We had another wonderful, but long and tiring day on yet another remote island, and this may be very brief tonight. But don’t let that lead you to believe that this day was any less enjoyable than Maré or Mystery Island. On the contrary, this was our best beach day to date.
Dravuni is a very small island at the southern end of the Kadavu Group, south of the capital of Suva, which is on Fiji’s main island of Vita Levu. The Kadavu Group of islands has a total population of 12,000, and only 200 of these live on Dravuni. It is one of the least populated islands in the Fiji archipelago (there’s that lovely word again). It has no vehicles or large stores, and most residents live in simple houses or bures, which are wall-less houses consisting of just a raised floor, roof and supporting columns on the sides.
Dravuni is almost surrounded by the Great Astrolabe Reef, a curving stretch of ribbon reef that borders the northeastern islands of the Kadavu Group. The island is surrounded by other, even smaller, unpopulated islands that rise above the surface of the ocean like mountain tops, covered in vegetation and occasionally featuring small, pocket beaches. But Dravuni boasts long, white sand beaches on both sides of the long but narrow island, with a high ridge down the middle rising up to rocky hills on both ends of the island. The entire island is crossed with paths and is quite walkable.
We were up on deck to watch our arrival, and it really was spectacular. There was no tender wait today; I think a lot of Australians stayed on board to watch the Melbourne Cup activities. The tender ride was short and calm, and as soon as we walked off the tender pier directly onto the beach, we saw signs advertising $10 AUD boat rides around the island. Three of G’s favorite things to do in ports are to 1.) go to the top of the highest point (stay tuned for that); 2.) cross long bridges (none of those here); and 3.) ride in small boats around islands, so the first thing we did was climb into a re-purposed basic fishing boat crossed with 2x8s for seats and ride around the island, which took about 30-35 minutes. We could see some fellow passengers already making their way up a path to the top of Dravuni’s tallest hill (I called it Mount Dravuni) so I knew what we’d be doing next.
Before it got too warm (the weather was perfect today, brightly sunny and about 80F), we found the path to take to the top of the hill. We had seen from the boat that there was a false summit, then a saddle down and up to the highest point. It wasn’t difficult, but great care had to be taken because the path was uneven. To keep from sliding in my sandals, I tightened down my Teva straps on feet already rubbed raw from the long walks on beaches we did did on Maré and Mystery Island. Ouch! The views from the top of the surrounding reef and other islands were quite breathtaking.
Once we returned to the beach, I was ready to get into that gorgeous blue water. When I first entered with my snorkel gear, I thought that the darker places I had seen in the water from the top of the hill were just sea grass, because that’s what was nearest the beach. But once I swam over that I saw the most incredible coral I’ve seen recently. It was actually quite challenging; I could be in water depth of 20-25 feet but the coral was rising up to about two feet from the water’s surface. There were deep crevices and canyons amongst all this coral, like mini-wall dives, but I had to be so careful not to get stuck in amongst the coral. I could always see the beach, and it wasn’t far away, but it was not as simple as just swimming back to it. It was actually a little scary and quite a rush, and I went out further each time, and then would be convinced I’d never find a safe way back, and as soon as I did and reached the beach, I’d holler at G to see if he was happy sitting there, and, when he said he was, I’d turn right around and head out again. Over and over and over for hours. No wonder I’m tired tonight.
Some of these coral heads were the size of trucks, but the most interesting single corals I saw, some that I had never seen before, were like white milk glass vases in abstract shapes, generally less than 8 inches in diameter. I didn’t touch them, of course, but they looked smooth like glass. And coming out of top of these white ‘vases’ was coral that looked like bouquets of white or yellow or purple flowers. Stunning. The fish, in general, were just as impressive as at Maré but slightly different. I couldn’t find clown fish (but talked with someone else who did), but I did see two huge Moorish Idols (Google them; they’re gorgeous) and the largest butterfly fish I’ve ever seen. But most amazing is that I would be convinced I was not going to find my way out, and then I would see an opening in the coral, and I would enter an open canyon about the size of a large room and it would just be teaming with thousands of fish. It was like entering another dimension.
You can see why I was so addicted to this, and didn’t stop until after 3pm. As soon as I did, I realized how tired I was. We tendered back to the ship and I went through the rinsing out and washing up and hanging up to dry process again, and then we went to dinner. I was starving, but as soon as I ate, I was instantly wiped out. We watched the last few races of the Melbourne Cup up at MUTS, and the cushions they put on the loungers are so darn comfortable that G fell asleep almost immediately. He is either still out there or at the show in the Princess Theater (the beauty of a ship is that I just don’t worry about him) but I am already in bed and will be asleep as soon as I publish this post.
I have so many favorite photos to upload to this blog. Tomorrow we will be in Suva, Fiji, and we’ve been there twice before and done excursions both times. Suva is a city, and we may simply go walk about (how Australian of us!) and look for some decent WiFi. We have a couple of financial apps that we can no longer use until we update them, and it’s becoming a priority to get that done.