South Sea Island
September 5th, 2006
Fiji time: 3rd August 2006 – 5th August 2006
On our return from Mantaray we decided we still had enough time to squeeze in two nights at South Sea Island. South Sea is situated in the Mamanucas and is only 25mins from the mainland. It is a tiny Island….you can walk around it in 4 minutes….which is frequented by daytrippers. However it has a small dormitory so you are able to stay on the Island with 15 or so others.
The thinking behind our visit to South Sea was based around our new found hobby of scuba diving. Keen to use our qualification and to dive together again we booked our 6th dive for our second day on the Island, almost immediately following our arrival.
Whilst on the Island we bumped (I told you it was a small Island) into Ollie – a friend we had made on Mantaray. The nights entertainment was organised by Fordy the diving instructor from Middlesborough and consisted of crab racing and drinking games. Both mine and Ollie’s crabs made it to the final but I had to bow to the superiority of Uncle Albert who was coaxed to his connvincing win by Ollie’s loud cheers from the sideline.
Drinking games followed and we all became fully aquainted. One of the funniest people we have met so far on our trip has to be Vincent….a 24 year old Dutch guy who proceeded to have us in stitches all night. Following the drinking games we all shifted to the beach where we all sat around a bonfire until the early hours.
The next day was surprisingly hangover free for us although not everyone on the Island was so fortunate. We kicked of the day by going fish feeding. Ollie, Chris and myself headed out in the boat and snorkelled whilst bread was thrown in. There was loads of fish who eventually built up the courage to eat the bread out of our hands. We decided to ditch the boat and swam back to the Island via the reefs.
The afternoon of day 2 saw us diving and our first wreck dive. 3 years ago a ship not dissimilar to a viking ship was sunk off the Island (deliberately). The ship sits at its deepest at about 22m deep (we are only qualified to dive to 18m). On the deck of the ship sat large potato cod which looked pretty angry and followed us around the wreck. By the ships mast was a group of batfish which looked nothing like either Chris or I imagined.
We spent about ten minutes at the wreck which we both found rather eerie and then proceeded to swim to coral bommies in the shallowers waters. We saw boxfish, clown fish and numerous others but to Chris’s bitter disapointment he still had not seen a shark.
Chris was so disapointed he was seriously thinking of doing a shark dive (where they bring the sharks in by feeding them!)…..which I had been doing my best to try and talk him out of on the basis we were only on our 6th dive. Chris eventually came round to my way of thinking but was not leaving the Island without giving it one more try. Chris and another lad called Dean went out snorkelling about 2hours before we were due to leave. Whilst they were out Dean, who was nearer the shore than Chris spotted a shark and somewhat startled raised his head to call Chris…before swimming with his best windmill armstroke as quick as he could to the shore. Chris who had not heard Dean saw the shark, which was later estimated to be about 2m, swim right in front of him.
Although the shark was probably more shocked than either Chris and Dean (and was later dentified as a white tip reef shark), Chris turned to see Dean bezzing it back and decided he too should get out fast also. The sunbathers on the beach were greeted by two English lads running out the sea shouting “shark, shark!” causing one lady to promtly return her kayak which she had just hired. Both lads were pretty euphoric to have finally seeen a shark which for Chris was the perfect end to a perfect holiday in Fiji.
Tags: Fiji
Chris and Charl
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