September 6 – 12, 2014
Posting by Barb:
Allison left on Friday September 5th and Pete and Mel arrived on Saturday September 6th. Pete and Mel are our good friends from NZ. We wondered whether we would still be good friends after sharing the 37 feet of space we call home. And yes we are still good friends and we had a great time. 
Pete’s sailing background was a great help and he took over some of my responsibilities but unfortunately Denny had to remain being the Captain and all the work that goes with that. Mel stuck an ‘avoid seasickness’ patch behind her ear and she was good to go, miracle little drug!! She cooked up some great meals in our little galley, not something she may have ever imagined doing!! For a short visit in Fiji the only sailing option that has some daily stops is the Yasawa islands so we ended up going to a few of the same spots that we did with Mike and Allison.
W
e started them off with the rolliest anchorage, the famous octopus Resort. Mel survived that although I think that may have made her a little nervous. From there it was to the Manta Ray resort to swim with the Mantas. Luckily it was full moon couple of days again so that usually improves the chances of seeing the majestic fish. We moaned at having to do the dawn snorkel again and but it was worth it to swim with the Mantas again. It is still a thrill for me to be in the water with these huge fish (Denny was running the dinghy for the drift dive) but I get just as much pleasure to see the reaction of our friends who have never experienced such and adventure.
From there it was northward to a protected bay. The wind was blowing hard on the nose (Mel now knows what that means) so it was nice to duck into the bay. There were 2 resorts there; White Sandy Beach and Korovou Eco tour resort (both resorts looking a little tired and neither had any toilet paper in the public washrooms; supply ship must have been delayed) . Aside from the usual Happy Hour at the resort bar we took a hike to Honeymoon Beach. Who could resist a walk on a beach with a name promising love and romance? 
What we encountered there were hundreds of Hermit crabs all nestled and cozy together. Maybe that’s what they mean by Honeymoon beach. As I am fascinated by this little critter, and have tons of pictures to prove it, I did a little research on this. And it is possible that they were gathering for a shell swap. They basically get together and queue up to swap their shell homes for bigger homes. Of course not all end up ‘moving up’ and some become homeless and bury themselves in the sand until they find a home.
The next stop was naturally Blue Lagoon with another ‘on the nose’ passage. The wind 
was howling when we arrived but the anchorage was quite calm. We did finally meet up with our good friends Steve and Nona on SV Corvidae and had them over for dinner on our boat. We managed to cook a meal to please the Pescatarian, meat lovers, spicy lovers and the non-spicy food lovers with our, slowly becoming famous, Mexican dinner. And of course there was Happy Hours at the resort.