Last days on Mana Island

Day 143 – Nadi, Fiji Islands

Edit: I concluded my post a bit fast last night, so I added a few words at the end.

I’m back on the mainland – by which I mean Fiji’s biggest island. I’m currently uploading my pictures, so they should be ready by the time I publish this.

Yesterday I asked if I could do more coconut things: I wanted a coconut bangle (a bangle is a rigid bracelet, usually in one piece, not an articulated one). And since for that you just need to saw a the middle of a coconut to have a ring of its largest part, then you polish the whole, it wasn’t hard.

But the “teacher” started doing it himself, so to busy myself, I started polishing half a coconut shell, and I ended up doing a small bowl. Yeah \o/

Coconut workshop

So you take a coconut shell, a handsaw, several grade of sandpaper, a knife, and you get to work. Oh, and a vacuum cleaner if you cannot sweep everything on the beach after.

(I’m pretty sure that with modern powertools, we can do a better and a faster job, but shush!)

A group of 14 people arrived yesterday as well, whereas I had been alone from Friday afternoon to Saturday end of afternoon – that and the children who came out to ask to play with my phone when I was playing with it, changed the atmosphere quite a lot. It was time to go.

And since I was the only one left and the group was taking over the dorm, I got my own room for two nights. Neat.

I went swimming again, this time I went just a bit farther from the beach (by which I mean that I had water up to the neck instead of the chest); I saw my first fish and coral growths. Since I’m only wearing swimming goggles and not snorkelling gear, and I’m still myopic (though the water refraction helps a lot), I don’t see that well, but the water is limpid and I could still enjoy myself.

Of course it is not a spectacular beach, the coral are grey-white and the fish greyish, but still. And I can see well enough to see the odd piece of tubing, concrete, tyre, at the bottom -but they aren’t that numerous.

And swimming full of joy and discovery, I found myself at the point where the sea shelf drops almost suddenly -the water gets colder, darker, and, well, a lot less fun. So I went back to the (very) warm superficial water and the safety of the beach.

Mana Island

But if I had seen that a few days earlier, I would have rented snorkelling gear and gone exploring a bit more.

I add that it was wonderful to spend my days in a hammock with a few good books and a bottle of water (with or without a tea bag in it that could be brewed in cold water).

I experienced “Fiji time”, if they say breakfast is served between 8 and 9am, they could call you at 7:40; the pick-up for the ride back on Nadi was supposed to be at 12, but we left at 10am to go where it would arrive a bit further on the beach, and by the time it actually arrives, passengers disembarked, and it was unloaded, reloaded and ready to go, it was past 11am. 

And the laundress calls me “my love” each time I drop and pick up my clothes.