Monday, August 14, 2006

6th August - Mantaray Island Resort and Mantaray.

Although Bounty Island was awesome and beautiful, we were feeling pretty ready for our next island after the 3 days (although leaving the private hut, the ensuite and the animal roommates was a wrench). We prepared ourselves for a bit of a step down in quality as we set off on the big yellow boat to our next and significantly cheaper resort - Manta Ray Island.

Happy to report that Manta Ray Resort is excellent in pretty much every way. Particularly all the staff here are so friendly - the activities guy, Captain Nemo, keeps the enthusiasm levels up all day long. The food here is top notch too - loads of variety and fantastic fish!

First afternoon here we made the most of the sun, lazing around. In the evening we took part in our second Kava ceremony of the trip. This time Geof was feeling clued up enough to volunteer to be the spokesman for the proceedings. This was a relatively painless job involving saying one word - "Taki" (we think!) - to open the ceremony. This was a bit of a let down as Geof had been hoping to get grass skirted and greased up in coconut oil like the guys who had 'volunteered' for the kava distribution job:





The night ended soon after and we retired to the suprisingly quiet 32 bed dorm for a good night's sleep. Despite cocooning myself in the massive (and completely intact) mosquito net and dousing myself in Jungle Formula I still managed to wake up with a multitude of mosquito bites. Current score is Sarah 9 Geof 2.

Day 2 and we woke up ready for an action packed day. Unfortunately strong winds scuppered all water based activity, and painful blasts of sandy wind rendered sunbathing futile. Much book reading ensued. Come afternoon though we could set off for our kayak escapade, slightly choppy but good exercise. Next was snorkelling - we didn't think off the beach snorkelling could get much better than Bounty Island but oh yes it can. There is a full aquarium down there.

After all this activity we thought we deserved a few happy hour Fiji Golds, so a few we had. We met a Kiwi guy called Chris who partook in several more with us. The evening's entertainment was a crab race - the 8 crabs (all representing a different country) were auctioned off to the highest bidders and 3 rounds of hardcore crab racing followed - each time the losers would be unceremoniously flung out of the window. Seeing as we'd had a few beers by now, this whole event was wildly exciting. Jonny Wilkinson (England crab), Steven Seagal (representing USA although we suspect he is Canadian?), and some NZ rugby player crab made it to the final and NZ emerged victorious. We had a few more beers watching Oz play South Africa at rugby, then moved on to the beach for a bonfire. We drank some Baileys on the beach which just seemed wrong - not really a campfire drink. Well it tasted good. The guitars came out and we sang some songs, Captain Nemo jumped in and out of the fire like a lunatic and we all got drunk under the stars.

(Geof has taken over of this because a) it's getting long, real long and b) someone got bored and left it.)

We woke up with sore heads the next day and were happy to just have a read in the hammock for a while. But we got the only call of our stay for the Mantarays. Obviously they have their own timetable in life so they have to go whenever there is a chance. So we panicked, got some snorkels and jumped into the boat. We then got dumped in the crisp morning sea and swam for it. After 2 mis-manta attempts the boat finally dropped us right on top of him. The thing was roughly 2 to 3 metres wide and so beautiful. She was doing backflips for us whilst feeding and incredible to watch, then she bolted and I was lucky enough to catch a wave after her. But she just flapped her wings like a bird and she was gone. A great hangover cure!

The rest of the day was chilled, we said goodbye to our mate the Kiwi, Chris, and he did a load of the 'Good-bye' song with the Fijians, followed by a Haka.



Volleyball followed and I won 5 games on the trot with some English and Swedish boys, then some guy wiped his back out and put a stop to that game. He didn't look good after that and had to be shipped back to the mainland. Sarah also followed her good luck for the day and got bird poop on her face for the second time of the trip so far, nice!
Leaving for the Wanataki cruise soon.
Laters for now
Sarah (and Pricey)
P.S. Sorry for the length... bad help these days...

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