Fidji: Viti Levu/Paradise Harbour: "It's Saturday, they know Papa's coming..."

Who in the world wants to go swimming with dolphins when instead you could be diving with sharks? Lukas and me definitely wanted to go for that second option in Fidji where you can book a special diving trip where you can see numerous different sharks as their feed by the crew. But as Lukas finally decided to rather spend his time on the nice Yasawa beaches, this job was up to me. It's tough, but hey, somebody's gotta do it, right?! ;-)
On the boat to the divesite I actually asked myself: Where have all the good times gone when I was still happy and entertained just kicking a football or drinking beer? Where does that need come from to jump out of perfectly working airplanes or go swimming with sharks? But nevermind, no time to think about it as the captain introduced himself and his crew: "Hello, my name is Papa, I'll be your captain for today and I'll also do some of the sharkfeeding later on. Today is saturday, so they'll be already waiting. They know Papa is coming..." Oh sweet, Paps, thanks so much for that, We all feel so much better now.
As this was obviously no ordinary dive. Also the briefing for it was a lot more detailed, not just the usual "Alright guys, here's the a cool riff, here's bit of current, let's go´, have fun!"No, this time there's detailed instructions, we're diving in a tight corset this time, so to speak. Dive to 30m, kneel down behind a small corall wall watch the first feeding, when that's done dive up to 10m, second feeding, and after that back to the boat, hopefully everybody in one piece.
Even though there were no Great White Sharks waiting for us just below the surface, a lot of other big fish definitely knew that we would be coming: As soon as we were in the water there's school after school of different fish (I'm really bad with names, with humans just as with fish...) and further down you could already see the first shadows of sharks with their distinct body form silently moving around like shadows, awaiting us and our food for them.
After all ten divers had taken their assigned place and also the dive masters "guarding" us with iron sticks were in place, the show began: The crew on the boat let down a huge bin with dead fish and even before he cracked its seal, the feeder was surrounded by what seems like a cyclone of fish swirling around him, awaiting food. Giant Groopers, Giant Trevally, Surgeonfish, among other are there as well as the promised wide range of sharks, Black and White Tip Sharks, Grey Reef Sharks, Nurse Sharks, Lemon Sharks and Bull Sharks, longer about 2,5m length and weighing more than 200 pounds the heavyweights of the dive.
During the second feeding on 10m depth there were only smaller fish and sharks, but they were much closer which makes it even scarier than the first feeding. Even though the smaller sharks species are much smaller than a human being, there still easily recognisable as sharks and therefore plain scary. When the swim past you just a few feet away or actually swim towards you for a second before going for the food again, you realise that (at least in this regard) size doesn't matter.
After about 40 minutes of diving we surfaced again, rested on the boat and got briefed for the second dive which is even scarier than the first briefing. Because after the general directions (Follow us down to 15m, lay down behind the coral wall and STAY THERE!! until we give the signal to surface again) "Papa" gave us a few hints just in case one of the two tigersharks that sometimes show in the area should turn up. It was equally horrifying, exciting and fascinating hearing about "Doris"and "Scarface", the two 4 and 5,5 meter long ladies: For example that they used to rip out the big box with food out of its anchorage or that we HAVE TO stay lying down until told otherwise they might incidentaly hit us with their backfin and wouldn't feel so great.
However, we didn't get to experience the ultimate thrill of Doris or Scarface visiting that day, unfortunately or Thank God, who knows. But still, "just" the ten to 15 bull sharks being fed was quite a sight to behold: Like the toreros in Spain the feeder played with the sharks, guiding them past him with the food and mere split seconds after he let go of the food one of them was crushing it with its huge mouth. During this, our "guards" were again all over the place and one also behind the feeder to watch his back. On top of that, the feeder's torso and right arm and hand were protected by a chain mail he's wearing under his wet suit. I would guess that if it was tested, shark feed on chain mail, the latter would be as strong a protection as burger buns are for the meat between them. But it looks cool and probably helps at least in a psychological way. So the feeder did his shark-torero-thing, dancing with sharks (Mr. Costner, a follow-up to you succesful movie maybe?!), sometimes he also went up a couple of metres, letting fall the food and letting the sharks "hunt" for it.
However, having described this incredible experience I also have to put my own heroism into persective: Just as the whole thing was exciting, fascinating and thrilling, it was also perfectly planned and carried out. There was never a feeling of being in real danger. During the second dive I actually spent more time thinking about my urge to go pee and about how cold I was than about the numerous bull sharks which are by the way considered the most dangerous shark species for humans next to the Great White Sharks and the Tigersharks.

P.S.: As I don't call a good underwater camera my own and as my fellow divers of that day haven't sent me any pictures yet (and probably now won't anymore), I can only show you the few above-water-pictures I took with my camera. If you're interest in more informations and pictures about this kind of diving trip, check out www.fiji-sharks.com.

Out of the frying pan into the fire...

After almost two weeks of island hopping my stay in Fidji came to an end. As mentioned in the last bog entry there was only a very short goodbye between me and Matthias when he was going from the Yasawa ferry towards one of the resorts while I was coming from another ressort boarding the ferry. The dark clouds at that moment should have told me that there would be one hell of a ride waiting for me.
As soon as the ferry had left the wind protected bay, it pretty much got its ass kicked by Big Papa Pacific: Waves between four and five meters high made the boat - after all a pretty big 45m long catamaran - dance as if it was a little raft. Soon the first passengers were gripping the white paperbags in front of them, while the usual group of drunk english guys shouted and laughed as if they were on a roller coaster ride. However, by the time its route led the ferry further away from the islands towards the open sea the fun was over for everybody: The waves became even higher, the passengers grew even more silent if that's possible. The lowlight came shortly afterward when suddenly in all that jumping around a life raft came loose and had to be fastened again by the crew while the boat was getting heavily beat by the elements. To add even more fun to the ride, it became quickly apparent that the boat wasn't entirely airtight: Heavy drops were dripping steadily down the ceiling of the cabin and with every other big wave (read: pretty much with every wave) water also splashed in through the doors which couldn't be completely shut.
It wasn't until the boat reached Beachcomber Island that the elements allowed it and the passengers to catch their breath again. At least so I thought up until the boat came to an abrupt stop with a loud scratching sound that promised nothing too good. Complete silence befell the cabin, on the outside the wind was still howling and the waves breaking, and when the motors growled and the scratching continued, everybody realized what had happened: In the darkness the captain had "landed" the ship on a coral reef and now couldn't free it. At that time it was already 7.30pm, the ship was hours behind schedule, but theoretically we were only half an hour away from the harbor. The delay was more than just a small nuisance, because at 10pm my flight was leaving towards LA.
9pm: Finally a backup ferry arrives to get the passengers to the harbor. 9.40pm: The backup reaches the harbor (Good job captain!). 10pm: we're told that our flight, by that time probably already filled with the other 459 people, would be waiting for the six off us that we're still on the ferry. 10.10pm: At the airport, finally, now hurry: Passport? Got it! Boarding ticket? Got it! Visa application number?.... Shit.....
At this point I also have to ask: Why the hell do you have to fill out two copies of the same shitty application for the so-called "land of the free", one for the customs officer, one for the Department of Homeland Security? That seems even stupider when the application to be filled out is full of ridiculous questions like "Do you plan on dealing with drugs?" What kind of answer does the Department of Homeland Security expect to get here? "Hell yeah, I'll get rid of the 10 pounds of coke that are in my backpack, buy an atomic bomb with the drug money, blow up the White House and dance Lambada on its ruins!!"
But hey, what the hell, so we all filled out the stupid visa application (At least I wasn't the only one that had forget his application number), right before the Check-In-Counter closed, basically ran through the security check, off to the gate and with a last quick "Bula!" we're off to LA.
What's kind of funny though: Right before our last flight together we had joked about how cool it would be just to be sitting in front of the gate and wait for the flight attendants to call out your name as the last passenger remaining to get on the flight, to personally invite you to join the flight, so to speak. Having been forced to live that situation for real now I can definitely say: Matthias, don't try it, it's not fun, it's bad enough that one of us had to go through that experience!

Fidji: There's two sides to every story...

First of all, as it has been a major event worldwide (and for that was "on our way" also), we'd like to pay a short tribute to the King of Pop, the late Michael Jackson. Whatever character flaws he may have had, whatever he did wrong in his life, you just can't help it to salute to man with such incredible musical talent and devotion. May he now find the peace (and the right colour of skin) that he couldn't get up until his death...
Well, and with that we'll gon back to business.

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Fidji... yeah, take that word in, let it make another round through your brain... yes, can you see the pictures coming all by themselves? What's there left to describe with mere words? ;-)
Well, whatever paradise-like pictures you have in mind of when thinking of Fidji, we can definitely confirm all of them. The pure beauty of the Fidji islands is just as real as all the other clischés about it (and about all the other South Pacific paradise-like islands, for that matter): The amazing beaches, the friendly locals, flowers in their hair and Hawaii-Shirts on (actually, are they called Fidji-shirts here?!), the typical kind of weird, but nevertheless nice Fidji music with guitars, ukulele and beautiful singing.
Following the advice of all the Fidji-travellers that we have met so far on our journey, we left the main island Viti Levu as soon as possibe and started some serious island hopping through the Yasawa islands, Fidji's main tourist destination. For that regard it is of course pretty touristy, however, there is of course a reason to it that most of the people visiting Fidji come to the Yasawas instead of going on one of the other over 300 Fidjian islands: The Yasawas offer you the kind of stunning beauty you comee looking for in Fidji, there's tons of rather cheap accomodation and getting around is fairly easy and not too expensive compared to the flights or day-long ferry cruises that are necessary to reach some of the other Fidjian islands.
The Yasawas, that means on the one hand the most beautiful side of Fidji: Dreamy sandy beaches with more shades of turquois in one square meter of water than in all the other beaches of the world combined; scenic vulcanic islands and corall reefs; tiny islands that are hardly more than a round beach with a palm tree forest in the middel; etc. However, our "vacation from travelling" also revealed the not so nice sides of Fidji to us which became especially apparent when the weather won't let you go explore the beaches and reefs mentioned above. Because those are the times when you sit in your tiny bungalow dorm or the common room and suddenly realize the really low standards of pretty much everything in some of the ressorts: almost primitive accomodation, hardly more "luxurious" than camping, really bad food (and you don't have a choice on the islands, if you don't wanna starve you have to eat in the ressort!), the Fidjian wildlife you really didn't want to encounter, from huge cockroaches to equally huge rats and spiders, etc. So you enjoy all of those sitting around uselessly, playing cards or writing diary while outside mean winds and rain threaten to rip apart the house you're in.
On top of that, I (Matthias) got some, hm, let's call them "digestional problems", shall we, after a couple of days and went back to the main island to at least be in some sort of civilization in case it would get worse. Lukas stayed on the islands and eventually this meant our premature split-up: Because first Lukas postponed his return from the islands, then later on I postponed my general departure from Fidji and due to the lack of proper communication means our goodbyes after six months of travelling together just happened by accident: He was on his way from one of the ressorts to the ferry, I was on my way from the ferry to another ressort, a couple of short sentences screamed across the water and that was it, c ya, have fun.
During the next couple of days I continued travelling through the Yasawas, while Lukas was already on his way to the airport to fly to LA when we said goodbye that day. Judging by the increasingly dark sky I could count myself lucky being the one leaving the ferry and not have to spend some seven hours more on it. But that's another story that's best told by Lukas himself :-)