The Pearl South Pacific Resort Spa And Championship Golf Course Pacific Harbour

... part of the trip; east coast Australia.<br>Fiji<br>While in Auckland we had decided to book the whole of our Fiji trip, as it seemed to be the best value way of doing so. It was already much more expensive than we expected, so we decided to minimise costs as much as we possibly could. We spoke to a very knowledgeable assistant at the Base travel desk and she gave excellent advice on the country and what to do on a budget. We decided to hit only one of the 'island ...

... Pacific Harbour was a managed development in Fiji. The entire area was planned and developed with hopes of a swanky resort town with lots of large building lots for people to build vacation properties. A golf course was built and there are many upscale resorts. However, the anticiated boom never came and the town was pretty quiet while we were there. After talking to locals, they noted that the current economic conditions made things much worse and many of ...

... com. Overall though, we enjoyed the reef dives more than the shark feed. Although the sharks are beautiful to see, the dive was packed with people and felt very staged. We are catching a flight to Taveuni in the morning. Taveuni is said to have the best soft coral diving in the world. If it is better than what we've already seen, then we will have to come back here again. We will be back in the US in a week (June 4)... this trip has gone so fast!

... happy-hour to acquaint himself with the local beers, and for Mel there is a decent cocktail list to work through. When snorkelling amongst the goldfish-bowl of tropical fish just off-shore we spot (amongst other things) a stingray and an octopus, but no sharks (which might be a good thing). The starfish here are purple and there are loads of them. Day 59 The 11th of April - Today we set off for LA - we're ...

... our diving mates. Luckily there is a 'spare' dive master, who does not speak any word of English but, hey, we are under water: we cannot speak anyway. And he does a good job. I thought he would lose us in the current. He did not. At the end, we do our safety stop. I find it hard to breath. We go up, only, I cannot breathe anymore! I am out of air. Not low but OUT. No breathing and no air in the BCD to go up. Fin, fin, fin. Without air ...

... It is at least 3 hours. Highway 1 is in good condition but it IS a 2 lane road with buses, trucks and ****** cars. Somebody warned us about potholes. They surely never saw the potholes in Botswana. Indeed, arriving in Pacific Harbour after 3 hours, we immediately find: http://www.fiji-sharks.com/ AND: the shark dive is on tomorrow! We sign up and pay: 220 local $ (=110 Euro) per person including ...

... graceful animal as they constantly fell out of the trees outside our bure). Although my initial thought was that it was a gecko, I found it weird that I felt claws running down my back when it fell instead of the soft suction cups. I thought nothing of it and looked to my left to see the gecko that had fallen on me, and said, "That really scared the **** out of me. A gecko just landed....." To my surprise, it wasn't a gecko. I then said, "Oh ...

... power and grace of a dolphin like standing above them on the bowsprit of a yacht flying at six knots, and knowing they could easily outswim you any time they chose. Five times we tacked, and each time the dolphins returned. On our fifth and final tack we knew we couldn't linger, the sun was getting low, we had to moor. The dolphins knew it too, they made one final pass, as if bidding us good night. Then they vanished completely, and the only ripples on the sea were the tiny lapping ...