Fiji

Malololailai Island (Musket Cove)

Bula! (meaning Cheers! or Life!) Well, the theme of this leg of our trip was definitely spontaneity! Michael and I had absolutely no idea where we were going to stay or what we were going to do in Fiji. During the plane ride here, we read our Lonely Planet Fiji guide. We wrote down the names of five places in each of the three regions we knew we wanted to stay in; Nadi, the Coral Coast, and one of the Mamanuch Group Islands. We knew when we got off the plane in Nadi, we would be bombarded with tons of Fijian salespeople, so we wanted to be prepared. Sure enough, we were! It was a little overwhelming. The woman that we spoke to said that she had a special to one of the resorts on Malololailai Island. Coincidently, it was one of the resorts that we were interested in staying at known for great diving. It is called Musket Cove Resort. Because the American dollar is so strong (47 US cents is approximately $1 FD), the resort was a steal! We took a 12-seater, ten-minute plane ride to the re! sort that same afternoon. Wow we thought the airport in Aitutaki (Cook Islands) was small, the airport on Malololailai Island took the cake! We landed on a short dirt strip runway in the middle of the island. Michael sat in the cockpit and couldn't stop laughing at how old the plane was! When we landed, a rock flung up from the propeller and actually went through the plane and hit a passenger! Anyways, enough of that and on to the resort!

The Sugar Cane train track in Sigatoka. (Can you find Waldo Berkowitz?)

Malololailai Island Malololailai Island has two resorts on it: Plantation Resort and Musket Cove Resort. They are both absolutely beautiful! Again, another paradise! The accommodations at the Musket cove were great and the Fijians there were also so friendly. It seemed like we were the only ones at the resort because tourism has been so slow since the political problems a few months ago. Is this paradise or what!?! What we did the most at this resort was scuba dive surprise surprise! We did four incredible dives! The colors were so vivid and there are so many different types of fish. Our third dive was a shark dive! I can't believe that I did it! We must have seen at least fifty white tip and black tip reef sharks all bigger than us! After the dive we were laughing because he decided that if our friend Steve Berkowitz did the dive, he would be out of air in only three minutes due to fright and if my dad did this dive, we too would be out of air in three minutes due to excitement. Mike and I concluded that our brothers David and Danny would be just fine. The Sigatoka Market We will write more about the Coral Coast and Nadi within the next few days. We hope that you enjoyed "Part One" of Fiji!