The Feejee Experience (Fiji Part 2)

20th Sept Was collected by the Feejee experience bus today and went into Nadi town centre to the markets and the shops to stock up on supplies for the trip. The group seem nice but i will be leaving the group tomorrow to go on the shark dive. Later that morning we went to a native village called Malomalo. We had to wear sarongs while there and met a few of the locals, saw their mix of traditional and modern homes. After that we went to a town called Sigatoka, just outside the town they have huge sand dunes and we went sandboarding which was dusty but good craic. The group are mostly late teens /early twenties so last night after dinner the dorm became the party venue (Bar was too expensive) and I hadnt a chance of getting any sleep. So me and Andy (another 30 something) decided to find another place to sleep. We came across another dorm that was not being used and slept there. The party in the other dorm went on until 4am until security called a halt to it.

21st Sept Up and out at 6.45am for showers and breakfast and on the bus at 7.45am bound for a place called Pacific Harbour where the best Shark diving takes place. I got off there, left my group and checked into the Uprising holiday resort for 2 nights. I walked the beach and had a look around the town, not up to much though.

22nd Sept Woke this morning at 6am and couldnt get to sleep again with thought of the sharks. Got collected for the dive at 8am. To that point my training had me in shallow, warm and blue waters.... but this was different. We went out into the high seas, I had to jump off the boat with all my gear on into water that I could not see the bottom. The swells seemed huge allowing me to see the boat one minute and disappear behind a wave the next. I was well taken aback by the raw-ness of it all, and hadnt even seen a shark yet. This was hardcore diving and the lad beside me had done 641 dives. Oh well, in for a penny in for a pound and down i went 30 metres (95ft) to a shelf near the sea bed. We watched the feeder below us creating a feeding frenzy with the other fish to attract the interest from the nearby sharks. It did. A bull shark arrived and it was huge. It was about 10ft long and a fat as a cow. It was just like the movies with those eyes, teeth and white belly. We saw grey reef sharks, white tip sharks but no tiger sharks. They were the real bad boys. The bulls were the stars of the show eating huge fish heads like jelly babies and ripping them apart like wet cardboard, all the time my head sinking lower behind the ledge. I wasnt too disappointed not seeing the tiger as Id never seen any sharks in real life before. The day involved another shallower dive to see some more sea life but the sharks were the maddest thing ever.

23rd Sept Joined the Feejee experience again this morning. I think they are a better crowd than the other lot, not as rowdy and drink orientated. We went for a 3 hour trek through the jungle and waded through rivers and muck, good craic. We had lunch by a riverside in the jungle and then got into tubes and floated down the river. Along the way we jumped in rock pools, under waterfalls and finished the trip in a long boat speeding down the river. It was lashing rain and we got soaked. After a change we headed for Suva (the capital) and had a tour. It like all fiji towns was a dump (its a poor country)

24th Sept Today we visited a local school. It was very rural, had 6 classrooms and no electricity. We visited every class where the children sang for us, asked us questions and we asked them Q's. They were great kids and so happy. Each class got a big bag of sweets from the group which the teacher shared out. We brought stationery, paints, crayons and pencils which they only get from the likes of us. The tour visits a different school or orphanage every time so a school may not see the Feegee crowd again for months. One of the teachers said our visit was like Santa Claus for the children. Before i left Australia, these children were preparing for our visit. I had a $3.50 football with me which all the kids were watching to see who I would give it to. We were told about these 3 kids that walked 12km to school every day leaving at 5am to be in class for 8am. There were so many deserving cases that I gave the ball to the teacher to keep for good boys and girls to play with at break time. In another class the kids were told to tell the teacher the capital of the country of each of the visitors as the visitor told them their country. Only one lad got Dublin right (or Dob bling as he called it) and all I could give him was one of my 2 bananas. I told him he could have it if he could catch it. He put his hands up in the air and it sailed 20ft across the room into his anticipating little paws. All the kids were jumping up and down and screaming with excitement. Out of the group of 22 there were 18 English so the 'London' drone from the kids quickly changed when one girl said 'Northern Ireland'. Another bright spark got it right and i gave her my last banana to throw to him.
After all that excitement we went to visit a tribal leader for a Kava ceremony. I got on great with him and we talked about Rugby, Irish/australian football and what i did for a living. During the meeting the women brought out cakes for E1 each to eat if we wanted. I insisted on buying one for the chief, his son and his spokesman. I proceeded to eat the cake and drink the ceremonial drink (Kava) at the same time as if it was a cup of tea. They were all in knots. For the laugh I asked one of his wives if she was married. She replied that she was married to the chief and I said that that was a pity because she was so beautiful (she was about 25 stone and the size of a horse) the chief stood up and went into his house and came back out with a pen and a bit of sandpaper. He asked me if I liked Fijian women, which i said yes (was hardly going to say no) and he told me he had many women for me. He told me to write my address on the back of it and said they would write to me..... hmmm, I hope they are not like his wife.
We checked into the resort of Volivoli that day. A nice remote resort owned by a new Zealand family. I got chatting to their son, Steve that evening and I asked him about a sunken ferry nearby and what was the chances of getting to dive down to see it. He was the resort dive instructor and we arranged to do it the following morning.

25th Sept Met up with Steve at 8.30am and got geared up for my first wreck dive. In 2003 a rust bucket, unseaworthy ferry sank off Volivoli. It was full of trucks and cars and sank to the bottom eventually lying upside down. It took us a while to find it, but we did and swam through holes in the hull, up stairs, though doorways and into the cargo hold. There were loads of vehicles there with their containers open and full of stuff. We had torches and was very different to the other dives. we hung around for a while. I would have preferred if it the ferry was the right way up but no matter, it was a great experience. Back to the resort and were on the bus for 12 midday. We headed to an Indian reataurant for our 'Indo-fijian cultural experience' ,what a sham. $20 for a low grade Indian dinner and that was it. We made note of that one in our feedback forms. After that we went to the hot mud pools and immersed ourselves in this hot mud and of course all the sheenanigans took place including flinging mud, mud in the hair etc. After that we went over to the clean water hot springs and washed off all the mud. We made our way back to Nadi where we finished the trip.