Day 126: Dravuni Island, Fiji

This day, much like our day on Lifou, reminds me so much of that Norman Rockwell painting of that family in a station wagon on a beach day. The left side shows the family in the morning, all happy and clean and excited at the prospect of their day. On the right side is the family coming home that night, dirty and tired. That is exactly what the tender ride was like today. Going over, except for the heat (I’ll get to that later), everyone had their snorkel gear clean and nicely packed, folded beach towels and big smiles. Coming back on one of the last tenders, we were all dropping sand everywhere, with wet, sandy towels around our necks, hair stiff from salt water and snorkel gear shoved into tote bags willy-nilly. But we had so. much. fun.

We learned quickly why, when we took our breakfast out to the Open Deck Behind the World Fresh Marketplace, there were several empty tables. It was HOT out there already early this morning. Hot and humid. Too hot for coffee hot. It was immediately obvious that today was best spent in air conditioning or in the water. 

We returned to our cabin and packed for a major beach day. Metal water bottles in the beach cooler to keep G’s beers cold, beach tarp, two floaties, snorkel gear, and the last of the beach (mineral-based) sunscreen. I knew I’d be spending some serious time snorkeling, and covered up as much as I could with board shorts and a long-sleeved rash guard. I have had too many serious sunburns over the years from hours spent snorkeling with my back and legs fully exposed to the sun. 

We were last on Dravuni Island in November on the Ruby Princess, and what a difference two months had made in my ability to walk on the sand. I had no trouble at all walking far down the beach to the right, where I remember the best snorkeling was from our previous visits. We found a spot in the shade and set up for the day. The heat was unbearable. We had a thermometer and the temperature inside the tender had reached 90F with at least that much humidity and no breeze while the tender was loaded. We wasted no time at all getting into the water, which had to be at least 86F. It felt divine. 

Once we had both cooled off and G was happily consuming his first beer, I headed into the water to snorkel. I was out there a long time, nearly two hours. I lose track of time when I snorkel, but usually one of two things limits me: Either I get chilled or G waves me out of the water. Today, neither happened, and I happily went from coral head to coral head. I knew there were Nemo fish there- I had seen them in November- and finally found them in two different areas, but mostly I enjoyed the variety of fish and the pockets of really colorful coral. 

Finally, I rejoined G, and he took a floatie out and was gone at least an hour, and then it was my turn again and I snorkeled for another hour or so, and we used both floaties together. It was a beautiful day... if one was either in the water or wet from having been in the water. As soon as we dried off, it got oppressively hot again. In fact, it was so hot that G never once even mentioned climbing that hill. That’s a first!

Francesco told us yesterday that the dining room was going to be open for lunch for the rest of this cruise. That’s very unusual!  Here was the menu for today:

Day 8 lunch menu, page 1

Day 8 lunch menu, page 2

A nearly empty beach at 4:30pm

The water around Dravuni Island is gorgeous

The primary school

We took our Elite toiletry bags to the teacher

We were among the very last to leave the beach, and took a tender back to the ship about 4:45am. G’s beach dog du jour (we named him Dravuni Louie) followed him all the way down the tender pier and tried to board the tender with him. Security got very excited about that. I finally had to get off the tender and call him away, and someone else enticed him back down the tender pier. I think he thought he could go home with us. We were back in our cabin just after 5pm, and somehow were showered and in the Concerto Dining Room by 5:35om. Of course, we both still had wet hair, but at least we were clean. 

Money laundering again ;-)

Day 8 dinner menu, page 1

Day 8 dinner menu, page 2

Day 8 dessert menu

Tonight’s Princess Theater entertainment was Aussie Patrick McMahon, who we’ve seen a few times this year in the Ruby Princess. We love his show, but it was a testament to how tired we are that we skipped it tonight. Besides, we still had to wash out our gear. This may have been our last beach day of the season; everything (floaties, beach tarp, snorkel gear, metal bottles for ice) needed to be scrubbed well before being packed away. 

Day 8 Princess Patter, page 1

Day 8 Princess Patter, page 2

Day 8 Princess Patter, page 3

Day 8 Princess Patter, page 4

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

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. 

Dravuni Island Port Guide, page 1

 

Dravuni Island Port Guide, page 2



Day 7 Princess Patter, page 1

Day 7 Princess Patter, page 2

Day 7 Princess Patter, page 3

Day 7 Princess Patter, page 4