Departed the US on schedule sitting in
the first row behind the cockpit upstairs on a Jumbo. Unfortunately,
with Air Pacific, these are economy seats. The flight was as exciting
as you can imagine a 10 hour night flight over the ocean would be. We
arrived in Nadi just before 0530 local time (still dark) after
completely missing the 13th July, due to crossing the
International date line. After a sleepy snack at the airport, we took
another “interesting” taxi ride to Denarau Marina for our ferry
over to Castaway Island. I now know what happened to all the rusty
Datsun's that used to be in the UK. They were exported to Fiji to
form the taxi fleet. 250,000 miles and still going (just).
Got to the marina to sunrise and more
waiting. At 0900 we finally boarded the boat and got moving again.
With our stop last the but one on the three hour circuit, we were all
ready for a shower and some food by the time we got to Castaway
Island. The quick tour around the facilities were a bit of a blur and
we were very happy to have finally arrived.
Castaway Island was everything we were
expecting (and hoping) it to be. 60 Bures were dotted among the palm
trees around one corner of the Island, with the remainder left wild.
Each bure had its own set of sun beds and hammock and as our bure was
on the windier south beach, was very quiet. The only drawback to
being the last bure on the beach or to have was that we were next to
the maintenance area.
Over the next five days we all just
ate, slept, swam, snorkelled and canoed our time away. The biggest
decisions being whether to eat from the buffet or the a la carte
menu. At low tide we walked around the shore of the island and at
high tide I canoed around, the only regular disruptions being the
occasional seaplane or helicopter arrival or departure.
With the fantastic service (albeit to
“fiji time”) and the amazing attention to detail (fresh flowers
on the beds every night and Emily at the pool bar greeting us all by
name on our second day), we were not surprised to find that nearly
half of the, mostly Australian, guests are previous visitors.
We were surprised one morning to find a
barge full of building materials aground on the beach outside our
bure. We watched with interest as all the crew struggled to get
everything ashore before the tide came back in and refloated the
barge. It turns out that the resort is about to build new staff
quarters. This break in our peace was the only detraction from a
wonderful stay.
