After a few days, we’re finally going snorkelling again. We take the boat out onto the reef on the Coral Coast. Visibility is up to 20 metres with a moderate current. Blue starfish, parrotfish, clownfish and hundreds of others that I don’t recognise. If you haven’t snorkelled in Fiji, you don’t know what colours are.
We dive down to 5 metres along a small reef wall. At the very bottom there are some killer clams up to half a metre long. I want to tease them a bit, but wiggling the water isn’t enough to get them to close up. I still need my hand, so no shell flaps.
Huge schools of colourful fish hide in anemones and corals. The small canyons between the rocks are teeming with the brightest colours. The sun casts its rays through the clear water. A black and white sea snake hides in the sand. It’s hard to describe everything else we saw. Fortunately, my roommates Roy and Neil had underwater cameras with them.
In the afternoon, I try to weave a very simple Fiji palm hat, which an employee has tried to teach me three times. After almost an hour, I give up, annoyed. He made it look so infinitely easy.
A few new guests arrived the night before and the Fiji Beach House is full again. The proportion of women is a breathtaking 75%. I extended my stay again in exchange for free snorkelling and a one-hour, intense Bula massage. The woman had the voice of a witch and the hands of a magician.
Surfers from the neighbourhood joined us in the evening. Good guitar players, freestyle singing with far too many beers. One of them tells me that near Sigatoka, half an hour to the west, a stable wind system has been blowing a good 20 knots for days. I have to go there.
With Aline, an absolute sunshine from Frankfurt, we head to the large sand dunes in Sigatoka the next day. My blues aren’t over yet, but just watching her live makes them much more melodic. We run up and down the 50 metre high dunes in the rain. Aline is happy about flowers, pigs, rainbows, surfing, actually everything like a little child. I want to travel like that again. I ask her: “When you fart, it smells like flowers, doesn’t it?” Her answer: “No, but I can fart fire”.
After 10 days at Fiji Beach House, it’s time to leave again. I’m the senior here now. Felt at home, so much so that I have to keep travelling. We’ve spent nights out with the Fiji rugby team, lots of money has changed hands at the pool and poker. Bottles were emptied in hammocks and a hundred songs were sung. The sun burned, the jungle ached and the water shone. Time to go.
Frank Woelky, born in 1973. Kitesurfer since 1998. Since 2006, I have been combining kitesurfing and web design on trips lasting several months off the beaten track.