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| The family enjoying a little down time at a resort in the Yasawa islands. |
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| Lily hanging on the flybridge watching Finding Nemo and passing time. |
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| Taking a little time off and enjoying our time at the Blue Lagoon resort in the Yasawa islands. |
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| Lily has become quite the connoisseur of coconut water. She prefers it above all else. |
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| Any resort that has a giant blow up swan in their pool is my kind of resort! |
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| Martin on the shore of Monuriki island aka. Tom Hanks island. |
Before we arrived in Fiji, Martin and I felt that it was only right that we should watch the film Cast Away, starring Tom Hanks, since we knew that it was filmed in Fiji. In fact, we even watched the making of the movie so that we knew everything there was to know about the island, Monuriki (where the film was made). Later we just kept calling it, "Tom Hanks' island" because it was easier to remember than Monuriki island.
When we got to "Tom Hanks' Island" we were running out of time and needed to keep going in the daylight in order to anchor in a safe harbor. However, Martin couldn't help himself and felt so attached to the movie (after we had talked about it's making a thousand times) that he had David hold the boat in place while he jumped off of AMARA and swam to the shore.
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| Martin swimming to the shore of Monuriki island. |
When he got to the island, we noticed that some other Cast Away diehard had taken the time to spell out "Help Me" using coconuts on the sand. Of course, we loved that it was there and Martin quickly found it and ran up to it while I snapped photos of his "rescue."
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| Martin flagging down a "pretend" plane in order to get rescued. |
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Monuriki Isand. No sign of Wilson.
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While in the Yasawa islands, we would stop in just the most random and picturesque spots and go for a swim. Here, Martin and Lily took a jump in the water together. Lily is becoming less and less afraid of the water (finally!) and loves to get in and go for a whirl.
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| A beautiful deserted beach only reachable by boat. Love it! |
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A giant clam shell.
A typical LDS (Mormon) chapel in Fiji |
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After traveling through the Yasawa's we headed back to Port Denarau to do some minor repairs on Amara and just in time for Fiji Day. So, of course, Sue and I had to participate and went out and bought Fiji shirts and press on tattoos of the Fiji flag. Lily was a hit with the locals because we did a little tattoo on her face with the press on tattoos of the Fiji flag. Everywhere we went, a Fijian would walk over to her and kiss her on the cheek where her flag was located and say, "Thank you for loving Fiji." The truth was, we really did! We have just loved our stay in Fiji and can't believe that we have been here over a month! Wow does time fly.
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AMARA celebrating Fiji Day.
This will be my last post for awhile now. We are leaving the land of wi-fi and entering back into the abyss of darkness (aka. no internet). We have really enjoyed our time here in Fiji (as well as the internet) and will miss the kindness of the Fijian people. They are such loving and tender people.
Now we are headed for New Caledonia where we plan to spend a little time there and then quickly head off to Australia! Can you believe it... Australia?! My heart aches a little knowing that this leg of our journey will be coming to an end. We have so loved the South Pacific and will always remember our days here with fondness. Once we arrive in Brisbane, Martin and I will be taking off to do some trekking in New Zealand and do more discovering in Australia. We haven't designated a time that we'll return to the states because frankly, we just haven't even talked about it. Right now we are in the moment and still enjoying our travels.
Until New Caledonia... keep following us, it's not over by a long shot.
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