Ono Island, Fiji

We were up at 5:00ish, much earlier than our 6:45am alarm. Watched the sky change colour and listened to the birds. Got ourselves together, planned out our snorkeling clothes, and then headed down early for the 7:30 breakfast (mostly for the wifi). Stefanie and Clint also had the same idea and so we ended up chatting instead of being on our phones (I did manage to do my Wordle though).

Breakfast was great, including French press coffee. Stefanie and Clint are here for the diving, so it was just me and Heather plus two snorkel guides and a boat driver on our activity.

First we swung by the cleaning station off Vurolevu Island, about 5-10 minutes from the resort, to see if the manta rays were there. No mantas today :( so we carried on to our first snorkel site on the Astrolabe Reef, about another ten minutes. The water is really smooth here cause of the protection from the reef, one of the largest on the world. (They say the 4th largest at the resort but google says differently. Either way, it’s still very impressive).

And then we were snorkeling! The snorkel site was shallow which is great for pics. Saw lots of colourful fishes and coral. In particular the blue fish, yellow fish and purple coral really pop.

It was partially cloudy and so we were a bit cold by the end of the 45 minute snorkel.

Had a coffee break at a random pristine beach on a small nearby island, and back to the Astrolabe for more snorkeling. This site, also shallow, was one of our favourites. The sun stayed out which made for great pics and also kept us warm. We both thought it was a shorter snorkel but turned out to be 80 minutes!

We went by the cleaning station on the way home, but still no mantas. Maybe tomorrow! Although at this point, everything had been so amazing here between the resort and the snorkeling, that the mantas would just be a bonus.

We had just enough time to shower before we heard the drums announcing lunch. Lunch was delicious, a shrimp stir fry with rice.

We had a couple hours before sunset and so tried out the stand-up paddle boards. The water was smooth for boating but still choppy enough that maybe we should have waited for a calmer time or area. Anyways we both fell off our boards once to start and then again after about 30 minutes. Heather unfortunately banged her ankle on the board when falling.

We showered again and then went down for a drink before dinner. Turns out Stefanie is an ER nurse and so was able to help out with Heather’s ankle (basically keeping down inflammation).

We were joined by a couple more people today, Bill (UK) and Bibeka (sp?) (Denmark) who were island hopping on an organized kayak tour around Kadavu.

Dinner was excellent again. Went through plans for tomorrow (mantas and snorkeling in the morning, and then kayaking through the mangroves to a small waterfall in the afternoon).