What time is it there?!

Along the southern coast of Viti Levu is an area known as the Coral Coast. This is because of the reef in the area, but probably also has something to do with being a fancy name for an area where there are some very fancy resorts. Since we are poor, unemployed travellers(!) we are of course not staying in a fancy resort. Not that you’d know it from a quick glance at the place we stayed, a kind of budget-backpacker-beach-resort! We still had a nice bungalow in front of the pool and only about 30 seconds from the beach.

No ‘Butlins Style’ organised activities here, just the beach and the pool. They did show Blackadder on DVD in the TV room in the evening though. They also lent out snorkelling gear for free. No need for boat trips here, just wander out from the beach and within about 6ft of the low tide mark you find many brightly coloured fish.

After another few feet it was deep enough to swim in and we probably spent a good 90 minutes within 50ft of the shore. Plenty more fish here and another black and white sea snake. Also some scary looking snake-like things which we have guessed to be some kind of coral at the moment (until we discover that they are deadly poisonous and we are lucky to be alive!). Out at the farthest point that we snorkelled to we discovered that the reef is receiving some artificial assistance. What appear to be old wooden tables have been sunk into the seabed and covered a wire grid (or perhaps a piece of fencing), new coral is already growing and the fish seem quite happy with it all. Eventually we decide that it’s time to return to shore and end our last snorkel adventure for this part of the trip. Once again we have no pictures, but when there’s time we may search the internet for some examples of what we’ve seen so far......