Jan 6-8

Thursday started out clear, so the 6 of us staying at Otto & Fanny's decided to do one of the few offered activities: diving the Sawa-I Lau caves. Swimming through an enclosed dark underwater space to arrive at an even darker enclosed underwater space is not exactly my idea of a good time, but Thursday turned into a day for me to conquer some of my fears, which I will later explain. The boat trip to the caves was complete madness. Somehow the driver managed to pack 25 people onto a 12 foot alumacraft (not to mention that the only other American woman on the boat was pushing 350lbs.) This in and of itself seemed enough to capsize us in the middle of the Pacific, but about 20 min into the trip it began to rain angry buckets from the sky and continued the rest of the 50min trip. But we made it alright. Once we got to the island, we were escorted off a rocky beach to a staircase up the side of a mountain and into a deep, clear pool inside an open roof cave. Not too terribly exciting, but we were a bit riled-up from the boat trip and the uncertainty of what they would be asking us to do next. This next thing was the first of my conquered fears, and I think one of Jon's, too. We all huddled about one section of the cave along a wall and were asked to dive under the wall (a few feet) and "swim towards the light" into a pitch dark cave. Wow. We had goggles, obviously, and it wasn't as bad as you might think because the guide on the other side had a flashlight and by the time we got in there it was already filled with screaming Asian girls and German boys flashing photos. So there wasn't quite enough silence for me to imagine dark, lurking things. It was a cathedral-like space with empty stone carved-out walls and small bits of light streaming in places, but no stalactites or stalagmites to speak of. We dont have any photos of this experience but you can picture us treading water in a dark, damp space or grasping along the walls for holes to hold onto, which I was certain must be the homes of water snakes. The ride back was a bit better and largely uneventful. More rain.
My second conquered fear was much harder for me to conquer, and Jon thinks I will have to conquer it many more times on this trip. After our afternoon nap I discovered an enormous black, long-legged, shiny spider perched on a beam near our bed, but too high to reach. I almost lost my mind, and below is a photograph. It seems absolutely ridiculous to harbor an almost paralyzing fear of something about the size of your hand, but fear is rarely reasonable. So at dinner time (where I conquered fear number 3: eating spiders! No, just kidding, but they look similar. This was not really a fear, but we ate crabs cooked in their shell..they were really amazing though!) we asked them to try and get rid of the spider. Two women waddled on down to the bure in the rain and returned looking hardly triumphant but said they had successfully removed it. Sure enough when we returned it was still most definitely there. It had been pouring rain all day so our bure was also inhabited by ants, a few cockroaches and some chirping geckos. This did not come as a surprise to Jon, bless his heart, but I didn't know if I could survive the night with that spider in there. I could deal with cockroaches and ants and geckos, but NOT the spider. It could crawl into my ear or other body cavity and lay its eggs! Although they say the spiders in Fiji are harmless, who knows what that thing could be capable of. Well, Jon tucked us up really tight beneath the mosquito net (thank God for the mosquito net!) and told me the spider was there protecting me from the mosquitos like Charlotte. I imagined it as some kind of benevolent being watching over us, said a few whimpering prayers, and we actually slept just fine. In the morning it was gone and we were leaving to Nadi as well. It is just like my grandfather always says: it is no use worrying because the things you worry about never happen. It is what you don't even think to worry about that will happen. I spent the weeks leading up to our departure worrying about Jon getting killed from a falling coconut (Otto & Fanny's is a copra plantation) and strangely enough we never even saw a falling coconut. It never even crossed my mind to worry about spiders.
In the end both things are stupid to worry about. It was still monsooning outside and we had to take the little fishing boat through the rain and waves to board the Yasawa Flyer. All that I can say about the ensuing five hour ride on the Yasawa Flyer is this: neither Jon nor I thought we got seasick, but after that roller coaster ride we thought it possible. We didn't get sick, but those were the largest waves we'd ever seen! We were thrilled to arrive at our hotel in Nadi- Beachside Resort was cheap and clean and we had a lovely dinner. This morning we arrived at Musket Cove (a thirty-min boat trip) and are now waiting for our room. It is lovely here although still raining, but it is supposed to clear up soon. In fact, the sky is now lightening a bit...

-jesikah