Thanksgiving in Fiji

Looks like this will most likely be the resort we stay at. Mantaray Island - http://www.mantarayisland.com/index.htm I like how they advertise their Jungle Juice.

3rd Annual Savusavu South Pacific Music Festival

A musical safari through the islands November 22 – 25, 2006

So we arrive on November 23rd late - and we have 2 days of the south pacific world music festival left for us to enjoy. Not sure how to swing tickets and stuff - but sounds like a great thing to go see!

http://www.fijiresort.com/SavusavuMusicFest06.shtml <<<<<<<

Diving in Fiji

Short general intro to the diving areas in Fiji: http://www.fiji-travel.com/scuba-diving.html

Blurb about the seasonal diving conditions from www.undercurrent.org: Fiji's weather presents a real mixed bag. The choice is often between good visibility and cool water or warm water and calmer seas with less visibility. June through October is the dry season when the water is the clearest, but it's also at its coldest and the winds kick up. Water temperatures can sink into the low 70s during this time of the year, making it necessary to drag out the full wetsuits. November brings a transition period. The water warms up, the winds die down, and the plankton blooms, lowering the visibility. By January and February, the water has warmed back up into the low 80s. The rains pick up and the hurricane season is on (December through March). Counting Tonga and Samoa, the area gets about five cyclones a year. It's a risky time to try to catch good diving weather. Because the winds kick up so much in February and March, some resorts pick these months to close down for repairs. During April and May, the wind, and therefore the seas, become calmer and the water remains warm, but the plankton bloom cuts down on the underwater visibility. Of course, this offers the best odds of seeing large plankton eaters. The best time to go depends on your preferences: warm, calmer, cloudy seas, or clear but cold water.

They also reccommend bringing wetsuits, a compass and devices for signalling a boat (i.e. the big tube thingys or strobes) because Fiji has some fairly strong currents.

Kadavu

One of the islands that caught my eye when I was checking out a guide book earlier this summer is Kadavu. It's the 4th largest island in the chain and is barely inhabited: less than 10k people on an island about the size of Austin, and no real roads or cities. http://www.fiji.gov.fj/publish/page_796.shtml It's supposed to have some great flora and fauna, but it's main appeal is its proximity to the Great Astrolabe Reef, a fairly large reef with a bunch of dive spots.

There only appear to be a few places to stay on the island, and most of them are moderately expensive, but this one is pretty reasonably priced (between US $8 and US $40 per person per night) and offers scuba expeditions with "recently purchased" equipment. http://www.waisalimafiji.com/start.htm We should try to check it out and see if we can find any reviews or info in the guide books.

Yasawa group

The Yasawa group of islands is a chain in the north western part of the country we might want to check out. Apparently my resort on Kadavu got pretty mediocre reviews in the guide books, and Ryan's father is worried that Kadavu might be a bit on the primitive side for his mother and sister (the idea of not being able to access a store could very well send his sister into some sort of coma).

Here are a couple of reasonably priced resorts in the Yasawas that got good ratings in the guide books (less than $20 US per night in the dormintory)

http://www.oarsmansbay.com/

http://www.octopusresort.com/index.shtml

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Ryan's sister sez

Im forwarding you the info that i found out about Fiji from my friend. Let me know if you had any other questions. I will ask my other friend Rob as well and let you know what he says.

So we flew into nadi and stayed at the nadi bay resort. It's a really cool place with 2 restaurants and a bunch of bars, i would definitely recommend it if you plan on staying in nadi. the nicest thing about it was that we were able to get our own apartment so we had our own room, bathroom, everything. it was great-plus it had ac which is nice. then we went to beachcomber island, which is more of a party island, we stayed in a premium bure there. it was really nice and the island was a lot of fun-lots of really good food too. there was another island right across from it called treasure island which is much more family oriented. we were only there for about a half hour but it looked really boring. the last island we went to is mana. the island is gorgeous but the backpackers hostel is very much not. it's called rakutini-definitely do not stay there. that was the bad one we were telling you about, its gross. the island is really pretty though. if you want to go to mana there was a resort that looked really nice and people seemed to enjoy. they said the food was somewhat mediocre but the island is gorgeous.

yeah, so those are all the places we went. we also did this really cool waterfall day tour when we were in nadi which i would definitely recommend. you get to participate in a kava ceremony and hike up to a waterfall and swim in it and they take you on a tour of a fijian village. it was very cool, one of my favorite parts of the trip.

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