I have been on Leleuvia now for just over 3 ½ months; they seemed to have just flown by. There have been there ups and downs, a lot of laughs, a few tears, and tons of hard work; but because of these, it makes you really glad to have that cold beer in hand sitting on the sand at the end of the day, with new friends and old, looking up at the stars as you sit/lie thinking (through all the aches) how lucky I (in fact we) are to be in such an idyllic setting…I’m still finding that I have to pinch myself, even now and then, to make sure this isn’t all some cruel joke or dream which I have forgotten to wake up from.

So just to introduce myself- I’m the Dive Instructor on the island, and I love my job. I don’t think I have, nor will, dive anywhere in the world more visually stimulating than here in Fiji. Although I tend to choose sites to teach my courses that have more sand then coral cover (for obvious reasons) these sites, I have found, should not be dismissed as being boring – there are acres of garden eels, tons of little gobies that live in holes in a beneficial partnership with shrimps that are blind and use the goby as a signal for when threats are present; manta shrimp the size of my fist and fore arm (no joke on this one); such things can be found on sites that don’t look so much, so just imagine what it’s like when you go to dive sites such as those on the outer reef…fish soup, that’s what! I have never seen so many sharks, turtles, snappers (of all different species and of such substantial size either), barracudas, sweetlips…basically there are just too many to mention. And that’s just the fish! The benthic life i.e. coral and inverts blow your mind too. Lets for an example say you stop in a spot and were to put a 1m2 Quadrat down, you would still be down there noting all that occurs within that Quadrat long after your dive time would allow – stunning!

So that’s the diving, the people here in Fiji and on our island in particular, are the friendliest I have ever encountered, and I’ve travelled quite a bit. It has got to the stage now that the island staff are considered family by all us BV staff and any volunteer that comes to the island and vice-versa. They are sharp witted and very inviting, especially when it comes to learning traditional Fijian dances or their language, which we get 2/3 members of the staff to do once a week every week each volunteer group comes, and they love it…that is the local staff and the volunteers.

See I have started to witter already. Right I will close now, hopefully I have been able to portray in this little snippet of a blog how great, wonderful, special this place called Leleuvia really is…and maybe even tempt a few of you readers out there to come join the fun some day?

Moce – until next time,

Helen

On the way home they were joined by another pod of spinner dolphins that rode the bow wave for most of the journey. A few of the team slid into the sea, fully clothed, to swim with them, but the animals stayed just out of reach. They returned dripping wet but happy.

That night Craig and I discovered that while we may have the most picturesque home on the island it is also the least water tight (especially as we had left both windows open). The ends of our mattresses were sodden, but being blokes we just flipped them over and slept on them regardless, knowing that the sun would dry them out in quick time the next day.

On Wednesday our work began in earnest. Each of the volunteers was assigned to a team with ‘housekeeping’ responsibilities. Four of us are responsible for cleaning the dive shop every day, four others keep the classroom clean and are required to log data regarding the marine life seen on each dive, while the remainder of the group are in charge of climatology readings – checking the rain gauge and thermometer, estimating cloud cover, wind speed and direction and the state of the water surface four times a day. Each team will rotate weekly so that everybody gets a go at each duty.

Before the excitement of the visit to Bao Island we had begun our fish spotting training via lectures and snorkeling trips onto the reef to see the way each species moves (when we can find them). The format is that one of the marine biologists – usually Tristan or Ruth, as Helen is busy training the Open Water divers – will run through the list of targeted fisheries or invertebrate species that we need to monitor, using a laptop and a projector in the classroom. For each fish species we are shown a photograph – some their own, others from reference works – and run through the distinguishing characteristics such as body shape, markings and the typical environment in which they are found. On our first foray around the island tragedy struck – I had taken my camera out of its underwater housing as it was low tide, but as I pulled it from my pocket to photograph a swimming eel I managed to drop it into a rockpool and killed it. I think I had managed to take four shots with it and it was doubly galling as this was the replacement for the last camera that had been killed in similar watery circumstances. My pleasure at being given a guided tour by someone with such depth of knowledge and enthusiasm for his subject was replaced with annoyance at yet another example of my own unthinking idiocy. I should be used to it by now. Ho hum. Thanks, however, to the generosity of Alison I am using her spare camera so now all I need to do is train the flaming fish to sit still while I take their portraits. So far I’ve taken about fifty shots of the space in the ocean where a fish used to be and maybe three decent ones of slow moving butterfly fish.

We are starting to get into a routine of island life now. Each evening we are briefed on the following day’s activities and divided into relevant groups – either student or qualified divers, or all of us in the classroom studying fish, corals or invertebrates. Lectures take place at different times each day and are interspersed with diving or snorkeling. One person is designated as boat marshal for the day and one as shore marshal, keeping in contact by mobile phone and ensuring the safety of everyone in the water. Divers must assemble at the dive shop half an hour before any scheduled dive, to give us time to kit up, check our tanks, regs and gauges, load up the boat and get under way. We are not quite operating as a well oiled machine yet – someone always forgets something and has to scoot back to their bure for water or sunscreen or a dive knife, so the best we have managed so far is a mere twenty minute delay from the planned departure time. We will get slicker as we get more familiar with everything I am sure.

The diving itself is awesome – and I mean that not in the way our American compatriots describe everything from the blood red sunsets to a cold beer, but in the literal sense of inspiring awe. Table corals six metres in diameter teeming with life, walls and drop offs where turtles and sharks loom out of the blue, parrot fishes and wrasses fighting the unceasing battle for survival while thirty or more species of butterfly fish flitter in and out of the fingers of the fire corals and anemone clown fish give you the skunk eye as you drift by.

Once again I am sitting on my home made armchair writing this on my day off while recovering from a very minor hangover, brought on as a result of last night’s party held to celebrate both the passing of the Open Water dive training by all four candidates and the fact that it was Saturday night. I would go into forensic detail about the whole thing, particularly Scott, the physics student’s, pole dancing, but I’m sure you don’t want to hear about that. (It fills me with horror every time I think about it). The good times were tempered, however, by the sad news that one of our crew was to leave us the following day due to a family emergency back home. We are all hoping that she will be able to rejoin us before the end of our expedition and since she left this afternoon there is a very subdued atmosphere across the island.

I have just heard the conch shell being blown, which means it is time for lunch. Tune in next time for another exciting episode of Survivor, Fiji…

It is very difficult to describe the beauty of the island of Leleuvia as we approached. The water around it is fifty shades of blue, a fringe of white sand gives way to palms and fruit trees in the centre and as we got nearer we could look over the side to see multi-coloured corals and fish. Helen, the dive instructor and a marine biologist and Ruth, marine biologist and dive master, as well as the staff of the small backpacker hostel on the island were waiting on the beach to welcome us and garland our necks with flowers, while others strummed guitars and sang a welcoming song while we all stepped down from the boats chattering and jumping with excitement. Howard was clearly emotional at seeing two years of effort coalesce into this defining moment and was unable to speak due to the lump in his throat.

When he had recovered his composure we were given a guided tour of the facilities – it did not take long. There is a shower and toilet block, supplied by huge rainwater tanks. Rainwater is also filtered for drinking. At low tide there are reef flats that stretch half a mile or more and the accommodation is made up of wooden shacks or traditional thatched palm bures. People were divvied up and told who they would be bunking with for the next few weeks. Alex and Emily, the English gap year students are in with Breanna, an Australian backpacker. Alison, a retired Scottish teacher is sharing with Ny-Ann, a Filipino/Chinese/Spanish/American girl from San Francisco. Britt and Angus have a roommate called Scott, a Texan student who plans to study astrophysics when he gets home. Jo, a costume designer for films and TV is sharing with Jen who does something in marketing back in the real world, and I’m in with Craig. The team spent the afternoon and evening unpacking and exploring or getting a cold drink or two at the little bar, with most of the team heading off to bed fairly early as we had to be up at the crack of dawn.

The following morning began with a 400 metre swim before breakfast for everyone – one of the required tests for fitness to dive. I’m happy to say that everyone managed it with ease, although a number of folk had had misgivings about it – particularly the Americans in the party who are not familiar with metres as a unit of length. The PADI Open Water training began in earnest immediately after breakfast for the four non-qualified divers while some of us went with Tristan, resident expert on sea snakes, invertebrates and all sorts of creepy crawlies for a walk in the shallows around the island. Within five minutes we found our first sea snake, resting quietly on the foreshore. Craig the herpetologist was in raptures, stroking its strangely flattened tail (not recommended for non-professionals) while the snake languidly waved its head to taste us on the breeze. Mimic eels, morays, chitons, sea cucumbers and sponges were spotted as we completed a circuit of the island at a leisurely pace. Lectures on the ecosystem of coral reefs and classifications of marine invertebrates took place later on. Fascinating stuff. (No, really, it is!)

After a couple of days everyone is finding that time is playing tricks on us. In many ways it feels as though we have been here for weeks, and in others it feels like no time at all. I guess that is what is meant by “Fiji Time”.  The pace of life is slow – it has to be in this glorious heat.

Today is a rest day and I am currently sitting outside my bure on our home made armchair fashioned from scrap wood and plastic drain pipes, I am looking out past a couple of palm trees at the flat sea lapping the sand. Angus and Breanna have just paddled past in a couple of canoes and a coconut is bobbing gently in the surf. To my right a couple of hammocks (an essential study aid) are strung from trees. I can hear a hammer banging away on the other side of the island, where the new dive shop is being constructed and a couple of birds are squawking to each other in the bushes behind me. Other than that the only sound is the gentle surf and the tapping on my keyboard and the phrase that keeps running round my head is the first piece of Fijian I learned: Seqa na leqa. No worries.

A pod of spinner dolphins burst through the gin-clear water and as they leapt in front of the boat my heart leapt with them. It was our first full day on Leleuvia and there were eight volunteers plus Howard, Seru and Joni on the boat. We were on our way to the coral farm, a short 20 minute hop away from the island for a fun afternoon of snorkeling and fish spotting.

The twelve volunteers from three different countries had gathered together in drips and drabs over a couple of days in Nadi. Three of us had arrived via Seoul six days earlier and met up with three others who were already checked in to the Nadi Bay Resort Hotel. A couple of gap year students joined us the next morning and three more arrived singly over the course of the next 24 hours. Most people spent their free day chilling by the pool with a cocktail or a bottle of Fiji Bitter, recovering from the jet lag and getting to know each other. Howard, the brave and glorious leader of our adventure, (he emits a faint golden glow wherever he walks and is known and loved in every smoothie and cake shop in the islands. He arrived in the evening and eventually tracked us all down in the back of the hotel’s restaurant, where he gave us a brief run down on the activities planned for the next few days and an overview of island life and the aims of the project.

Day two began with exploration of Nadi town where several of us went shopping for vibrantly coloured Bula shirts and formal sulus, or Bula sundresses for the ladies, for we had been told that we were going to be honoured and privileged to meet Ratu Epenisa, the gentleman most likely to succeed as the next High Chief of all the islands – this was incredibly exciting news, comparable, perhaps, to arriving on a backpacking tour of the UK only to be informed that you had been invited to Buckingham Palace for tea with the Queen. Ratu Epenisa had learned about Blue Ventures activities on Leleuvia, which is only a 40 minute boat ride from his home island of Bau (pronounced Bao), and he had thrown his formidable weight and influence behind the project. This was not only big news for us, but was news for the whole of Fiji, as foreigners are almost never invited to Bau. We were to be accompanied by a reporter from the Fiji Times and a camera crew from Fiji One news as well as Professor Randy Thaman from the University of the South Pacific with some of his marine biology students and a representative of the Ministry of Fisheries. Before that, however, we needed to get to Suva on the other side of Viti Levu island, so the following morning we boarded an air conditioned coach for the four hour journey along the coast road. Two minutes before the coach pulled away Britt, the final member of the team arrived, straight off the plane and looking frazzled after a 24 hour flight delay in Los Angeles.

Every bend in the road revealed jaw dropping landscapes dotted with palm trees, sugar cane fields, jagged mountains veiled in mist and thick jungle on one side, and rocky outcrops and white sandy beaches leading to lapis coloured seas on the other. On arrival in Suva the scrubby mangroves gave way to cultivated gardens, docks and the local prison – possibly the least inviting place I have ever seen despite the gaily painted murals and bible quotations that adorned the outside walls.

The bus dropped us outside the Holiday Inn (slightly outside our price bracket) in the midday heat and we immediately transferred all our ridiculously heavy luggage into a pair of waiting minibuses that whisked us uphill for fifteen minutes to deposit us at the Rain tree Lodge, a small and comfortable hotel on the edge of the rainforest, with pools of brightly coloured giant water lilies, rich bird life and fish jumping to catch the (surprisingly few) mosquitoes. We were joined at lunch by Saras, the lady from the Department of Fisheries who would be joining us on Bau and representatives from the local Community Development Partnership who the BV team has been working with to get the project kicked off.

An afternoon of relaxing by the murky swimming pool gave way to evening so Craig, a professor of biology from Adrian College, Angus, a Scottish engineer and I, an Englishman who recently quit the rat race, donned our Bula shirts and sulus before heading to the bar to be met with a chorus of wolf whistles from the, it must be said, comparatively scruffy looking female members of our party. After dinner we had a short lecture followed by a Q and A session with Mr. Batibasaga, the Principle Fisheries Researcher, as jetlag caught up again with several of the crew. The ladies headed to bed shortly afterwards and the men folk retired to our verandah for a nightcap and much laughter as we listened to Craig’s stories of lizard hunting in Africa and Britt’s tales of life in Alabama. Good times.

The following day began with a trip into Suva to check out the fruit and fish market – an impromptu chance to practice fish identification skills, before we split into groups to help Howard gather the last few supplies, such as lubricant for the compressor, lifejackets and flares, first aid stuff and stationery supplies. After lunch some of the team went to the museum where they had a guided tour given by a local archeologist while others went to the flea market or headed back to the hotel.

Day three of the expedition proper saw Howard heading back into town for the very final bits and pieces that we needed to transport to the island while all the volunteers went for a walk in the rainforest. Overgrown jungle paths lead us towards a series of waterfalls and pools until eventually we got to a shallow and fairly murky swimming hole, where we washed off the sweat and splashed around and laughed some more. Of course, everyone was melting again by the time we had walked back uphill for an hour, but it was great fun.

That afternoon we loaded up the minibuses again and started the final leg of the trip to Leleuvia. The buses deposited people and bags in a big heap at Bau Landing – just a clearing in the mangroves with a small bus shelter to shade people from the sun while they await the arrival of the boats to the outer islands. Tristan, one of the four BV staff, met us at the dockside as he was on his way into Suva to buy a new dive boat. We divided up the kit and people between two small boats and were soon on our way, with the excitement building as we got closer and closer to our new island home.