Fiji Phase 20- Week 4-5

Tuesday 9^th: Rations arrive, everyone was delighted (HURRAY! from Tom). Vicky cut her hair into a really cool fringe.....

Wednesday 10^th: Fish points all day which were really good fun. Gav and Chaz were clearly the best spotters since phase 2. We had burgers for dinner thanks to Paul. James had more mayonnaise than he bargained for!

Thursday 11th: Yet again Gav and Chaz impressed staff and volunteers with flawless size-esting. One might say they were trainees in the making. Dr Alex Warner was bottom of the class yet again but we love him and he is a really good doctor.

Friday 12^th: Ladies night, ladies from the village came to our camp for a fun filled night of cakes bingo and dancing. James and Tom sought to woo the Fijian ladies with their rendition of the popular anthem YMCA. Scottish dancing followed in which Gav and Debs excelled. Before the night was done the cheeky girls (Gav and Chaz) made an appearance and the guilty party are now referred to as the cheeky boys by the Fijian ladies.

Saturday 13^th: Fun dive at Sirens and a new dive site was christened ‘DEVIZES’ after the famous market town in the heart of Wiltshire, England. JoJo’s birthday was met with a fantastic sponge cake courtesy of Deborah.

Sunday 14^th: Classic village day consisting of food, sleep, church, food, sleep, food. A good day had by all!

Monday 15^th: More fish points in the day followed by a lads + Vicky night dive, manly!

Tuesday 16^th: The start of arguably the best week on camp so far. We’ve had a big feast thanks to Ben ‘the hairy hunk fisherman’ Lewis for catching a big coral grouper. Big shout out to Vicky’s mum who kindly donated pancake mixture that was appreciated by all.

Wednesday 17^th: We woke to a still bay and one word was on everyone’s lips.... ‘Namena’. Sprits were high as we waited for the decision; Paul soon announced we were going YES! Two boats went throughout the day and amazing dives were had by all at two sites Grand Central and Chimneys. Everything is bigger and better at Namena and sightings included sharks, turtles and Humphead wrasse.

Thursday 18^th: Picture the scene; Gav fishing in the shallow waters, Vicky sunbathing peacefully, Hahja and JP having a cup of tea, when all of a sudden Ben ‘disturber of the peace’ Lewis shouts “WHALES”!!! We all madly scramble for our kit and Paul took us out on the boat to go and swim with the whales. We did and it was amazing!

Friday 19^th: Invert points, Chaz and Gav top of the class. In the afternoon there was a fundraiser in Navatu for the church, we played volleyball in the afternoon followed by dinner and then plenty of Kava until 12:30am!

Saturday 20^th: Everyone woke up with a Kava Hangover which makes your head feel like smog and your tummy feel like a lead balloon. Camp clean was the last thing we wanted to do but we battled on and were rewarded when Paul, James and Tom went fishing and caught a 30kg Giant Trevally. Gav and Tom came down with the lurgey. The party went on despite the number of sick people. JoJo was showing her best fish impressions.

Sunday 21^st: We went to Raviravi and stayed in a house with a sofa! Much to our delight we had short but song filled church service and delicious communal lunch followed by tea and cake. We had the standard Sunday nap and then standard Sunday Kava. Vicky and Mike then came down with the lurgey.

Monday 22^nd: Half the group went to Kinder and Beni was being his usual self. In the afternoon we started coral points. Learning some of the basic life forms of coral and how to recognise them in the water.

Gav & Chaz

Fiji- Phase 20- Week 3

We woke up on Tuesday ready for a boat dive to the outer reef, it was the first time we had dived on the reef and it was incredible! The visibility was amazing 20-30m and loads of us saw sharks and turtles. JP and Rosie saw their first turtle and had a celebratory dance, Vicky and Hahja created the crazy O.K signal dance and Debs and Eleanor saw a Tawny Nurse Shark. Defiantly the best dive so far. In the afternoon we had a killer volleyball tournament, a 5 team round robin and a final that is yet to be played due to illness and injury.

Wednesday was the day of Ratu Semi’s funeral in Navatu. We had an early start (5.30!) to walk to the village and the sun was just rising when we arrived. The funeral service was held first thing in the morning, the church was full of villagers paying their respects to their Chief but we were privileged enough to be given seats in church for the service. The service was very touching and the priest gave some kind words in English for our benefit. After the service we followed the coffin to the burial site, the young lads of the village carried the coffin and wrapped the casket in woven mats before lowering the coffin into the ground. They then buried Semi with their bare hands as a sign of respect and with speed and dignity they built a surrounding wall around his grave out of stones. Throughout the burial everyone sang hymns, it was very emotional for all the villagers, volunteers and staff. After the burial we spent the rest of the day feasting, drinking Kava and celebrating Semi’s life with his wife Ma, we all felt very privileged to experience something that not many other visitors to Fiji have seen.

The day after the funeral we started our science training; to begin with we started on basic fish anatomy. We also started our in water size estimations whereby we have to estimate the length of different sizes of piping underwater making sure we account for the distortion of the water. Some of us found it difficult to start with but Al seemed very pleased with his effort, we won’t mention his mark!! In the afternoon we had 2 new arrivals, Lorna and JoJo who have just finished degrees in medicine and are joining us for their electives. Due to a huge electrical storm we couldn’t do our night dive but we all had a rain shower on the decking instead.

On Friday we started the day with our Navigation dive, which everyone successfully passed, we then carried on with our size estimations. In the evening group 2 managed to get their night dive done, everyone was excited about the chance to dive the reef at night, we may not have been the most elegant group but we all passed our dive with flying colours. The weekend began on Saturday with a drift dive at Ariel’s, we saw Hawksbill, Loggerhead and Green Turtles, a White tip reef shark and a large Shark sucker. In the evening we had a ‘when I grow up....’ themed party. Some of the best outfits included Rosie’s ballet dancer, Vicky’s P.E Teacher and James’ Ninja outfit .

On Sunday we visited a new village called Namalata, everyone was amazed by the fully functioning toilet which was used to its full benefit! The church was bigger than Navatu but the chief of the village was kind enough to welcome us to the service in English. We sang plenty of songs before a well earned lunch of sausages followed by Kava, of course! Monday morning saw half the group go to Kinder in our village and the afternoon saw us undertake our Deep dive to 30m. Nobody really felt the effects of Nitrogen Narcosis but the dive was wicked. All in all another awesome week in paradise.

Rosie and Vicky