Two At Sea

September 13, 2013

There was still another group of motus we wanted to explore, about mile behind our boat. We headed over, and as we went in amongst them it became apparent there were a lot more of these islets than we thought. Weaving through them, we rounded a corner to find an interesting bay, a hidden world.

We decided to continue on, figuring we’d see something familiar eventually and find our way back to the boat. We proceeded to weave our way through the labyrinth of islets, finding little open areas, then weaving our way through more islets to find other open areas and hidden beaches. Would it ever be possible to take our boat into one of these areas? Probably not, but it was fun to fantasize about trying. Below some of the scenes from our dinghy ride.

We finally ended up by a beach with a small shed, wondering who it might belong to. Rich finally realized that we had ended up in our first anchorage in Fulaga, the one near the village. No way, I thought, but as we got closer I realized he was right. I felt like we’d gone down Alice’s rabbit hole and ended up in a completely unexpected place. The good news is we knew we could make our way back to the boat from here; not that we were worried about getting lost forever, but it was getting to be time to see something familiar.

It was a long ride back to our boat, but it was worth it for this fascinating and beautiful dinghy ride. We finished our adventure by enjoying a swim after we got back.

Time was moving on and our supplies were starting to run low. We knew we needed to leave soon, and somehow taking this afternoon ride through the motus made us feel ready, like we’d really seen Fulaga. We decided to take the next weather window when it presented it self. Below, a gallery from our ride. Click to enlarge and scroll. -Cyndi

September 12, 2013 in Fulaga, Fiji

We’ve been in Fulaga three weeks and we have taken 2247 pictures here. That’s 112.35 pictures per day. If this were the days of film…

2247 pictures = 62.42 rolls of film
@ $10 per roll = $624.42 for film
@ $20 per roll to develop = $1,248.33
Total cost = $1,872.75

Update: That was so three days ago! Now we’ve taken 3244 pictures = $2,703.33 if it were film.

AND THAT’S JUST FULAGA! (OK, Yea. Fulaga is one of the pretties places we’ve ever been.) -Rich

September 8, 2013 in Fulaga, Fiji

When you go out diving or snorkeling, you need to check that you have all your gear in the dingy: mask, fins, snorkel, dingy anchor, and, oh yea, dive buddy.

Actually, that’s Cyndi huddling at the bottom of the dingy, beneath the fins, trying to stay warm. Silly us… we thought we were in the tropics! The dingy ride back to the boat after a few hours of snorkeling can get pretty cold. I know, I know. That’s the sound of you reaching for the world’s smallest violin. -Rich

September 10, 2013

We’d had some good snorkeling in Fulaga, but we hadn’t yet done the big gun: the main pass into Fulaga atoll. It’s no small feat to do this pass: you need a combination of light winds, calm seas, and a mid-day slack tide (preferably turning to incoming).

Even with those good conditions, the water in the pass can be turbulent. This isn’t so much of a problem for those in the water, but it can be a challenge for the person driving the dinghy! It’s a good distance from inside the atoll to the pass outside it; so you need dinghy with good power to get out there. Just before we came here, one group had their dinghy flipped by standing waves in the pass, a dangerous, and expensive, misfortune.

We’d been here for weeks, but this was our first good opportunity to do the pass. The wind was very light, and we had some sun coming through the clouds. High tide was at 10am, so we’d need to be out there around 9:30. This was too long a trip for our dinghy, but luckily our friend Bob on Bright Angel volunteered to take us out.

When we got to the pass we could see that, aside from some chop on the surface, it was pretty calm. We headed out, and Bob dropped us off in an area alongside the main pass. We got in and right away could see a world of coral and fish below us. Making our way to the main pass, we swam above a multitude of fish: butterfly fish, schooling fish, and a grouper. It was fantastically beautiful already.

We could tell immediately when we’d made it to the pass. It was a wide shallow canyon between walls of rock and vast array of colorful corals and fish of all kinds. There was so much to see that it was hard to choose what to focus on! Beautiful hard and soft corals, tropical fish of all kinds while schooling fish drifted by. As we made our way along the pass, our main frustration was having to leave this fantastic scenery to come up for air. We’d try to do it as quickly as possible and get back down to the enchanted place below us.

When we reached the inside of the atoll, the current was picking up so we didn’t try to go again. We were grateful for the chance to do this even once, although we were so impressed we swore to each other we’d come back here someday. This had been more than a great snorkel; this had been like visiting a fantastic underwater world. Below, a some footage we took with our Go Pro. It’s not great, but you can get the idea. –Cyndi