7/4/2018
Bula Bula everyone
Well we are currently sitting in a cafe in Denarau on the main island in Fiji waiting to head back to the airport to fly back home and not a moment too soon as Tropical Cyclone Keni is due to hit tomorrow. It’s ridiculously sunny and warm so it is really weird waiting for a cyclone to hit when today is one of the nicest days we have had while in Fiji.
Man… all I can say is that going to Fiji around is Easter time is something that I won’t do again as there has been cyclone after cyclone while we’ve been here.
We actually left Australia just over 1 week ago with the threat of a tropical cyclone about to hit the day that we arrived and we had half decided that we should cancel our trip all together.
However, we made the call to still come to Fiji as I had been feeling a bit burnt out after spending a lot of time writing a book and working my arse off.
So when researching Fiji we decided not to stay in the resorts on the mainland which are places where you can’t just snorkel off the beaches. And instead we were keen to get to a smaller island but within a simple transfer from the mainland.
Well after a little bit of research we decided on Treasure Island in the Mamanuca Islands as it is only 30mins by speed boat from the mainland and they had their own transfer speed boat which we thought was great… until we boarded it at night with several meter swells and a cyclone about to hit.
Holy crap! We totally shat ourselves on the trip over. It was pitch dark and the boat would chug up a large wave just to come crashing down on the other side! Man we have seen too many disaster at sea movies to relax so we clenched our sphincters the whole way. Diesel filled the air and rain was pelting down onto the thin plastic sheets that surrounded the sitting area. Kitson was crying and everyone was holding onto rails and also holding onto their stomachs! And of course instead of being 30mins it was 1 hour across to the island.
I can tell you now we were sooooooo happy to see land when we arrived.
So that night we buckled down and Tropical Cyclone Josie came to town as a category 2 storm. On the Fiji mainland 5 people were killed mainly in flooding and mudslides but surprisingly the island that we were on seemed to treat it as a non-event.
That was really interesting! What we realised in retrospect is that a tropical island is probably the safest place to be in a tropical cyclone. The trees are all palm trees so they bend with the wind. There are no mud or land slides like on the volcanic mainland. The water just seeps into the sand so there is no flooding. There is no disruption to power or water as these island are all self contained for power and water anyway.
And the storms seem to just pass over really quickly and are gone followed by sunshine.
So all up it isn’t too bad. Out of 8 nights we had 4 days of good weather and the rest was crap as there isn’t that much to do when the weather is bad! At least for the adults… the kids have a ball here!
Fiji is well known to have running a kids club to a fine art and Kitson had heaps of fun meeting new friends and hanging out at kid’s club.
The snorkelling was ok, but not the best that we have seen as a lot was dead. But also the run off from the muddy mainland made the water a tinged brown colour so that sucked as well.
So all up Fiji was fine but with so many island to choose from and so many other Pacific countries around us I don’t know if we would be back any time soon.
In anycase Fiji was country 68 for us and country 12 for Kitson! Yay for us… slowly marching on with our world domination!
Anyways, not sure when our next big trip will be but I reckon it will be Asia again.
Love Stormboy Ced
Hurricane Avril
Shark Girl Kitson
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