We made a nervous return to Mana Island, keen not to repeat our previous experience of a bure full of monstrous spiders (refer 2002 blog entitled Sacred Peaks and Eight Legged Freaks). We booked a first floor room in a looking building in the hope that Manas spiders werent of the climbing variety. Im not quite sure what we were thinking - Im pretty certain theres no such thing as a spider. This all quickly became a bit irrelevant. We were told that we couldnt have our chosen room type for the first couple of days, and were instead shown to a ground floor room in a very modern block on the South Beach. We were about as far away from the arachnid infested bure of our previous visit and still be on the island as it was possible to get, but still way too close to the ground ... well for my at least. Sleep proved elusive.
We did eventually relocate to two interconnecting first floor rooms with balconies with great views over the North Beach. Card playing had a favoured activity. Emmas game of choice was a frenetic romp called Spit. From memory
this seemed to primarily entail throwing cards at your opponent as quickly as possible, with little regard for where they landed. The balconies werent very big and Im still not at all sure why most of the cards didnt end up down on the sand.
Issys always been a bit of thrill seeker and insisted that Emma, Troy and I go banana boating with her. The seekers amongst us thought wed managed to convince the boat skipper to take it easy and not throw us around too much. I think something might have got a bit lost in translation. He suddenly decided to give the steering wheel a casual spin without any warning and we all ended up in the drink. To make matters worse we then struggled to scramble back on again. Meanwhile Scott had got hold of our video camera and was filming the whole charade from the pier. He decided to add his In his version the four of us were part of a cartel of international drug smugglers fleeing the authorities. He managed to capture some footage of some of the resort staff sprinting along the pier to catch a ride home.
In his version of events they were officers from an international drug enforcement agency in hurried pursuit of their suspects.
Emma and Troy were keen to try a bit more adventurous snorkeling so we headed off on the Sandbank Tour. A boat took us out to a small sandy island that looked like it was probably largely underwater at low tide. We had a Japanese honeymoon couple It didnt sound like either of the newlyweds were particularly strong swimmers, but the skipper gave them a few tips and reassured them that everything would be fine. We were all told to take our time and swim back to the boat when wed had enough. Emmas mask was leaking so we didnt last too long, but when we got back the Japanese pair were nowhere to be seen. Our skipper didnt seem too bothered. He was looking very relaxed. That said in my experience most Fijians seem to be in a permanently relaxed looking state, and Ive often wondered whether anything ever worries any of them. I was feeling more than a bit uneasy. Other than a low sandbank, the only thing around us was kilometres of open
ocean. If the honeymooners werent floating on top of it somewhere, I didnt want to think too hard about where they might actually be. The husband seemed like a nice enough guy. This was good because I couldnt help but be reminded of a recent sensational news story about an American gent murdering his wife while they were diving off the Great Barrier Reef on their honeymoon, and then making out as if it was an accident. Minutes ticked by with still no sign of them. Now would be a good time to panic I thought. I convinced the skipper to pull up anchor and start a search. We didnt have to look too far.
