Fiji 2014 Day 8 – Matamanoa Island

Woke up at 615am to check out the sunrise. The wind was still blowing quite strongly and it was a little chilly. The sun hasn’t really come to the horizon yet and so I tried to hide from the wind by viewing from the restaurant. After a while, the sun started to peek out from the horizon. Took some shots and went back to bed.

Woke up again at 930am, so we freshened up and proceeded to breakfast. Continental breakfast was included, consisting of mostly pastries and cereals. As we arrived nearly close to closing time, the waiter helped us get some fruits so that we could quickly grabbed some pastries, how thoughtful.

After breakfast, went to the dive shop to inform of the snorkel that I didn’t return the day before and also at the same time, booked the Modriki trip for myself, cause my wife wasn’t really feeling great to go out to sea. Visited the reception again to confirm with Seaspray on my cancellation and full refund and it was confirmed and they would write me an email on that.

Went back to the room first before I headed out to snorkel. It was high tide going to low and thus it was a little difficult to swim against the current back to shore. Seen quite a number of fishes and some amount of corals, all of which were very close to water surface. Also getting used to the waterproof camera bags to shoot underwater pictures.

Went back to the room quite exhausted and took a quick shower and fell asleep till 1pm, and proceeded to lunch.

Ordered a club sandwich for myself and it was mighty huge! I couldn’t finish all of the bread as it was simply too much. Stayed awhile to enjoy the sea view.

We went for a walk on the beach at the opposite side to our resort. Again, a long stretch of white sand and turquoise waters welcomed us. We strolled till we reached the near end of the beach where rocks continued. Didn’t want to risk slipping on these rocks since we were in slippers, made a u-turn back to our room. Lazed around till we fell asleep on the day bed.

Woke up at 5pm and I went to explore the island by myself. There was a road that led to a fork, one dirt road going up the hill while the other connected to a bridge, which I took that sent me to the other side of the island. The villas with private dip pools lined that side of the island, with a direction that faced the sunrise view (ours had the sunset view). Went past the villas onto the beach and there was where we left off in the afternoon walk.

I continued onto the rock areas in an attempt to circle around this smaller island. Managed to go to the furtherest point that had a clear view ahead but couldn’t go further since there was a split in the rocks that I felt was too difficult to cross.

Went back around the same way and soon enough I got back to our bure. Immediately I dressed for snorkel round two.

At low tide it was much easier to to swim in the water but difficult too as I was closer to the corals. Saw just as much fishes as in the morning but because it was nearing sunset, there wasn’t much illumination through the water surface. But it was a great trip out nonetheless.

Sunset was close and got some shots of it before heading back. The view was kinda disappointing compared to the view the day before as there were clouds at the horizon getting in the way of the view. Got back for a shower before we proceeded for dinner.

At dinner, pretty much was similar to the nite before. Ordered fish for myself and my wife had curry vegetables. Didn’t had the fanciful desert with live demo as we weren’t in the mood of having deserts since the mains were pretty filling.

We left after finishing dinner and went back to the room to rest. Spent the night naming photos, as we were almost halfway through our holiday and my wife watched drama on her phone since there weren’t internet or tv in the room at all. But it was ok.