A touch of paradise. Nanuya Island Resort, Yasawa Group, Fiji

Wednesday, November 30 – Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Another early travel morning, hotel taxi by 6:30 AM to drive to Port Demaru in Nadi, to take our ferry ride (the Yasawa Flyer) out to Nanuya Island Resort in the Yasawa Group.  The ferry ride is supposed to take 5 hours, but takes 6 – the boat is in need of some repairs – it’s leaking diesel fumes into the cabin, so we spend the whole time on deck in some shade.  It was a beautiful ride out, if not the most comfortable ride.  Nanuya Island Resort is at the “end of the line” along with a few other resorts that pick up and drop off guests at the same location – it is in the “Blue Lagoon” area of Fiji, so called because the lagoons are indeed a beautiful torquise/blue and because the movie “The Blue Lagoon” was filmed here.

Here are some pictures from our ferry ride there and back (6 days later)

We are staying in a tree top burre, that has a great view out across the water.  There is a great sandy beach, and fabulous coral reef where there is excellent snorkeling.  This is a very peaceful, beautiful and idyllic location, and we are very happy with our choice.  So it’s Fiji time for the next six days, and our days fall into a rythym of  - go down for the complimentary (and very good) continental breakfast each morning (we eat in a covered open small dining area with individual tables that look out on the beach and water), back up to the burre to change into swimsuits, hang out at the beach most of the day relaxing, reading, snorkeling, etc., go back up to the burre and shower and change, maybe a short nap, then down to dinner (excellent food – it’s like eating at a restaurant every night with 4  different entrée choices every night, usually a fish, chicken beef and vegetarian entrée. -  They are all excellent and beautifully prepared and presented – like eating at a very nice restaurant every night.  Then after dinner we retire to our burre, to have a cup of coffee with our NZ cookies for dessert.

We are rookie snorkelers, and we didn’t expect Donna to be able to snorkel with her injured shoulder, but after I tried it first, and came back with such an enthusiastic report (it was like watching a National Geographic or Jacques Cousteau special), then Donna gave it a go, and with the aid of wearing a life jacket to help with the shoulder, she becomes a pro at snorkeling and stays out twice as long as I do every time.  Very magical for both of us.  Although we have nothing to compare the snorkeling with, we believe it to be very good, based on our discussions with Sven and Petra, one of the couples we got to know at Nanuya.  Sven and Petra are veteran snorkelers and scuba divers, and they told us this was very good snorkeling.  They are 30 something PHD biologists, Sven is a marine biologist, Petra is an immunologist.  Very friendly and nice couple, we had several fun conversations with them, usually at dinner – we often sat at adjacent tables.  They are German, but live on the coast of Norway, where they are researchers at a Norwegian university near Bergen.  They have been gone for three weeks, with each week at a different south sea resort.  I have a fun silhouette picture of them at their last night at Nanuya, when Petra decided to do some yoga poses down at the beach.  I noticed I have had some page views from Norway, so I assume it must be Sven and Petra – if so, hope your trip back to Norway went well – we enjoyed meeting you.

We also met a honeymooning couple from Irvine, CA (Howard and Lili), and a young couple from Australia, Tara and Gad.  Tara was only 20, and was putting herself through college by working at a KFC and a donut place. (and paying for her Fiji vacation).  She was a dead ringer for our niece Natalie – same age too.   They were at the resort the exact length of time we were there, riding on the same ferry there and back.  Tara really latched on to Donna (surrogate mother), and shared her compelling life story with her.  She was a very sweet and resilient gal.

The manager of the Nanuya Island resort is Alfie.  His daughter, Meta, hung around a lot, too.  Every time I went out snorkeling she would wish me luck.  She really bonded with Donna and Tara.  Alfie was a really nice guy, who shared some nice wisdom with us:   “Live simply, live long.”  This was when he was explaining why he had never left Fiji.  He also told us a story – each person is given 4 balls to juggle.  1 rubber and 3 glass balls.  The rubber ball is your job.  If you drop it, it bounces back (you can always get another job); the 3 crystal balls represent your family, your health, and your life.  If you drop one of these, they are fragile and break.  We also would get Fiji language lessons from one of the staff, Remi.  We used these three phrases all the time – Bula – is the Fijian greeting.  Vanaka – is thank you.  Everyone says these two all the time.  We also learned Sing a na ling a.  That means - no worries.  A common theme on this trip –no worries mate.

We mostly just hung out at the beach while we were here, but we did end up walking around the island and over the island on a trail, which gave us some nice views of the area.  On the other side of the island, we met some young volunteers from New Jersey, who were working on a rainwater harvesting collection system and a few other projects for 12 weeks with a group called Global Vision International.  We also had a sailboat anchor in our bay, and a group came ashore to have a drink at the Nanuya bar.  The owner was a rich (and fairly drunk) American from CA, who has been sailing around the world for the last 20 years.  The chef on board was a woman probably a few years older than us, who had lived in Boulder, CO for 12 years, working for the Great Harvest, creating recipes, and opening restaurants.  She was blogging on BLOGSPOT too, for the last year (Behind the Mast).  We hope to grab some recipes off her BLOG one of these days. 

So all in all a fabulous time at Nanuya Island Resort, a place we would definitely recommend.  Here's a bunch of photos from our time there.

 This greeted us at our burre when we arrived

 View from our burr

 At breakfast

 Gee - are having a good time, or what?

 1:30 daily arrival departure of the ferry

 Meta and Donna

 Meta and Donna

 Alfie and Donna

 Huge toads were along the pathway every night

 Heading out kayaking

 Sven taking a picture of Petra

 Petra

 Fijian village across the bay

 Other side of the island - somewhat of a contrast - local living vs. resort living

 Views from our cross island hike

 Views from our cross island hike

 Views from our cross island hike

 Views from our cross island hike

 Views from our cross island hike

 Our burre

  Our burre

Tara and Gad

Path to our burr

  Our burre

Looking back at the resort from the ferry

Looking back at the resort from the ferry

Looking back at the resort from the ferry - our burre is the one farthest to the right