We were excited to finally get off the plane after a 10.5 hour flight, but just ended up in the airport with no idea what to do next. This is the first place on our trip that we didn’t really plan on visiting, it was just a layover on the flight to New Zealand that we extended from two hours to six days, so we didn’t really bother to figure out what there was to do here. A quick check at the airport ticket counter revealed that flights to other islands were expensive, and some were not recommended due to damage from the recent cyclone. The travel desk at a hotel was very strongly pushing us toward Mana Island. Lacking any better information, we just got on the boat and the end result is that we just did pretty much what everyone else does here, sit on a beach and watch the world go by. This wasn’t exactly the original plan, but became the plan since we didn’t really have another plan. It was nice to relax for a week.

Even though we are on the west side of the Fiji, we are dangerously close to the International Date Line. This had the effect of making us feel like we ended up in the future. March 24th never happened, but I guess if we’re good we’ll earn it back a few hours at a time as we continue to travel west. To add to the complexity of the situation, this past weekend was the end of daylight time for the country. There was a general air of confusion on the island Sunday morning and we ended up being an hour early for breakfast. Anyone who has been to a tropical island should find this amusing. Time really has no meaning in these places, and being early for anything is a very peculiar situation to find yourself. Lucky for us, a quick nap in a hammock was all it took to set the world right again.

Aside from being confused about what time it was, we spent some time exploring the island, snorkeling, and diving. We walked around the whole island and later made a trip to the top of the highest hill. The walk around took about two-and-a-half hours, but the top was only fifteen minutes away from our hut. At the top, we found a wooden cross and a good view. Swimming along the reef gave us a chance to play with our new toy, a waterproof camera case. We got a few shots from the surface, but never took it into the deep end.

Diving was also quite nice. We went out after dark one night to see some sleeping fish, and a shark lurking in the darkness. It was interesting to see some of the creatures that only come out at night. We also explored a shipwreck for the first time. The SS Salamander was intentionally sunk to be a reef and dive site. Most of the dangerous bits were removed before it was sunk so we thought it would be okay to take a look inside. We saw a huge puffer fish, and a friendly remora followed us around the whole time. As we were getting ready to surface, it tried to attach itself to Heather’s leg.