Oh… Because of the Moon!

For our final full day in Matangi we had a “picnic” scheduled for the morning. We were expecting a traditional picnic – like a basket for lunch and hang out for a little bit. Apparently in Fiji a “picnic” is spending four hours on a private beach by yourself! We were only able to do a little snorkeling because it was low tide and I got scared about being smashed into a giant chunk of coral. So instead we had to sit and relax and drink some sparkling wine. After about an hour we also made some new friends! The new friends were the small herd of goats that call the island home. Also… Adela introduced herself to every hermit crab she could find.

They brought us some lunch at around 11:30 – we both decided that the Caesar salad could’ve used some salad dressing to take it to the same level as the filo pie that we also got. Like all things our time in the horseshoe bay had to come to an end – we were picked up and the next couple was dropped off. I’m still not sure which time would be better – the afternoon snorkeling would be easier because the tide was coming in… but arriving to the pristine beach in the morning (and getting an extra 30 minutes there!) was just fantastic. For the afternoon we had our second massage of the week scheduled – this time with some added hot stones.

We got some Irish coffees because we needed some energy to recover from the beach and massages. While drinking them we chatted with John – the bartender at the resort. He is from Taveuni but is married to one of the other workers at the resort so he moved to Qamea. He told us he got a job offer to work on the Red Bull island… but everyone who works there eats too much and basically just live on that island and don’t leave for months on end. A little while later some people came to the resort from a super-yacht that was moored off the coast of Qamea. They came with Nigel – the son of the family that owns Matangi. I eavesdropped lightly as he told them the history of how the resort came about. It was established in about 1985-86 by his father who used to work on what is now the “Red Bull Island.” And they slowly expanded to their current state of 12 available rooms.

Our dinner that night was a special candle-lit dinner right by the ocean! I used my now well-honed talent of just picking what Adela picked to choose dinner: prawn salad, New Zealand filet, and dessert which was ice cream, a brownie and a biscotti. I couldn’t imagine a cooler setting for dinner. And Adela and I had deep discussions about the tides and the moon. And slosh theory. Overall it was an… enlightening dinner. We woke up the next morning feeling quite sad, it was the end of our time in Matangi! I got some French toast (with to die for Taveuni honey) for breakfast and we spent one last hour reading on the Matangi beach. We checked out and I was pleasantly surprised to see the exchange rate was even more favorable than when we came – one FJD is 0.44-0.45 USD. Also they do a really cute send-off where they sing and wave and really tug on your heartstrings! Thankfully our trip is not quite over yet! We drove back to Matei airport (and listening to a celebrity chaser from CA) while waiting for our flight back to Nadi. From there we travel on to Likuliku resort on Malolo Island where we are going to stay in an over-water bure.