Fiji

Just got back from the mamanuca and yasawa islands in fiji. Got quite an expensive tour but its been worth it 12 days cruising around island hopping some of the most beautiful landscapes I have seen. Its been a fantastic few days, but as i havent got much time I'll just give you the highlights:

Caving underwater...snorkelling through underwater caves and swiming under a rock to get in so excillarating... even if did get bitten by sea lice

Coral snorkelling, did loads of it even in the blue lagoon (Brooke Shields film) and by the island Castaway (tom hanks) was set on superb nevber seen anything like it

Boat trips...spent 2 days drinking Kava on the wanataki Kayak and a day cruise on the seaspray...great fun

Swimming with Manta rays...sooo big these things are enormous and so graceful even if they do look a bit like predator...

Lots of chilling and island life in general...man i could settle up here...

any way more when i have more time

Peace Out

Bobble

sun is shining the weather is sweet

and at last having the island experience we were hoping for...so far i have snorkeled...made an umu kai feast from scratch with the help of an old crazy islander called Piri Purito III - boxing champ and coconut climber extrodinaire - basically kids dig a big hole in your back yard fill it with volcanic stones...light a fire and heat them up...then soak chicken (or meat of your choice) in sea water, and wait for the stones to heat up....then flatten them out - stuff the chicken with leaves, and wrap them in banana leaves softened on the fire...cover the fire with banan bark...put the chickens round the outside then use salted lamb necks and spinachin a big pile on a few banana leaves wrap them up as well and stick them in the middle throw on root vegetables of your choice and a pumpkin cover with umbrella leaves and go snorkelling for a few hours - come back get some coconuts from trees hack open and use grated coconut as a nice side...if you find any spprouted ones use them as desert and an afterdinner chewing gum!...good stuff...(by the way Piri also makes the best BBQed tuna ever!) anyway finally having a good laugh in the sun met lots of lovely peeps and having a thoroughly good crack getting drunk on rarotongan lager (at 6% it does the trick)!

sun is shining the weather is sweet

and at last having the island experience we were hoping for...so far i have snorkeled...made an umu kai feast from scratch - basically kids dig a big hole in your back yard fill it with volcanic stones...light a fire and heat them up...then soak chicken (or meat of your choice) in sea water, and wait for the stones to heat up....then flatten them out - stuff the chicken with leaves, and wrap them in banana leaves softened on the fire....puth the round the outside then use salted lamb necks and spinachin a big pile on a few banana leaves wrap them up as well and stick them in the middle throw on root vegetables of your choice and a pumpkin cover with umbrella leaves and go snorkelling for a few hours - come back get some coconuts from trees

Rain Stops Play

Hello world from the cook islands...so you thought you had rain at glastonbury..pah thats nothing compared to the torrential downpour we had for our first 4 days in the cooks...at one point we thought our beach house was going to come down!...its been nicer the last few though have got up to me waist in the water so far hopefully it will be warm enough to actually snorkel tommorow if the rain blasts it down....went to probably the worst night ever last night full of idiot trustafarian backpackers, met a few nice locals but they were more interested in scoring an english slapper than actually talking. Ahhh the english abroad...still the scourge of the seven seas... Hopefully will do a bit more roaming now its brightened up...off to the other main island monday...will report again when i actually have some news...oh and thanks for all those b'day e-cards keep em coming! (shame you cant put fivers in them though hehehehe)