Birthday celebrations Fijian style!

We started the day with a 'happy birthday' banner quickly hung in the bedroom room while Emily was in the bathroom - she had had her present after all (new camera bag that she chose herself) so she was not expecting anything else today.

I kept her cards and gifts hidden until we were at brekkie - who does not love a bawling birthday girl at 7.30 am! 

I had been telling all of the staff it was her birthday, and it seemed that they had told everyone else, as Em had so many people coming up to her and shaking her hand, wishing her a 'Happy Birthday' - what a way to start the day. She got some lovely gifts from home too, all very thoughtful and well appreciated. She is loved. 

Because it is Sunday, the hotel choir assembled to sing to us at breakfast - I have no clue what they were singing about, but it was beautiful - very professional, and there was one soprano in particular who could have easily been professional, but actually, everyone had powerful, soulful voices and it was glorious. 

We spent the day on the beach, just relaxing, 'coz that is what Em wanted to do. We read books, chilled and snorkelled on the reef, which is just about 12 feet away from the beach. I have scuba dived in the Caribbean, in Egypt, in Cyprus and most recently on the Great Barrier Reef, and I can honestly say, the reef here is the healthiest I have ever seen. Of course there are bits of dead coral, but circle of life and all that, but the colours are stunning - especially the blues, which just happen to be my favourite colour. The reef is so full of life. 

Emily did not think she was going to see the end of the first day of her 29s - she came face to face with a reef shark and although it is not captured on the GoPro footage, you can certainly tell the point she saw it as she was just moseying on along and all of a sudden does a reverse turn and heads back to shore in double time.. 

This is not the actual one she saw, but it was this type

Just before dinner we walked up to Sunset Point to watch the sun going down. Slightly marred by the one big cloud that was determined to hide the sun's modesty as she went to bed, but the hotel had put on snacks and drinks, and the company was good, so it was a lovely experience.

While we were watching the sunset we got talking to two ladies - one Argentinian, Carly, and one French Canadian, Julietta, who is on her way to Brisbane to speak at a conference as a Structural Engineer, and they told us about a secret excursion they were taking the next day to a cave - of course they roped us in to going too, as well as Amanda, a very canny Geordie girl who is working in Aukland and is a TV producer - I have to say that Amanda is claustrophobic so I was very impressed when she said she might join us too. 

We dined at the Black Rock restaurant - and it just shows that you should read the menu, as we did not notice that it said there was an amuse bouche as well as soup of the day, so we were really confused when they just kept bringing us food! It was all delicious though, and we even finished off with Em's favourite, sticky toffee pudding (with a Fijian twist) which turned out to be both sticky toffee pudding combined with crumble and cinnamon ice cream - yum!

We were up early this morning as we needed to join the excursion at 8.30 and we wanted breakfast before hand. We took our time, savouring the yummy fruit and Em had pumpkin spiced porridge (not a fan) before we went over to the Dive Shop to sign in and pick up our snorkel gear, only to be told that we actually needed hard cash for the trip - 35 Fijian Dollars each - we did not have any cash! I went to the Reception to see if they could get me some via my bank card, but their cash had not arrived from the mainland yet... I would have to wait until the afternoon - NOOOO! In the end, the person who runs the shop had to run over and open up to get us some cash out of the till as a sub until we got back - good job we are good for it, and look like such upstanding citizens (also, we are a captive audience until we leave!)

So the secret excursion was a trip to a Cave about an hour by speedboat. There is a legend that if you are hiding a pregnancy, or don't know you are pregnant, the cave will block you from entering.

I have never been anywhere like it - (what3words subscriptions.aviary.pledge) and the photos really don't do it justice - plus I don't have the patience to wait for the GoPro download to include a video, but here is a pic of Amanda in the first cave

This was the entry cave, and that was bad enough - we followed a path and steps and then had to avoid banging our heads on low hanging rocks before getting fins and snorkels on and diving (falling in my case) into the water. We swam about in here for a bit - could not see the bottom at all, is was so deep, and then those of us who were not claustrophobic (or just did not know what was happening) were directed to dive into a tunnel and get handed through into the next cave - that was really cool - excellent acoustics which the guides repeatedly demonstrated by yelling 'Bula' (Welcome/Hello) and it reverberated off the walls and sent the spiders and cockroach scurrying about.  

We swam through two caves before trying to leave - this was a bit trickier as the tide was slowly coming in and once it gets to a certain point the cave closes. I took a deep breath and dived down...... got half waythrough the gap and then had to be 'birthed' through the hole by someone grabbing either side of my head and tugging - it felt like a forceps delivery, I kid you not - but I was safely though. 

Emily went on into another even smaller cave, but I gave that one a miss - my near birth experience was enough for one day.

The main thing is that we all go IN and OUT of the caves, so no-one is pregnant - huge relief ^:D

After the Caves we had a snack of yummy fruit and pastries on the beach, then set off to the Blue Lagoon for snorkelling and swimming - at first I was disappointed by the coral - it just looked to be grasses, but once I got passed that to the 'proper' coral - oh my goodness, so many fish!

There is one point on the video from the GoPro where all you can hear is me laughing - I had got such a fright when I thought that Emily had caught me up and was trying to get my attention, but it turned out the fish were nibbling my toes!

On the boatride back we were treated to a tour of all of the rich and famous private islands - one owned by an American, and you can only book it in America and only arrive by sea plane. Then there is one owned by an Italian, and another couple that are for sale.... maybe that's what I will spend my pension on?

We stopped again to snorkel - this time at Blue Lagoon, which is where they made the film of the same name with Brooke Shields - very pretty, but IMHO, not a patch on Paradise Cove. 

We finished off with a visit to the Manta Ray Channel to see if we could spot any - but sadly, it was not to be - we will try again another day - the guide books say we are at the best time to see them, so fingers crossed.

It seems that the legend of Emily celebrating a Birth MONTH rather than a Birth DAY has reached Fiji, because although her big day was yesterday, the Captain of the boat announced that it was Emily's birthday and the whole boat sang happy birthday to her - aww it was lovely. 

We had an hour or so on the beach then got ready for dinner, stopping for a cocktail of the day and a game of chess on the way, and we are now finishing off the night with yet more cocktails listening to the house band, who are just on the mat handing out Kava and jamming with the guests.... I will tell you about Kava tomorrow - I know it is a drug, it is local, and Emily is drinking it..... but other than that, I know nothing.

Just another day in Paradise