Snorkelling with sharks - no cages involved, and racing crabs!
- marymoscrop1
- May 20
- 6 min read
Our stay in Paradise is over, and Emily and I were sad to go, but we got a great send off!
Our penultimate night was without the usual Kava mat celebration - the musicians had the night off, so we were entertained by Crab Racing! The height of competitive gambling in Paradise Cove.
A circle was duly drawn in white chalk - and it was circular enough...but no! That circle was mopped out and a new 'cirlce' drawn in pink chalk - much more circular...
we all got to pay $5 Fijian Dollars (about £2) to chose a number from a sheet of paper - 1- 40, and there was a tiny coconut crab in a bucket with the corresponding number painted on its back. The cash was donated to the local school, so it was for a good cause! They are called coconut crabs because they grow one larger claw which is specifically for breaking in to coconuts - I thought coconuts were only created to keep Tom Hanks company and hold rum and a paper umbrella!
Once the circle was circular enough, they started building obstacles within the circle - honestly, it was so serious,
Then, when everything was ready, there was a bit of a hoopla to get the crowd going (not a massive crowd) and the bucket was upended into the little circle and the race was on.... it lasted about 15 seconds, then it was all over, but it was good fun. Our crabs did not even make it out of the inner circle - I was cheering on Emily's number 5, until it turned out I was cheering for number 15... ah well, neither of them won.
The weather was not great for our penultimate day, but we were still up at 6 am to go shark snorkelling. Now I have dived with sharkes before (South Africa, 2025) but I was safely ensconsed in a steel cage.... I have never snorkelled in deep open water before - and if you remember the blog about the night snorkelling, you will appreciate that I was a tad nervous about the ability of my mask to NOT fill with water. Little did I know that although I had solved that problem, I had to navigate the German Snorkel Formation Team - and they were formidable!
There were only 7 of us on the trip, Em and I, an Irish chap called Jack and the 4 man formation snorkelling team, as well as the Dive Master who was called Acuna.
To see the sharks we needed to snorkel in the fairly strong current, which in itself was novel for me, as I have to constantly know where my child it at all times - especially if we are surrounded by sharks! The first place we snorkelled, we saw 4 blacktips - and it was at that point that I realised that the Go Pro was still in the boat.... it was also at that point that Em realised that she had not put her contact lenses in - what are we like!
We were surrounded by plankton, and nippy little buggers they were too, like little pin pricks all over the body.
On to the second site, and I remembered the Go Pro this time - although Emily still did not have her contacts in... This is where the Germans came in to their own. At the first site we just put the fact that they kept barging in to us (and Jack) down to the strong current, but no - they were swimming arm in arm, and at one point they just pushed me out of the way! I just started laughing at the ridiculousness of it, and that is all I can hear on the video footage.
Visibility was pretty poor as there was so much plankton, so you cannot see that much on the video, but I did manage to find a clip of two sharks - you might have to look carefully to see them, they are on the right of the screen initially, and they are very far away - they were actually about 6' long - so not too small.... I was quite glad they were respectful of distance - not like the Germans....
After the shark snorkelling we pretty much relaxed for the rest of the day - it was cloudy, but still very hot and I almost got burned as I had not put enough sunscreen on - rookie error!
That night was the crab racing, and when we got up on the last day the weather was pretty poor - very windy - the dive shop was not handing out snorkel gear, or allowing anyone to paddle board or kayak - too windy was the cry! Of course, that did not stop us sitting in our usual spot on the beach -but I did have half an eye on the coconuts in the trees..... do you know how many people are killed each year by falling coconuts? Me neither but I did not want to add to the number.... in the end I persuaded Em to move to one of the pools - not because of falling coconuts, it was just easier to get in and out of the pool than it was the sea.
On our last night, the Musicians did a special Kava celebration for us - we had made great freinds with them, so they sang all of our favourite songs and handed out Kava initially after every song, but we mutually agreed it should just be after every second song.....
I felt like one of the cool kids, sat on the mat, with the band, shoes off, explaining the rituals of clapping and saying 'Bula' etc. to the newbies. What a fabulous night we had.....until we got back to our room.
It turned out that the bathroom door was not closed properly, and we had a Black Witch Moth as well as a gekko waiting to welcome us home. Not a problelm in itself - but the gekko was particularly resistant to my encouragement to leave... that coupled with the fact that the wall was painted 'gekko green' what chance did I have of getting any kip! Emily took some pics of my consternation and mocked me on her SM, so it is only fair that I include them here too.
Em took great delight in looking up the symbolism of a Black Witch Moth - and we both googled 'do geckos bite' .
Let me ask you this - is it more terrifying to try and get to sleep in the knowledge that the friendly gecko might come down from the wall to investigate your nose hair..... or getting up for the loo through the night to find it was no longer on the wall where it was when you first hid under the blankets?
Neither Em nor I got much sleep - mainly because I kept yelling out through the night.... I wonder why!
On our last morning the staff gathered to sing us the farewell song, and we got huge hugs off everyone as we boarded the boat for the 90 minute trip back to the mainland and then the airport -after that, not much to report, other than it feels like we have never been away and Fiji is a distant memory. I feel honoured to have stayed at such a fabulous place - Emily is going to write a guest blogg at the end of my trip, and she will tell you lots more about the history and culture, but I can honestly say that even though I worked in travel for 15 years and have been to some spectacular places, it is the nicest place I have ever stayed. There is not a single thing I would change (strike that, I would provide forks with desert) and I am so thankful that we went there in the shoulder season so at times it felt like it was our own private slice of heaven.
I have 10 days of my trip left and it is time to start making new memories, so we are collecting a camper van tomorrow - more adventures are to be had!
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