Welcome to Part 3 of our January 2024 Fiji adventures. In Part 1 I posted plenty of photo spam from our stay at Club Fiji and then our trip our to Mana Island. In Part 2 we started our week at Mana Island Restort with plenty of snorkeling, kayaking and time on the beautiful beach (and a few cocktails 😉 )

Early morning dives and perfect beach weather….

On the 19th of January, our 4th day on Mana Island, we were awake early as Soren had decided to help himself to the snack and lolly supply (loudly) before 6am! Anto and Astrid had to be down at breakfast early as they had an early morning dive booked. So everyone was up and out into the heat and humidity very early…..

Another day and another tropical breakfast. By now, after several days of buffets, none of us were that hungry but we were still spending plenty of time in the water so figured we should eat something.

By 8.30am Astrid and Anto were off for their dive. Anto had been out for a dive the previous day (and saw a turtle) but this was Astrid’s first dive for this trip, and they had a shark dive booked, something Astrid hadn’t experienced before. The camera housing was not reliably cooperating on dives, so we opted to not take it out. At least I was able to get snorkeling photos during the trip, although I was pretty sad about Anto not being able to capture the shark dive for me.

Soren and Zinnia had elected to head to the beach for the morning. It was a glorious morning, but oh so bright, so plenty of sunscreen was applied before we wandered the less than 50m from our backdoor to the South beach.

We enjoyed the beautiful weather, playing on the beach, lazing in the water and taking the kayaks out. The kids had all made friends with Edith and Arthur, fellow Aussies who were on the same ferry over as us and staying in a villa just down from ours. Soren and Arthur spent much of the holiday kayaking together and Edith and Zinnia loved swimming and playing on the beach together.

I took it in turns taking Zinnia and Soren out on the kayaks, between Soren’s kayaks with Arthur. It was so calm in the snorkel and kayak zone, that there were no dramas with the older kids kayaking on their own and the kids playing on the beach while one of the non-snorkeling adults supervised from the shallows.

The water was clear enough to spot plenty of fish and coral so there was the usual game of some kayaking and the odd throwing yourself in to chase some fish!

After a glorious couple of hours on the beach, Anto and Astrid reappeared, with tales of amazing shark feeding. Astrid did not end up being shark food and was up close and personal to sharks bigger than her! The shark dive had been funded out of Christmas present money, and was definitely a special experience.

North beach snorkels…..

Even though we’d been up for hours, they day was still young at only 10.30am so while the tide was up on the North side of the island so we grabbed our bags of snorkel gear, and the camera, and head out to explore. The variety of fish, particularly bigger ones, on this side of the island was great and the coral was very pretty once you got off the beach area.

The wind was still up on this side of the island, so again it was a bit choppy, but not as bad as previous days. So out we went……

It definitely looked less picturesque above the water on this side of the island, compared with our South beach, but below the water was wonderful.

The kids did get sick of the chop (and slightly water-logged after a big morning in the ocean) so got out after awhile and decided to have a swim in the pool and order lunch. I stayed out for some more snorkeling. Eventually poking my head up to find not another soul in the water. It must have been lunch time!

Sunny afternoons at South beach…..

The ‘Fiji-time’ lunch experience was much quicker today and once we were all fed, the kids were voting to head back over to the South beach for more swimming and kayaking. Zinnia was in need of a rest after a lot of sun and time in the water so Anto convinced her to have a nap in the aircon with him, while I took the more energetic two back to the beach.

Astrid and Soren had not got sick of the water yet today, so happily did some snorkeling with me in between kayaks. The advantage of strong swimmers and having done plenty of snorkeling pays off, as we could easily snorkel up and down the drop-off, swim out to the bommies and trust them on the kayaks.

The visibility on the South side was the best it had been so far and we found plenty of great fish and coral and managed to find a few deeper bommies to dive down to.

By now the resort staff had got used to the fact that the kids would take their snorkel gear out with them on the kayaks and jump in for a snorkel when they found something they wanted to look at……and then climb back in and go for another paddle!

We found a few deeper spots we could dive down following the ropes and then follow some of the bigger fish. The visibility was so good we found large schools of fish in deeper areas and bigger fish that we hadn’t seen on previous days.

After pretty much the entire day in the water, we were all feeling a bit cooked, despite plenty of sunscreen application. After her rest Zinnia was bouncing off the walls, which was lucky as we had a pre-dinner excursion to Sunset Beach.

On the Bula Bus to Sunset Beach….

The resort runs a free ‘Bula Bus’ to Sunset Beach on the other side of the island. You can catch the bus to explore the beach and watch the sunset and then be returned in time for dinner. There was quite a line up for the Bula Bus this night and it ended up having to do 2 trips but once we made it into the back of the bus, the short trip over to Sunset beach was mostly spent singing ‘Vengabus’ by the Venga boys – yes that 1999 song that is a fabulous earworm.

The Bula Bus drops you in a dirt car park, with nothing in sight and tells you to be back at a certain time, then drives off. We probably could have found our way back walking, but we were certainly hoping they did return at the agreed time. They didn’t even seem to count how many people they deposited on the beach, but we assumed they didn’t regularly lose people (hopefully!).

The beach was rather pretty and we set off to explore. The sun was just starting to dip and produce some lovely light.

The kids were straight down to the rock pools to explore and foung plenty of hermit crabs. Zinnia managed to slip on the rocks about 5 seconds after we arrived and ended up with a sore knee, but luckily nothing too serious as we weren’t sure exactly when that Bula Bus was returning!

It didn’t stop the kids from running up and down the beach. Having been in the water pretty much the entire day we’d opted to not take our swimming gear on this excursion and then experienced the ire of the kids as several people went in the water. We did remind them it was the same water they’d been in all day, just a couple of kilometres around the island!

I can’t entirely blame the kids though, the water did look very inviting and it was of course still over 30 degrees and humid!

There were some spectacular cloud formations adding to the coloured sky. We weren’t sure how good the sunset was going to be but so far it had been worth the trip.

The kids amused themselves on the beach. Zinnia did not want to be in a photo with me and insisted on running away! She did however, want photos with Anto, being flung around like an aeroplane…..

As we waited to see the colour of the sky change – and watch the sky get ominously stormy – Astrid had a bit of a pre-teenage over-tired tantrum. Storming off and insisting she’d walk back via the beach. We did eventually convince her that she’d better come back before the bus returned or she’d either get stuck in the rain or have a rather long swim around the outside of the island back to the restaurant.

Zinnia wasn’t concerned about her big sisters bad mood and autographed the sand while we waited for the last of the sun to disappear…….

As the best of the sunset faded, the Bula Bus did eventually reappear and we made it on the first run back to the resort, as the kids were apparently ‘starving’ despite it being mere hours since the last rather substantial meal.

With Astrid over her bad mood (mostly placated by food and some soft-drink) it was stir-fry night at the buffet, along with another range of desserts. We were also treated to some beautiful colours in the sky, back on this side of the island, as we sat outside eating and enjoying the views.

Feeding those fish…..

It was the 20th of January now but we were definitely all in holiday mode now and had totally lost track of the days. After a late dinner due to being out at Sunset Beach, the kids got to bed relatively late. We were all (except Astrid, seemingly) woken at 3am by a massive storm and torrential downpour. Those tropical storms are something else!

By the time we went to breakfast, it was back to beautiful blue sky and a gorgeous turquoise ocean. Without any morning activities booked, we had a leisurely breakfast and then head down to the dive shop to book in some dives and a shark snorkel for Soren and I. The kids were then keen to go to the main jetty to feed the fish again.

The fish have pretty good alarm clocks for food and were all waiting before the bread turned up. It was like it was a daily occurrence!

Lookout Point

While our sunscreen was still fresh, and it was hot but not insanely hot, we decided we should do the short hike up to ‘Lookout Point’ which is a hill above the resort. There are plenty of marked trails and we’d seen signs throughout the resort, so thought we’d set off and do some exploring.

The trail quickly turned into plenty of stairs but wasn’t overly challenging, aside from it being very sticky and humid.

After winding our way to the top we were rewarded some great views. You could definitely get a different perspective on the layout of the resort and see some of the nearby islands.

The views were great but we were definitely all well and truly dripping with sweat now! So after identifying all the spots we knew it was time to head back down to our room, with thoughts of getting changed into our swimmers and jumping in that cool (well actually quite warm 😉 ) ocean!

The whole ‘hike’ was just over 1.5km but at least worked off our breakfast with quite a few stairs and plenty of sweat.

A new snorkel spot…..

We had been alternating our snorkeling between the South beach near our villa and the North beach on the pool and restaurant side of the island. Both had different arrays of coral and fish. We’d heard there was another good snorkel spot, that was outside of the grounds of the resort, down past the main jetty but still on the South side of the island.

We thought we’d give this one a go and packed up all the gear and decided to traipse down, the thought of new snorkeling adventures beckoning. As we left the resort area a staff member did seem to vaguely count us, which was more attention than was paid on the Bula Bus experience the night before! We wandered past the backpackers hostel and a large souvenir market, that the kids had designs on returning to.

We had no idea where the best spot to try was. We had some vague references from our Aussie friends we’d been hanging out with, who had read about the spot on a Facebook group. Once we’d walked down towards the point, which we hoped was far enough, we decided we’d gear up and head out to see what we could find. There looked to be a couple of other people snorkeling in the area and some locals fishing.

There was a very long swim out for us to find the start of the coral, but it was calm on this side of the island, so not a hard swim. The biggest challenge was how shallow sections were. But, all of a sudden we found coral and plenty of fish.

All the kids had been enjoying their snorkeling again on this trip. Zinnia was going great guns and keeping her face in the water most of the time now. The older two spent more time diving down to bommies than they did near the surface.

There were definitely some pretty coral and some very friendly fish in this spot. I could have explored all day, as could have Anto but the kids were wanting to go and play on the beach and we were way too far out to have them on the beach without one of us in there. So we did a little more exploring and then all commenced the long snorkel back in.

Once out we had to walk the kilometre or so back to our villa, with all the gear. Luckily Anto had the backpack dive bag, which was getting a good workout on this trip, carting gear around!

On the trip back we checked out the locals fishing and found some starfish on the beach, which fascinated the kids.

Another day, another two course lunch!

Used to the slow lunch restaurant service, we again ordered and swam while we waited. Today they were actually pretty efficient, so swimming time was cut short! We were now ordering less and less food. Astrid was thoroughly sick of the kids menu, which she was required to order from on the meal package, so we let her have one of our courses from the main menu as neither Anto nor I needed a 2 course lunch every day!

Astrid had been in full whingey pre-teen mood all day so we all voted we all needed a rest. Soren decided he was not going to rest, and would read instead, so after awhile I gave up and took him down to the beach so he could kayak and not disturb the others…..

A glorious afternoon…..

Soren and I had a nice kayak and then were joined by Anto and Zinnia. Despite claiming not to be tired, Astrid remained firmly asleep! Anto and I took it in turns snorkeling and kayaking with the kids. I’d now found some favourite spots and a few fish I knew by sight and could follow around to their hiding spots.

It was a lovely afternoon and we spent hours in the water. Zinnia made some more new friends and when we finally woke Astrid after 4.30pm, we were all ready to just sit in the shallows and enjoy the pleasant temperature and beautiful views.

It definitely wasn’t the worst way to spend an afternoon!

Dancing…. and fire dancing!

When we finally extracted ourself from lazing around in the ocean, we had the terrible task of heading off to yet another buffet dinner. It was Island Pasifika night. We were stuffed like pigs from all the food over the course of a week but there was always a good variety in the buffets and plenty of vegetarian options for me. We were definitely all starting to eat less and less at every meal.

After we decided we’d had enough to last us until the next feeding time, it was time to head to the main lounge for some cultural dancing.

The kids were pretty keen to watch the young men and ladies Fijian dancing prowess. The kids were even called up to learn a bit too! Thankfully not the dancing with a machete, which was impressive, but not kid friendly.

After that the dancing stakes were raised and it was outside for some fire-dancing. We were clear with Soren that he was not getting to have a go at this one!

It started raining quite heavily during the fire dancing but the fire was stronger than the rain. The show was pretty impressive and seemingly no dancers caught on fire!

t was raining impressively hard by the time the fire dancing concluded and everyone got quite wet walking back to our rooms. Just after we got back, the heavens well and truly opened and there was a torrential downpour that went for several hours, and made a lake out the back door! When we woke up the next morning, there was no sign of any water, some impressive beach drainage 🙂

Up next….

Our final day day at Mana Island, which included an awesome shark snorkel with Soren, some great dives for Anto and Astrid and plenty more fishy friends. Then we had the ferry ride back through the islands to Nadi and a return to the Mercure, where we’d stopped over on the way back from Boston, a couple of months earlier!