Fiji

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Our week in Savusavu Fiji was a full immersion in the wild and wonderful Fijian food world. We ate purple ’star apple’, fiery peppers, chili coated pineapples, bitter melons, mud crabs and more. The cultural combo of southern Indian and Fijian was a sensory delight. 

Fiji’s waters can go from wickedly choppy to perfectly calm. We’ve had them both and everything in between. Beneath the surface is a rainbow of reef colors and an abundance of fish like we’ve never seen before. 

The World Surfing League championships are happening at Cloudbreak this year and we got front row seats to see the top surfers in the world warming up for the finals. It was incredible to watch these super-athletes carve up the waves.

Tonga was a magical kingdom made up of perfect little mushroom-like islands. There were beautiful anchorages with purple sea stars beneath the water and giant fruit bats in the trees. 

We swam in sea caves teeming with bait fish and even ventured through tunnels to surface in dark open spaces under the rock. 

One of our top ten experiences on this trip so far was a morning swimming with humpback whales. We witnessed a mating pair breaching in all their glory and swam with a humpback calf and its ever-attentive mother. 

The geology on Niue was breathtaking. There were soaring sea caves deep chasms in the coral bedrock. We swam in turquoise blue sea pools and hiked through the islands tropical forests. 

Niue’s translucent waters were some of the clearest that we’ve ever seen. We dove through underwater tunnels and beneath bommies, encountering dozens of the island’s famous and highly venomous sea snakes. 

One of our most memorable experiences was swimming in the pitch black fresh water chasms. There were deep caves lurking in the dark waters beneath us. We were only able to stay a few days before the weather chased us away, but Niue was a fantastic adventure.