The final days of our January 2024 Fiji adventure had arrived. A last couple of days of sun, snorkeling and friendly Fijian hospitality.
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We had one full day left at Mana Island, plus a little bit of extra time the next day before we had to head back to Nadi, and we were going to make the most of it!
Early morning dives and snorkels….
Anto had decided he needed to sneak in one last day of diving while in Fiji. He was doing a solo early dive so we had an early alarm on so he could be down at the dive shop by 7.30am. This meant he also got a solo breakfast with no children needing assistance at the buffet every 3 seconds 😉 Unfortunately I woke up with his early alarm but luckily none of the kids did.
Once the kids eventually woke up (they were finally on holiday time) we head down to breakfast. By the time we were back and everyone had copiously large amounts of sunscreen applied, Anto reappeared at the back door. His shore dive had produced some very large rays, big bat fish and a crayfish. Sadly he couldn’t trust the camera housing at depth so no photos!
The girls decided that they wanted to head to the kids club for the morning session as there was a lolly scavenger hunt 🙂 Soren wasn’t keen to go, and wanted to come snorkeling with the grown-ups. So we dropped the girls off for their lolly hunt and headed to the North beach with our snorkeling gear. The tide was pretty low and a strong current, which isn’t great for Soren so back to the South beach we went.
Our South beach snorkeling was pretty great, excellent visibility and plenty of fish. Soren wanted to do a snorkel down from the main jetty to the snorkel area, so off he went with Anto while I checked out the underwater world on my own, spotting many of familiar fishy friends.
Anto and Soren managed to see some giant bat fish as they were snorkeling back from the jetty and I covered all my favourite spots in the calm and warm water.
After his long swim, Soren wanted to continue his snorkeling via kayak, so Anto got to kayak while Soren used it as a mobile snorkeling repositioning system. They did find the giant metal tanks I’d discovered the previous day when the visibility was good. Which prompted them both to spend time diving down to see how close they could get.
After a fantastically peaceful couple of hours of snorkeling we had drag ourselves out and go and collect the girls, who had scavenged plenty of lollies!
Last lunches……
We might have all been sick of the lunch menu, but it was the last lunch! To be fair the menu had a reasonable number of options. The kids were more limited with the kids menu but we’d just been letting them order off our meals as frankly we were so full we couldn’t eat much more anyway. We had to have an early lunch as Astrid and Anto were off for a dive and we didn’t want either of them feeding the fish via their lunch!
Once we farewelled the divers, Soren and Zinnia and I hung by the pool to swim with their holiday mates Edith and Arthur and enjoy the tropical island drinks and relaxation – well as relaxing as it can be with small children! We kept getting rained on, in between hot sunshine. Lucky we neither cared about getting wet, nor was it cold……..
Once Soren and Zinnia had enough water, we retired to our villa and the back balcony for a bit of a rest and afternoon cold drinks. It had been a pretty good location for our week at Mana, being so close to the beach and we were making the most of it for the last days……
You can’t have too much beach time….
Once Soren and Zinnia had declared they’d been out of the sun ‘for long enough’ the next half a bottle of sunscreen was emptied onto our exposed skin and off we wandered back to the beach. Anto and Astrid located us shortly after, and informed us they’d had a fabulous dive with marble and leopard rays, lionfish, garden eels and leaf fish.
Not water-logged enough, everyone was back in snorkeling on the South beach and again the visibility was excellent.
The kayaks were cracked out and we all took it in turns to kayak and snorkel. The kids spending more time in and out of the kayak, than actually kayaking!
I located my friend, a rather large box puffer fish. I had found where he lived the previous day and finally managed to get some photos of him. It was fun having familiar fish to follow around and who quite liked to come and say hello!
We’d kept some left over bread from breakfast and decided we’d take it out snorkeling with us to feed our fishy friends. Zinnia had a fabulous time doing this. We quickly had large schools of fish who were our best friends!
Zinnia had definitely become a very confident snorkeler during our Fiji stay, even more so than during our Rarotonga trip 6 months earlier. She still liked having the safety sausage or a kayaking life vest on for extra buoyancy. While we were feeding the fish I was under taking photos and then see Zinnia swimming down to me. She’d decided to take off her life vest so she could ‘dive down and get closer to the fish’. Um yeah we were worried she was getting a bit too confident for a barely 5 year old!
Between the snorkeling, and kayaking there was plenty more time for playing in the sand and hanging out on the pontoon. Every afternoon there were familiar kids and sometimes some new ones to hang out with, so we had plenty of fun.
The only catch was that you eventually had to drag yourself out of the water to head off to dinner! What a tough life……
…. yet another meal and beautiful sunset!
Another night, another buffet. The kids were happy as it was seafood buffet night. They made the most of it! I still found plenty of vegetarian options that were tasty and there was, as usual, no shortage of dessert. We were also treated to one last magical sunset as we ate outside enjoying the island weather…….
Shark snorkels with Soren…..
It was the 22nd of January and we had to leave Mana Island that afternoon. As Soren isn’t old enough to have done his Open Water course yet, he was a bit sad to have missed out on the diving. The dive shop also runs organised snorkels. As fairly experienced snorkelers we were happy snorkeling ourselves, at no cost, but Soren and I thought we’d take advantage of a guided shark snorkel. There were no sharks in our beach access snorkel spots. Soren thought it was worth spending some hard-earned pocket money on!
The shark snorkel only runs a few days a week and the next one was on the Monday the 22nd. We had changed our ferry departure off Mana to a later time, and Soren and I were up pre-7am for breakfast so we could do our shark snorkel. The other kids were not super impressed at the early breakfast option but there was no lunch today so they were actually encouraged to eat more than some pineapple and a Danish.
While Soren and I were off on shark snorkel, Anto had to get everyone and all our stuff out of our room before check-out. So we got the better end of that deal!
Soren and I arrived at the dive shop by 8.30am. We had 7 on the shark snorkel, including us, but Soren was the only kid. We had a snorkel briefing and then were out onto the boat. It was a bit of a bumpy ride out with the boat being thrown everywhere, so I spent a bit of time holding onto Soren!
After around 10-12 minutes we reached ‘Supermarket Reef’ the snorkel spot. So called, because of the variety of fish there. The box containing the fish bits was lowered and already we saw plenty of fish and then sharks circling.
Before long there were at least 7 or 8 black tipped reef sharks, some quite large, trying to get into the bait box. They were mostly hanging out on the bottom and waiting for the bait to be released. The box was approximately 8 metres down and the visibility was pretty good so we could easily see the sharks, as they would cruise up and down waiting for food to be released. They knew exactly what was in that box!
The snorkel guides dived down and started releasing some fish and pretty soon there were plenty of happy customers in the supermarket.
The water was very choppy so positioning ourselves to get good views of the sharks was tricky. They’d spiral up and down grabbing the bait and coming quite close to us. Soren and I were happy to dive a few metres down and see how close we could get.
Soren impressed the snorkel guides with how deep he could dive, he did better than pretty much all the adults, bar the guides! The sharks varied in size but a couple of the big ones were bigger than Soren.
There were sharks everywhere, bashing into each other and sometimes us! We definitely got pretty close to them.
Soren wanted a photo snorkeling with a shark. The camera is not easy to use in the housing, while diving down snorkeling in choppy water, but I did my best and there is photographic evidence of Soren with sharks 😉
The bait was slowly released over about 20-25 minutes so we got to spend plenty of time with the sharks. Once the sharks had consumed most of the bait, the guides lead us on a snorkel through more of the ‘Supermarket’. There were some very pretty corals and lots of schools of quite big fish. There was a very strong current and Soren was doing really well sticking with me as we were getting bounced around.
After a circuit we were lead back to the boat and the guides did a surface feed of the sharks, which was rather fun watching the sharks come right up to the surface for more food.
The boat trip back to the island was much less choppy and more enjoyable. Soren definitely enjoyed a bit of high speed action as we cruised back to Mana. We both agreed the shark snorkel had been a fabulous experience and worth doing.
The farewell Mana snorkel….
Soren and I arrived back at the dive shop just before 10am. Zinnia had decided she wanted to go to kids club for the morning rather than the beach. Anto wasn’t going to complain as it meant he could pack up the last of our belongings and send our bags to reception without the assistance of a 5 year old! Anto and Astrid took the rest of our beach and swimming gear down to the beach, where Soren and I met up with them.
The weather was again beautiful so we figured we should spend the last of our time enjoying the beach and with our fishy friends.
The visibility was again fabulous so I set off for a final snorkel and quickly found my box puffer fish. He recongised me now and would play with me!
Soren and Astrid were enjoying a final kayak while Anto and I snorkeled around soaking up our last bit of reef time.
There were plenty of big fish out today, including some large bat fish and parrot fish. It was definitely hard to drag ourselves away…….
The ability to snorkel straight off the beach in a variety of spots made it a great place to enjoy snorkeling with the kids. The water was mostly calm and on the South beach it was easy for the kids to kayak and play while we snorkeled nearby. Astrid and Soren were able to snorkel nearby safely on their own. Along with all the kids favourite games of kayaking to throw yourself in for a little snorkel 🙂
Sadly our snorkel time had to come to an end. We dragged ourselves out and went past kids club to pick up Zinnia who had been bat hunting, fish feeding and icecream eating! She’d had a fabulous morning too.
Time for last drinks…..
We headed over to the pool and had a quick swim to wash off all the sand, followed by just enough time to hang at the pool bar and use up the last of our resort credit. The kids wanted one last slushy and the adults thought we might need a cocktail to get us through a long afternoon……
After our final drinks the kids had one last swim with their friends and our resort neighbours, Edith and Arthur, and their parents Leigh and Serena, who we had enjoyed hanging out with during our stay. They had a couple of extra days on Mana, but our time was now up.
In an attempt to get us to vacate the pool, the heavens opened and there was a downpour. We had planned to all get changed out of our wet swimmers we’d been in all morning before the ferry ride back to Nadi. Somehow Soren and my clothes were not in the gear Anto had kept out of the luggage so we had to wander back to reception in our wet and sandy clothes and hope we could find our suitcases!
Farewell Mana….
We did eventually locate some dry clothes in our bags, which was going to make the ferry ride back much more pleasant. The rain continued, while we waited for the ferry to arrive. It was making it slightly easier to leave!
Our ferry came in just before 1.30pm and the welcome band started to play. As it was still raining they were playing under cover rather than on the main jetty today 🙂
We were again allowed in the Captains lounge (yay for air-conditioning) and settled in for the trip back to Nadi. It was about an hour and a half trip and the rain had cleared so it was beautiful cruising past other islands and resorts.
The kids were quite tired and Soren and Zinnia tried to have a rest. All the sun and snorkeling had worn them out!
Our time at Mana Island had been most enjoyable. It isn’t a five star resort but the beachside villas we were in were the perfect location with the kids, as we enjoyed being so close to great snorkeling spots, kayaking and a beautiful beach. The pool was only a short walk away and the food was varied and plentiful. I’d highly recommend getting a meal package like we did. If you were buying lunches and dinners every day the cost would add up pretty quickly. We’d gotten our 7 night deal through Luxury Escapes and it was excellent value and the perfect amount of time on the island. We met several people who had 5 and 9 night deals. After 5 nights we wouldn’t have been quite ready to leave but I think we would have started to get itchy feet after 9 nights in the one spot!
As is usual in Fiji the staff were exceptionally friendly and there were plenty of activities offered for both adults and kids. I’d certainly consider returning to Mana at another time, although it’s always tempting to find new snorkel and dive spots, it did offer some very good and easily accessible diving and snorkeling.
A long trip to the Mercure
Our ferry arrived into Port Denarau at around 3pm and we had only a short wait for our bags to be off-loaded. It was out of the airconditioning and into the heat and humidity to find our shuttle. It didn’t take long to find our mini-bus but then we had a long wait on the bus for another ferry to come in with the remaining passengers on our route.
Finally we were away and made the short trip to the Mercure and finally arrived about 4pm. We’d stayed here on our way back from Boston a few months earlier. That time we’d arrived pre-6am, today it was definitely cocktail o’clock!
Despite being in the water all morning, it had been hours now, so the kids were desperate to get in the pool! It continued to rain quite heavily and the pool was very busy so it was only a short dip before we headed off to hang out at the bar for some final holiday cocktails and mocktails.
The night we’d spent here on the way back from Boston we had dined across the road from the hotel at a great Indian restaurant. We voted to go back there (despite there being plenty of other options nearby) as the food was good. The waitress remembered us, possibly the noisy and tired looking children 😉 The kids again enjoyed the restaurant resident cats and like the previous time we again over-ordered plenty of delicious food!
As we head back to the Mercure it had finally stopped raining but an early night called as we had a 9am flight, which sadly meant an early breakfast as we needed to be at the airport by 7am. The kids did not enjoy the early alarm but were more than happy with a last buffet breakfast by the pool. All things must come to an end though and soon we were off to the airport, ready for trip home.
Farewell Fiji
Our 10 days in Fiji had been most enjoyable. With direct flights in and out of Canberra it was a very low stress overseas get away. Our flight home was a little delayed but we still arrived in Canberra by 1.30pm and were through customs and had our bags collected and were in the car on the way home by 2pm, a very easy international travel day by our standards.
The kids loved the time at Mana Island and Club Fiji at the start of the holiday had also been easy and fun. After 9 full days of snorkeling, kayaking, swimming and plenty of eating, we were glad to be home but looking forward to returning to Fiji in the future.
Our next adventure is going to have a lot less sun, snorkeling and significantly more snow and longer flights! We are off to Europe for a white Christmas and plenty of Winter fun. Stay tuned for plenty of photos and stories…..