Jackie's World Tour 2009 – Let the mayhem begin!

Well hello strangers, do you all remember me? I know it has been forever since I have last posted on my blog. In case you don’t remember me I am that totally cool, gorgeous, amazing globetrotting girl that decided to pack herself up, quit her job and travel the world for a year. Ring any bells? Ok, I know, I am embellishing with the cool, gorgeous and amazing parts but all the rest is true. (And yes Mom I know, you think that I am cool, gorgeous and amazing – thanks. Nothing like a supportive Mom!). I am also a bit tired as well. I am getting over a nasty stomach thing which I will call Fiji doesn’t want Jackie to leave so we are going to screw with her insides so she has to change her flight again sickness. It worked but I think I have wormed my way out of it’s coils! Did I mention that I am shacked up right now in a beautiful Radisson hotel complete with hot water and shower ensuite and air conditioning. I know you are all saying huh? Isn’t that normal? Well in Fiji not so much. I spent the last 2 months in a dorm room with no AC just fans that ran from 5pm to 8am in the morning (they turned electricity off during the days) and showers that were basically a pipe coming out of the wall with cold water. Ahhhh…the luxury that is a backpacker on Mana Island. Aren’t you all jealous? LOL

Anyway, it truly has been an amazing 2 months. It has been filled with so many ups and downs and awesome experiences. I am going to try my best to put it all into words but for the sake of your eyes and my hands, it will be a synopsis. It will still probably be long but believe me, I will be leaving lots of stuff out, I am sure.

Fiji as a place is so beautiful it is hard to really put it into words. The natural beauty is astounding. It is a tropical rainforest complete with all that comes with that, good and bad. There are mountains, oceans, flowers, trees, rivers, wild horses, wild pigs, stray dogs (lots of stray dogs), bed bugs, cockroaches the size of my head and of course the wonderful and oh so cuddly mosquitoes! The mosquitoes are my personal favorites cause they added a whole new dynamic when I played connect the dots with my beauty marks. So much fun! Actually all of the annoying things were made bearable by the sheer beauty of the place. Just seeing one of the Fiji sunsets while standing on the beach made it all worth it. Or seeing the amazing turquoise blue of the ocean and the changes in the hues of blue when you were coming close to a reef. And the stars…there are just so many stars! These are the amazing and beautiful things I will remember about Fiji.

And now, I guess I owe you all an explanation as to why I stayed 2 months longer than I intended in Fiji (besides the beauty of it). I have totally fallen in love with scuba diving. Little ol me who pretty much hated the ocean, really didn’t like swimming in the sea and was afraid of almost everything that lived in the ocean is now actually a divemaster which means that I can work in the field of diving if I so wish. So basically I spent 2 months going from an open water diver up through Divemaster (it goes Open water, advanced open water, rescue diver and divemaster – in case anyone was interested). In the course of those 2 months I accumulated 76 dives and by the end I was actually leading my own dives. That means that I was taking other certified divers out to dive sites and leading them around. It has been an amazing experience. So how did this happen..well here it goes…

I knew when I arrived in Fiji that I wanted to get my Open Water certification so I could dive the Greay Barrier Reef in Australia. I figured it would be cheaper to do it in Fiji so the tour desk lady at Smuggler’s Cove (my first hostel on the mainland) suggested that I go to Ratu Kini’s on Mana Island cause they had a great special running and blah, blah, blah. So next morning I arrive at Ratu Kini’s and meet Robert, who will turn out to be my instructor from dive 1 to dive 76! Anyway, Robert is a hot, long haired, ex professional football player (soccer for us Americans) who is now a dive instructor. Not only is he hot but he has an amazing sense of humor. I think I have died and gone to heaven. Major crush going on here. I am thinking that I am going to actually like diving, not because of diving but because of how much time I get to spend with hot Robert. Well turns out on my first dive, I did like diving and not because of Robert (although he did hold my hand the whole dive!) but because it was just so damn cool. I saw so much cool shit that first dive including my very first shark. I was petrified of sharks and after I saw my first one my whole outlook changed. The shark was not even interested in us in the slightest (or any shark that I have seen since then and I have seen ALOT). The whole experience was just phenomenal. I feel in love with diving during that very first dive. So that is how I came to stay on Mana for 2 months. And my love for diving hasn’t even begun to wear off but I will say that my little crush on Rob wore off a long time ago and he is now one of my good friends and my diving mentor.

The other thing besides the diving that kept me in Fiji so long were the friends that I made. I became really good friends with everyone who worked in the dive shop (there were 5 instructors) and we were all like a dysfunctional little family. Nathalie is probably the one (besides Robert) that I spent the most time with and she is amazing. She has been diving since she was 14, knows about 5 different languages, has her boat Capitan’s license, is an unbelievably talented artist and just an nurturing, sweet, amazing woman (man do I wish I was a lesbian!) I also friended alot of the regular staff who were mostly Fijian. Again a very cool group of people. I also got the chance to meet some really amazing travellers that I am hoping to see again down the line. It is weird staying in one place for so long and seeing so many other people come and go. It kind of felt like I was doing something wrong for staying in one spot for so long.

Looking back on these past 2 months, I am glad that I stayed in one spot. I think I like that better than running around a country like a madwoman trying to see every little shit under the sun. I did get off Mana Island a couple of times with Nat and Robert and we did some diving off of some other island which was nice but I really liked planting my ass somewhere for awhile. It gave me a chance to really get to know the place and the locals that inhabit it.

I also discovered that I am no good at relaxing. I cannot be one of those people that sits on a beach all day and does nothing. I suck at it. I want to pull my hair out strand by strand with a tweezer. I NEED to be doing something. Even more so than that, I need to feel like I am a contributing part of society, I think I need to ….WORK! There I said it. I can’t believe that I am saying this but I actually miss work. Not a particular job per-say but I miss the teamwork and feeling of responsibility that comes along with a job. I think that is probably another reason why I took so many courses. I wanted to be doing something. Taking these course gave me something to be responsible for. I always knew that I was the type of person that couldn’t sit still but I never thought I would say I am one of those people who HAS to work cause I suck at relaxing. So next time I say I want to win the lotto and quit my job and do nothing you can all tell me I am full of shit! 😉

Well I am really tired so I a going to stop. I still have pics to upload and then I have to pack cause I leave for Australia tomorrow! Whoo-hoo. So I promise that my blog posts will be a bit more frequent now that I am returning to the land of non-dial up connections. I hope everyone is doing well and I miss you!!!!