“Are you single or are you taken?”

It’s not that hard to wake up early for breakfast whenever you’ve had a decent night’s sleep, and that’s exactly what happened! In fact, Lauren woke up before breakfast time which was a first. Breakfast started out simple with just cereal, but we got to taste our first powdered milk which is nothing good. Definitely more watered down than we prefer but we suffered through it anyways. I poured myself a full glass of it, but was only able to finish about a sip or two before I felt like I was going to throw up! We both agreed that we would only drink powered milk in cases of emergencies. Since both Cave swimming and Blue Lagoon snorkeling started at 9 am, we decided that the cave trip would be interesting since we have been snorkeling on both Wayalailai and White Sandy Beach. Don’t worry though we will be going Blue Lagoon snorkeling tomorrow at the same time. We boarded Joe’s Water Taxi at 9:30 even though it was supposed to be at 9… people here defiantly work on Fiji time. It was a long 30 minute ride out to the cave, but it was a lot smoother than all other boat rides that we have taken. When we arrived at the caves, a man came to brief us on what was going to happen, but Lauren and I had no idea what he said. Understanding someone with a Fiji accent is quite difficult. After the briefing we headed up these stairs that quickly led down into the cave. As we walked down into the cave huge rocks came from the ceiling so we had to duck our heads and crawl low to avoid them. When we hit the bottom of the stairs, we reached water which was really cold! Most of the people started jumping in before the tour guide even came down, but we really had no choice since he was talking to people behind us. The caves were extremely tall with little holes of light poking through at the top which gave us enough light to make our way around. We all swam to the middle and talked about how we would transfer between caves since we were going to see two caves in this trip. I didn’t realize it, but we were already in the first cave when we jumped in the water. He told us that we would have to swim under water to see the other cave – this idea freaked a lot of people out including Lauren! One of the tour guides went first with the flashlight since he warned us that the next cave was dark. One by one he called people over to swim into the next cave which was only supposed to be about two seconds underwater. I think by that time even I was getting a little nervous considering I had never been in a cave before let alone a cave with water! It was my turn to go next then Lauren followed after a couple of other swimmers. The cave was indeed very dark but our eyes adjusted rather quickly. Once everyone had made it through to the second cave we were eager to get a move on. The only thing that Lauren could think about was eels coming through the cracks of rock underwater and taking the whole tour guide down. We started moving through the second dark cave through following our extremely loud tour guide through the cave as his flashlight started to go out. He was able to keep it alive though and we made it to the back of the cave in no time. It was a little of a tight squeeze to get everyone through the narrow passage way especially since we didn’t want to touch the slimy walls. Lauren and I were able to hang on to this floating white foam block in order to save our energy and not have to tread water. When we arrived in the back of the cave there was a small hole in the ceiling that allowed some sunlight to come through. We took a breather and our tour guide shared a little bit of information about the cave but with the strong Fijian accent and us being in a cave it was a little hard to understand him. We did understand that we were about to yell “Bula” very loud though! Whenever we did we could hear it echo throughout the cave very well. We repeated this three separate times and the echoing effects were amazing every single time! Our tour guide informed us that we were going to make our way back through the cave and we were more than happy to get a move on. Going underwater to enter the first cave was definitely not as scary since we could actually see the rocks that we were going through. The whole tour through the cave probably took about 30 minutes, but it was just enough we think. I had heard from our friend Chris that if I asked the tour guide how to climb the walls of the cave then he would let me climb it then jump into the water. I knew that I couldn’t pass up this opportunity. The tour guide said that I could go ahead and climb up the slimy wall but he didn’t really give me much guidance on how to do so. I couldn’t get that much of a grip so I climbed as high as much as I could and then prepared myself to jump! Lauren was able to catch it all on video though and this will also give ya’ll a good glimpse of the cave!

There was a small market set up outside of the cave but of course we didn’t bring any money with us so we just browsed. Soon enough we were back in Joe’s water taxi and heading back to the resort. We made it back way before lunchtime and since our friends were out snorkeling in the Blue Lagoon all day we had a whole day of relaxation in front of us. In fact, we laid in the hammocks for a solid 2 hours reading and talking which was priceless. As our last days on the island were winding down we were more than happy to just enjoy the peace and quiet. Stefan made a point to find us once they were back at the resort to share their stories of the day. It was nearing sunset and we had planned on going back to cliff to watch the sunset but the clouds were covering the better half of the sky so we decided it would be smarter to stay behind and pack our belongings instead. We would be heading back on the boat the next morning and with reef snorkeling beforehand we knew we wouldn’t have much time in the morning to pack up. We were able to finish quickly since we didn’t bring much with us and even had time to shower before dinner. We had also talked Stefan into playing a game with us and Anna before dinner so we met them in the dining area. The game was called something like Hec-mec and Braught-worm egg, or at least that’s what we understood it to be. The game was very interesting; it involved several dices and then dominoes with numbers and worms on them. Lauren was so unlucky that she was never able to roll a worm, but I on the other hand was able to collect a few worm dominoes. Anna was clearly in the lead though when the dinner drum called which made Stefan very happy since that meant he could stop playing. It was Curry night and man, oh man, it was delicious! It was also served on this huge platter so there was plenty of food to go around. We enjoyed our last dinner meal on the islands together and sat with the German couples. Soon it was Bula Time and the host of the island asked everyone to stand and introduce themselves and state whether they were single or taken. We don’t really know why this information was necessary but it was definitely awkward to say the least. Even when people tried to leave that answer out of their introduction the host would straight out ask him/her if they were single or taken. We think that he just wanted the information for his personal use. The girls at our table got off easy though since the guys took it upon themselves to introduce themselves and their girlfriends. Lauren made the comment that we were the couple table since we were just about the only couples on the island. Once the awkwardness was done we moved on to a game called Sand, Water. There was a rope laid out on the floor and the side we were standing on was called Sand and the other side when you jump over the rope was the Water. It was a simple game since all we had to do was jump to the correct side whenever we called out sand or water. Riley of course lasted until there were only three people left in the game and then until there were only two people left meaning that he was a winner! We enjoyed the rest of the night just talking at the table and made it a deal that we would stay up at least past 9 o’clock. Since we had only played one game that night we made a joke that the second game was to see who could stay up the longest. We obviously were not the winners of that game but we found it to be quite the accomplishment to make it all the way to 9:15 before calling it a night. Nights go out at prompty 10 o’clock so we were that we had to all be safely in bed before then. With a long day ahead of us the following day we knew that an early bedtime wouldn’t be such a bad idea.