Navini Island

When we first arrived in Fiji, we already knew that this was going to be a good change. As soon as we stepped off the plane, we were hit with a blast of warm almost humid air and our reaction was that this was more like it. As we came down the disembarking ramp, we were met with a band of local musicians playing some Fijian songs. That was a really nice touch.

After we got our bags and were met by our driver, we took off to meet the boat that was going to take us out to Navini Island. Once we left the airport proper, the roads were just a little different than we are normally used to. We traveled through a lot of surrounding cane fields and, at one point, got stuck behind a truck transporting some recently harvested cane. After driving on this road for about 40 minutes, we arrived at the dock for our boat transport to Navini Island.

Navini Island is a very small island that houses a single resort run by an Australian couple, Arthur & Helen Reed. The island takes about 10 minutes to completely walk around the perimeter and has 10 bures to house guests. They can accommodate somewhere between 20 – 30 people at a time. The staff is completely Fijian and they try to retain as many of the Fijian customs as possible. 

Needless to say, everyone’s unit is beachside and has their own hammock by the unit and beach lounge chairs under a thatched umbrella. They provide 3 meals a day at 8:00am, 1:00pm and 7:00pm that are announced by the sound of a Fijian drum. They also provide all of the things that one would need to enjoy the water there, such as masks & snorkels, kayaks, sea cycles, maricats, etc.

Each morning at 9:30, there is some type of outing on the boat to another area in the Fiji islands. On the first day, we went on a snorkeling trip to Sand Cay, which was this small sand bar in the middle of the ocean about a 40 minute boat ride away. On the way there, the staff trolled a line and caught 3 decent sized fish, a queenfish, a trevalley, and a barracuda. The guys let me reel in the barracuda, which was kind of cool, but he didn’t put up much of a fight. The snorkeling there was amazing as there were just so many different varieties of fish to see feeding off the coral reef. Even Judy went snorkeling out there, even though she is not completely comfortable about being in the open ocean. She did give it a try though.



The morning boat outings usually get back about 30 minutes before lunch (can’t miss a meal, you know). After the first day’s outing and the lunch, we got our books and retreated to our beach chairs for some serious relaxation. It was so nice to kick back and not to have to do anything. I progressed from the beach lounge chair to the hammock and finally to the bed. It was Nirvana. I did manage to read almost an entire book that day, mixed in between some snoozing. For the crowning touch at about 4:00pm that day, we took our places on our bure’s veranda and had a cocktail with some booze we purchased at the airport.

After dinner, the staff engages the guests to participate in a game called vidi-vidi. It is a game where you try to knock in your disks into the 4 holes on the board by flicking the big disk with your finger and hitting your smaller disk. I sucked at this game, but Judy did pretty good at it, as she hit the winning shot for her team. While this is going on, some of the staff are singing Fijian songs and passing out kava, which is some type of root based moonshine. Neither of us were brave enough to try it after seeing the locals make some faces after drinking it.

The second day’s boat outing took us to Plantation Island & Musket Cove. It was a much bigger resort island & development. I have to say that it looked very commercialized and made us appreciate the place we were staying at even more. I think they took us there on purpose so that we would make that very comparison. The ride was very nice and we saw some more of the neighboring islands. We also stopped at a reef in the middle of the ocean for a brief swim and then headed back.

We got back to Navini and, even though it was breezy, the water looked so inviting that we both went for a swim. Yes……..Judy too. We even have photographic evidence of her actually in the water. After lunch, we partook in the normal afternoon activity…..rest & relaxation.

On the 3^rd morning, we woke up to absolute pristine conditions……the breeze was very slight and the water was really calm.  The outing today was going to be a fishing trip and a short snorkeling stop. We passed on that trip and stayed at our beach to get some serious snorkeling in with the water conditions being they way they were. We saw lots of different types of tropical fish and coral reef denizens.

Later that evening, the staff put in a special dinner for all of the guests. The guests were all required to wear sulus, which are sarong-type wraps that Fijians wear. The food was cooked in a traditional lovo pit and after the buffet meal, we were all treated to a kava ceremony. Kava is a root that they break down into a powder and mix with water to create a drink which has some opiate style properties. After the ceremony, they regaled us with traditional Fijian songs and also got us all to participate in a Fijian folk dance.

Judy woke up early on the last morning we were going to be leaving and captured the sun rising. We had to depart at around 12:30 to get to the airport for our flight to Sydney. We had our breakfast and immediately went back to the beach to snorkel up to the point that we had to leave. We really wished that we had at least one more day to spend here, as we were just getting into the swing of getting our meals cooked for us, enjoying the great weather and beach area, and taking lots of snoozes in the beach lounge chairs & hammock. We are quite sad to be leaving, but we hope that some day we can make it back here.