November 15 – Suva, Fiji

We spent today in Suva, the capital of Fiji. Fiji is actually an archipelago of 330 islands. Only a third of them are inhabited because most are sand and will not sustain life – just a bit of trivia.  Suva is much more sophisticated than the other islands we have visited and has a busy port and city area.

We however, did not stay in the city but opted to go on a boating excursion which turned out to be another great adventure. The group started out in buses for an hour long bus ride through the scenic countryside. We passed huts and small villages along the way, and our guide, Joe, kept up a running commentary of the history and culture of the area.  The average annual income per capita in Fiji is only $5ooo, but the soil is rich and families live on what they grow, raise or catch. According to Joe, the average number of children per family is 10 – 12, yikes! The new president of Fiji is attempting to establish free public education and to require all children attend school but this is not yet the law.  Joe was funny and interesting and explained what we would be seeing along the way. He talked about Kava – a plant that is grown for its roots from which they make a drink that is used in their tribal ceremonies.

Much of our trip was in long boats up the Nauva River. Another bit of information that Joe shared in his talk was that although Fiji has very few predatory animals, they do have anacondas (you know the enormous snakes that they make movies about). In fact the movie Anaconda was filmed on the river we were going to be on. I wasn’t real sure that Tom was going to get in the boat after hearing that bit of info (not a big snake fan or a small snake fan), but he did and away we went.

The trip up the river took about an hour and was pretty wet especially when we hit the rapids – that was exciting.

 The fact that it’s the rainy season and that it rained much of the way added to the dampness – but never-the-less we enjoyed the gorgeous, lush rainforest, flowers, and interesting sights along the ride.

Rather wet and windblown, we arrived at an inlet and walked along the narrow but pretty path to a large waterfall where many in the group got even wetter and the rest of us took pictures.

Back in the boats, we headed back down the river.

That trip was a lot faster since we were now headed down river. We were moving at a pretty good clip when we hit the rapids. Then it also got very rough and suddenly we began to take on a lot of water. The ladies at the front of the boat started yelling about a hole in the boat.  Our driver quickly headed toward the bank of the river and we all slogged ashore.

Our vessel had a definite problem and after using a river rock to try to hammer our boat back together, we realized that we had major issues. Other boats were coming down the river and our lady alarms started waving and yelling for help. Several boats came to our rescue. Our group clambered into other boats and we were off again.  While the whole thing sounds rather traumatic – almost drowning in anaconda infested waters – there was a lot of joking and laughing and we all decided that it had greatly enhanced our adventure.

We were soon at our next stop – a small village for a Kava ceremony and lunch.

We were herded into a large hut and seated on the mat floors – men at the front of the room and women in the back. It was rather reminiscent of Morocco.

Anyway after some history of the ceremony, chanting, dancing and sharing of the Kava – a bitter drink that made me a little dizzy and my lips numb – we were officially welcomed into the Fiji family. I think we now have dual citizenship. Well, maybe not.

Finally it was time for lunch which was a buffet of native dishes and delicious! Then back on the buses that were waiting for us and our home away from home. Goodbye Fiji and thanks for a fun and entertaining day.

On November 9, we were on the lovely island of Moorea. This was more what we expected in the Polynesian islands. There was just a peaceful beauty about the island.

We anchored in this tranquil harbor at about 8:00 AM. Tom and I stood for a while just soaking in the atmosphere.

This is actually a resort, but the concept is taken from local sea villages. The difference between high and low tide is less than 12 inches, and the people who live in these huts eat mostly fish, so this lifestyle works well for them.

At 9:00 we headed for our excursion of the day – “Hike Three Coconut Trails”.

This one was also advertised as “strenuous,” and it surpassed its claim! We drove to the launch point gathered our group and set out. Our young guide set a pretty quick pace and we all scrambled to keep up.

The trail was not well maintained and got worse shortly after we started when – not surprising in a rainforest – it began to rain and continued to rain throughout the hike.

All of that having been said, the forest was dense and the trail was beautiful with small streams singing along the way.

   The trail was wet, steep, narrow and scary in places, but we helped each other and eventually made it to the end of our trail.

The views were awesome and well worth the significant effort.

The misty mountains were ethereally beautiful.

After a quick breather, we headed back sliding our way back down the mountain. The whole trip took just over four hours.  We were muddy, soaked to the bone, and pretty happy with ourselves. It was a great hike, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. We headed back to the ship tired and happy.

The next day we were in Bora Bora.

We did a little snorkeling and I got a couple of good shots.

Mostly we relaxed and recovered from yesterday. Bora Bora is surrounded by lagoons, coral motus and tiny islands.

 

 

Okay, three posts in one.  Last night was Tuesday November 12^th. When we got up this morning, it was Thursday November 14th. No, we did not sleep for 24+ hours but we did cross the international dateline. Pretty cool! Looking ahead to the trip home, we leave Sydney on December 17 at 6:15 PM and arrive back in the US that same day at 6:45 AM – how weird is that?

Next stop Fiji.

Today 11/8 was a biggy on our bucket list – Tahiti!!!! Tahiti is the largest and most populated of the French Polynesian islands. Even then its total population is only about 180,000. We docked in Papeete (pah pay et ay) – the capital of Tahiti at 8:00 AM and our tour was not scheduled until 2:00 PM so we decided to do our own walking tour of the city which is small and quaint.

We walked through the farmers’ market,  wandered through the busy streets past a pretty little church and by Tahiti’s government building.

Eventually, we headed back toward the ship through a lovely little park that meanders along next to the harbor.

For the afternoon Tom and I signed up for the 4X4 Safari which was billed as “strenuous”.  It sounded fun to us.  At 2:00 we boarded our 4-wheel drive land rovers

and headed for Papenoo Valley. The scenery is beautiful with cascading waterfalls, lush vegetation and exotic flowers

     The only strenuous part was riding over the very bumpy, dusty mountain roads for hours, but it was an adventure. We stopped at several places for photo ops one of which was a at an ancient Amrae – a sacred place.

The last stop gave us an opportunity to wash the dust off in a small mountain river with a waterfall splashing into the pool – cool and refreshing.

Then we headed back to the ship for dinner and early to bed.

Tomorrow we will be in Moorea  – another of the French Polynesian islands very near Tahiti.

On Saturday 11/2 we left the Port of Honolulu for our seventeen day cruise to Sydney, Australia.

Since we’re going to be here for a while I thought I would show you around a bit. Our last cruise was on a tall ship (sailing schooner) with only 200 passengers and about 80 crew members. We are now on an eleven story floating city with 2000+ of our closest friends and 900 crew members.     There is a shopping mall, several restaurants in addition to the main dining room, a casino, a spa, a theater, swimming pools, a walking track a gym… this place is huge.

They offer lectures and classes of all sorts – zumba, yoga, hula, lei making, napkin folding, astronomy  , recycling at sea. You name it they’ve got it.  We’ve attended some of the lectures, and Tom took hula lessons  – just joking about Tom and hula. We do go to the shows every night,   and they have been great.

In Hawaii we had gotten used to hiking and not eating a whole lot. On the ship there is an overwhelming amount of food and not many places to hike, so we have started walking the track each morning. The track is just over 1/10^th of a mile so 48 laps makes a five mile hike  or 8 kilometers that sound much more satisfying. The view is pretty monotonous but it should keep us in shape and maybe prevent gaining some of the extra pounds.  The track gets pretty crowded – a fit minded group I guess – so this morning we were on the track at 6:15 AM and were astounded to find half a dozen people already walking. By 6:45 the crowd had grown to 20+.  I’m not getting up any earlier to avoid the crowd!

On Tuesday 11/5 we checked off another item our bucket list – for the very first time in all of our travels we ventured south of the equator.   There was a gala affair planned for both pollywogs (first time equator crossers) and shellbacks (the “been there/done that” group) and overseen by King Neptune – AKA Poseidon. The ceremony is held at each crossing to ensure the safe passage to the Down Under or wherever you are going. We got our certificates and are now officially shellbacks – woohoo!

And so go our days at sea, Bo voyage until the next time.