Surfing Day 🏄🏽‍♂️ Fiji

*** I always recommend reading the blog on a computer or iPad rather than phone but especially for this one it has a lot of videos and at least make sure u have a good cell signal or WiFi if use phone or the videos may get glitchy. Enjoy! ***

It is 11pm Saturday June 3rd and I am writing at LAX, Terminal 5, Gate 59. This will be my last blog entry done on my phone for this trip. Once home I will write some more to fill in days I missed but on my computer which is much faster and efficient for WordPress.

When I told my (very few) surfing friends that I was doing a medical mission in Fiji they all asked if I was going to surf there. I had surfed (poorly) when I lived in Long Beach for my residency from 1990-1994. In the last couple of years I had read two great surfing books. A novel by Paul Theroux (author of the Mosquito Coast and many great travel memoirs) and a memoir by New Yorker writer William Finnegan.

I have always loved Paul Theroux’s travel memoirs, one about a trip from “Cairo to Cape Town” by bus, car, train and foot is amazing. I just saw this one listed on Goodreads and have to read it as my next book!!!

As my loyal readers know, I traveled to Costa Rica in November (replacement for my thrice canceled trip to Nepal) and spent a week at a deluxe surf camp on the Pacific coast near Panama. After 30 years off I think the 6 days of surfing got me back to my “peak skill level” of my youth, beginner on long board. I did actually get to surf the green faced waves there that were beyond my ability (or bravery) in CA. Surfing in 80 degree water is much easier and relaxing than in a wetsuit in 60 ish degree water in SoCal.

Argh, hard to keep writing about paradise when the stress/anxiety of America is weighing me down. I initially had direct Buffalo/LAX flights but JetBlue has cut a lot of routes after their “unofficial” merger with AA (just called a “fare share” plan to skirt the regulators). So after my initial plane reservations were made it was only a few weeks later that they emailed me my “changes”, via NYC on way there and Boston on way back. Of course they only gave me a 50 minute layover in Boston for their ONLY Boston to Buffalo flight of the day…. So now my flight to Boston is delayed an hour and will see what happens.

When I made my plans for the medical mission to Fiji the people in the group who had gone before said they liked “Paradise Taveuni” as a place for those with time (and $) to stay on. The resort offered a discounted 5 day all inclusive package for the foundation medical volunteers.

As soon as my plans were set (I actually ended up with one extra night at Aroha planned as no room was available that first night after mission at Paradise) I asked the Paradise staff if there was a place to surf (Taveuni is renowned for its diving reefs, not surfing like some other Fijian islands). They gave me contact info for the Maqai surf resort and I discussed with Maqai surfing one day there. Somehow neither resort mentioned (or seemed to view as issue) the fact that one way journey by car and boat between places was 2 hours (which I didn’t figure out until I was on ground in Fiji and saw how long the drive was on the dirt roads and where the boat pickup for Maqai was).

A cancellation at Paradise allowed me to head there a day early so it made much more sense to overnight at Maqai and then I decided (and am glad I did) to combine my mountain hike with trip to Maqai and then spend 2 nights there.

As I mentioned in previous post the only other 2 guests did not surf. When I checked in with Cathy she asked if I wanted to surf at 6am to get the correct tide for the one mile offshore reef , it is actually best when the tide is rising towards high. At dinner I had no alcohol and passed on the Kava as wanted to be fresh in AM after my very long day of hiking , traveling. Cathy then said “well, u should eat at 6 and can go to surf at 6:30”.

I slept well and was at the pavilion at 6am ….. Peter was there also and we had coffee/tea and chatted.

Airborne, sleep time.

I am logged back into Jetblue FlyFi on my Boston to Buffalo flight at 10:30 am. I slept a solid 4 hours on the red-eye from LAX and then after fretting and rushing this flight ended up being delayed 30 minutes so not trapped in Boston for 12 hours.

So, back to Fiji, it was 6 am and Peter and I enjoying French Press coffee (which seemed the preferred prep tech in Fiji). He had studied biochemistry in college in Canada and then did grad work at Berkeley where he met his wife. He worked for Pharma developing oncology meds and then shifted to more business end of oncology Pharma. His parents want him to move back to Canada if Trump elected again but he and his wife happy in super liberal Boulder. I ordered my breakfast I went with the eggs and toast (other choice was pancakes) and also had some of reg cereal and fresh fruits that were always available. As we are our eggs at 6:45, Peter said “weren’t u supposed to be surfing at 6:30?” I said “I guess that is 6:30 Fiji time and since just me I would go whenever the coach showed up…”. A little later Hulee (?sp) came by and asked if I was ready to surf. I said “sure just let me brush my teeth and I’m good to go”. We went to the surf cabin full of boards and he said “pick any one”, there were about 20 ranging between short aggressive ones to a massive 10 footer. I picked an 8 footer that looked similar to what I had used in Costa Rica. I reminded him (for the 3rd time) that I was NOT a good surfer. His English was great but his accent thick so some words I had to ask him to repeat some things a few times. He grabbed a 5 foot board for himself.

Darn! I guess I didn’t take a photo of the surf shack.

Plane on ground, will finish this later today….

11:13 AM ✈️ on ground in 🦬 …..

The setting Sun looked weird to me, does it look so different at equator that i am not used to the northern sun anymore ?

So, surfboard in hand I hopped in the boat for the 15 minute ride out to the offshore reef.

I followed Hullee to a spot he said was good and waited for a decent wave. I rode the first one on my belly just to get used to my body position on the board and then the next I went up to one knee. I had a few poor pop ups falling off board immediately but then one or two decent rides. It was super easy to just paddle back around the break without having to fight the multiple whitewaters I was used to on beach breaks. The waves were far from the idyllic ones in movies or on Fiji websites as the wind was creating a lot of chop and even at odds to the swell direction.

We hopped back in boat after only 30 or 40 minutes and went to check out another break but the conditions actually had waves breaking in multiple directions. I was happy to head back to shore with a plan to play around on the closer to shore break in the afternoon when it would be optimal.

Here are some photos of the offshore break from the shore when not raining.

When I got back from surfing it was still raining and as I was still wet I went out for a swim and did a nice 30 minutes above the gorgeous fish filled reef right where it dropped off to much deeper depths. It was just as nice as the Rainbow Reef really and I was glad I didn’t have my GoPro or would have shot another 100 fish photos 🙂

After a refreshing shower to wash off the salt I did some beachcombing and then read Kindle until lunch.

I was awoken at 3ish by singing and saw that another couple had just arrived. I headed over to say Bula.

As 4pm approached and the tide was rising towards high I grabbed a super long 10 foot board to practice on the 2 foot waves breaking over the shore reef.

Of course after it being sunny all afternoon as soon as I got board into water it got windy and starting raining. But it was easy to catch the tiny waves and ride the whitewater. I did several nice pop ups but the board quickly would slow down as tiny wave’s dissipated.

Dinner was great. We were now 5! The new couple were really interesting. Both were Indo-Fijians and had gone to college in Australia. They were in a looooooong distance relationship with her living in New Zealand and he in California. They regularly met in Fiji and stayed with their parents. His lived on Taveuni and hers on one of the big islands. They just came to Maqai Island for the one night to have some private time on her birthday.

There was lots of singing and we had hermit crab races !