Sailing the Yasawa Islands

After our interesting first day in Fiji we had to be up early the next day.  The boat that runs daily to the Yasawa islands leaves at 8 a.m. sharp and you have to get there early to get on the boat.   We got in a bus at the hostel and made our way over to the marina.   Upon arriving at the marina you have to check in your bags first before checking in.  They tag your bag with your final destination and then you go actually check in.   It’s a weird system because you check in your bag and then don’t see it again until you get off the boat and just hope that it ends up in the right place.   We had no issues at all it just seemed like a weird system.

We boarded the boat for our 6 hour boat ride out to the Blue Lagoon resort which was our first stop.   On our way out of the harbor there were two massive yachts.   Apparently one of them is owned by someone from Facebook and the other is owned by someone from Google.

The boat ride is long but it’s also a beautiful trip.   We sat out on the deck in the sun and enjoyed checking out each island as we passed.   This ship is the only way to get to the Yasawa Islands unless you take a sea plane that drops you off at the front door.  As we pass each island it drops off passengers and picks up some that are continuing on to other islands.    This process is remarkably efficient.   Each time we approached an island/resort there were smaller boats already waiting with luggage/passengers.   As soon as the ship stopped they quickly shuffled everything around and we were on our way.

As we made our way further towards the outer islands, the number of people on the ship started to dwindle.  Only the people who were going out that far were on the ship because the ship returns back to all the same places to pick people up for the return journey.    Ashley and I snapped a quick selfie and posted it to facebook.  Katherine McJohnson noted that the guy behind us was really giving us a mean mug.

As I looked around I started noticing that a lot of these guys had ear pieces in.   They were all dressed in a floral pattern type shirt and all seemed like pretty decent size guys.  I looked around and counted about 8 to 10 of these guys on the ship.   Now that most of the passengers were gone they stuck out like a sore thumb.   At each stop they would hop up and be looking over the edges of the boat and looking around.  I noticed one lean over the edge and saw the outline of his pistol on his hip opposite the way he was leaning.  Since were basically in the middle of now where and there should be no threat these guys had to be there protecting someone.  Note the boots in the last photo.  Pretty sure he was the boss as he was chilled in the back the whole time with those two bags between his legs for the whole ride while everyone else was all over the boat.

We finally made it to the Blue Lagoon (the last stop supposedly) but all these guys stayed on the boat.  We hopped off our boat and made our way onto our little boat.   As we sat down the guy driving the boat said, “Do you guys know who was on the boat with you”.   I replied, “No, but I did notice there was some extremely heavy security on there for some reason.”  He said, “Yeah, that’s because the prime minister of Fiji was sitting in the VIP section inside on that ship”.    Ahhhh, it all makes sense now!

As we made our way into shore we got our first glimpse of where our next 4 days would be spent.   The weather was perfect and we saw crystal clear water and a beach that looked like it was out of a magazine.   As we exited the boat we were greeted with 2,000 Bula’s and a traditional song sung by the staff at the resort.

Fiji was expensive and this resort in particular was expensive.   For the first time on our trip we opted to pick a dorm room.  We had read that the dorms here were nice and they weren’t bunk beds.   We made our way to the room and we were pleased that it really was a great room.    We settled in and started to relax now that we were not longer in a city with millions of people!  We quickly made our way over the the restaurant to grab a very late lunch and take in the view.   We were not disappointed!