Day 21 - 10/23/22 - Lautoka, Fiji

 Right on schedule just before 7am we slowly passed through the reefs and entered the harbor at Lautoka.  We pivoted slightly to starboard and nestled up to the container ship dock with the large letters "LAUTOKA" painted on the warehouse roof.  Lautoka is known for its sugar processing activity  and the white smoke or steam wax gushing from its sugar mill's tall chimney.  

Our snorkeling group for the tour organized by Hanna P met in the Ocean Bar on Deck 3.  It turned out that there were 25+ of us.  Hanna played "cat herder" and we all got off the ship together and quickly found our contact person.  Most of us had paid in advance, but a few last minute bookers paid slightly more in cash at the dock.  Soon our powered catamaran pulled up across the dock from the Westerdam and we boarded.  The plan for the day was to travel 26 miles off the coast from Lautoka to 3 islands and snorkel at each one of them.  Two of three islands were used for filming the movie Cast Away and the television show Survivor 43.  Besides snorkeling, there would be a beach barbecue and an opportunity to hike up a mountain which was a scenic point in the Cast Away movie while the bulk of us did the beach walk to scene locations from the movie and survivor.  I'd also note that the two large islands belong to one tribal chief and his permission is required to land on either.  If permission is granted, it's a $10/person fee. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

We left the dock area and went to another dock where we picked up a spare battery.  Hmm, I wonder what's up?  Better to be prepared I guess.  Outside of the port area the captain pushed the throttles to the full position and the 4 300hp Suzuki outboards came to life and propelled us forward at about 26 miles per hour.  I sat in the back and it was quite loud but I didn't get splashed on very much.  They served water, soda, and local Fijian beer.  The beer was actually quite good compared to the Space Needle beer I had at lunch the previous day. Because of the engine noise the hour plus of transit time was spent in virtual silence with little communication between passengers.

We finally arrived at our first stop which was a small sand bar island (Mana Island) which had some nice coral surrounding it.  I donned my snorkeling gear and was second off the boat.  Immediately I saw lots of fish.  I waited for Angela, but finally gave up and started my snorkel.  There were lots of beautiful coral and many smaller fish.  Many of those fish were Sargeant fish.  At one point I held out my hand and many of them would come up and take a nibble of my finger.  Their mouths weren't big enough to pierce my skin and draw blood.  It was more of a tickling sensation.  I shot some video of the experience and it was cool to review later.  Besides the beautiful coral, I found a couple of blue starfish.  In the coral formations there were a number of iridescent small blue fish but I couldn't easily photograph them.  This was an excellent introduction to snorkeling in Fiji.

Back on the boat, we counted off to make sure nobody was left behind.  Nobody was and we headed off to the next snorkeling location at Mono Island.  Arriving there, we saw a Captain Cook Exporations ship anchored, but didn't see any activity.  We were also instructed to not go ashore but follow the leader snorkeling to the reef.  Again I was in the water and waited for Angela (I'm a fast learner).  The water was really deep and we snorkeled to the reef area where there was extremely pretty coral, but not many fish.  In about a half an hour we snorkeled back to the catamaran and once again did a head count.

Survivor 43 used this beach.

Our captain then drove us across the bay to Monoriki Island where we were transported by a small open boat to the beach.  I would have preferred to snorkel to the beach as getting in the small boat was a bit dangerous and tricky to board.  One participant was terrified of this prospect because she had been on another cruise where a passenger was crushed between a tender and the ship. We were on the cruise before that incident.  On this island, we were served a lunch of chicken and fish which had been cooked in a sand pit accompanied by salad and fruit.  It was really tasty.  Afterwards, part of the group climbed the mountain which was used in the hanging scene in Cast Away, and many of the rest of us did the beach walk which was interesting and we got to see locations where the Cast Away movie was filmed.  After the beach walk, we snorkeled (okay, but not as good as the first two places) until around 2:30pm when once again we boarded the small boat and were ferried back to the catamaran.  Interestingly, the outboard motor on the small boat had to be started with a rope cord as the electric starter did not work. And that process did not always go well.

We did the customary person count and all we accounted for.  We then took about an hour and 20 minutes to return to the port.  We arrived back at 4pm which was a half of an hour before the required onboard time.  We showered and went up to deck nine forward to watch the departure which would take us through the mangroves.  4:30pm came and went and there was no sign of our departure.  I could see the Captain in the bridge wing area scanning with his binoculars. Finally around 5pm a bus escorted by a police car came rolling into the port.  Those shore excursion passengers boarded the ship and the Captain, who could see me, gave a big smile.  And quickly the lines were let go and we used thrusters and azipods to move the ship away from the dock with accompanying loud toots of the ship's horn.  We backed up a bit and then pivoted 90º to the starboard, began forward movement and sailed through the mangroves out into the open sea.  Once there, there was a long blast of the horn signifying goodbye to the local pilot who always accompanies the ship on its arrivals and departures.  

We had dinner with Erik and Marilyn in the Lido Pool area (we're setting a new record for the number of times we have eaten there).   Afterwards, they went to the Step One Dance Company "In Tandem" show while we passed on that and went back to our stateroom to watch Cast Away so we could compare scenes from the movie with our day's experiences. They did!

Tonight our clocks go back another hour to match the local time of our next port Noumea, New Calendonia which we will reach in two days time.  Once I prepared for bed, I laid down and was instantly asleep without having put on the CPAP mask.  About 4:30am, I awakened and put it on.  I must have been tired from all of the snorkeling.  That's a good kind of tired, and I didn't feel tired.  But the absence of my mask was hard on my daily O2 statistics.  If there's interest I might write about my journey with sleep apnea and treatment regimens. Drop a comment or email me if this might be of interest.