiking down was even worse. G had made it to the top, but soon rushed past me on the way down. Apparently a male passenger had reached the top but was in medical trouble, and G and others were trying to quickly reach the paramedics from the ship who were on the beach near the tender pier. Not too much later, two paramedics and four burly locals were heading up the path carrying medical supplies and a backboard. That was going to be a rough rescue. We later saw the man delivered to the tender pier via one of the small boats. They must have brought him down a different way and transferred him to a boat on the other side of the island.

I took my time and did pretty well coming down until I stepped down hard and felt my ankle burn. I think the bone part of my surgery is nearly totally healed, but I also had a tendon graft on either side of the foot running up to both sides of the ankle and that part is slow healing. It is also very unhappy walking on uneven surfaces, and that path was a perfect example of one.

On our way back to the tender pier, we stopped by the little primary school with 28 students in all grades, including early learning. Every visitor was greeted with a sing-song chorus of “Bula!”, meaning hello. The little students were so sweet. Can you imagine growing up in such a paradise?

The Dravuni Island primary school

The teacher’s residence was adjacent to the school

A typical house on the island

Other islands, some much more mountainous, can be seen nearby

We returned to the ship and had a quick lunch in the Horizon Court Buffet and then changed into swimsuits and, carrying floats and snorkel gear, tendered back over to the island. We set our things in the shade of a tree fairly close to the tender pier because it’s so rough for me to walk on loose sand, and entered the water, but I saw none of the great coral heads I had seen two years ago. I told G I needed to go further down the beach to where we had been then and he suggested I swim in the water instead of walking on the beach. This time I listened to his advice. ;-)

I swam about 2/3 of the way down to the end of the island and there found the fantastic snorkeling I had so enjoyed last time. Coral heads the size of garbage trucks were home to a huge variety of fish. I didn’t see a clown fish here two years ago, but had talked with another passenger then who had. Well, this time I found Nemo almost immediately. Lots of Nemos, of varying sizes and varieties. Moorish idol, trigger fish, parrot fish, fluorescent blue fish and the most beautiful fish I’ve ever seen, shaped kind of like a Moorish idol but with a body covered with concentric circles.

Added three days later...I’ve been searching online fish charts for this fish since I saw it in Dravuni Island, and finally found it. It’s an Emperor Angelfish.

Isn’t it gorgeous?!!

I always lose track of time when I’m snorkeling and today was no exception. By the time I made it back down to where G was sitting on the beach, it was nearly 4pm. We gathered up our things and boarded the next tender back to the ship, arriving about 4:15pm. It took until dinner at 5:15pm to wash out and rinse and set out to dry all of our things, and then shower ourselves.

Day 7 dinner menu, page 1

For some reason, I can’t find page 2 but will try to get it and post it here later.

Day 7 dessert menu

Yakatori-style tofu and cassava root

Vegetarian curry

G chatted with Executive Chef Raggie in the Horizon Court Buffet last evening, and told him how impressed we’ve been with the food and these new menus. Apparently they are being trialed on the Ruby Princess, and, if successful, will be rolled out to the other ships. Chef Raggie also told G that the recently launched Sky Princess either has or is going to soon have a vegan entree option for every lunch and dinner menu. Nice!

The female performer scheduled for tonight’s show in the Princess Theater is ill, and so saxophonist Chris Gable instead performed his second show. What a talent. We were lucky to have made it to the 6:30pm show; show times were different tonight to accommodate the island deck party held at 9:30pm. This would be a perfect night on the pool deck for a party...but we won’t see it. 15000 steps of rough, rough walking and over two hours of snorkeling have worn me out. I’d much rather publish this post and read for about 3 minutes until I fall asleep.