The Lay of the Land

For those of you received our email yesterday, a lot of this is a repeat - yes, I am a lazy blogger and have elected to cut and paste from an earlier email rather than tax my simple writing skills to compose another story. Heck, if I can't plagiarize myself, who can? Bear with me, however, I did add a few photo's and new information at the end.

We have been fortunate to travel to some wonderful and unique places but, if first impressions hold, this is the most fantastic corner we have discovered. It is hard to conceive that God could have created a more beautiful and peaceful place. It might require another day or so before I can condense our feelings and experiences to the blog. I'm getting ahead of myself. First, getting here is a journey. Yesterday was a thirty hour marathon. The long lay-over at LAX was brutal but once we boarded Air Pacific (11:50 pm) it was downhill. I was asleep shortly after take off and slept for eight hours until they woke me for breakfast at 3:00 am Fiji time. We landed on time at 5:10 am and breezed through customs and immigrations - everyone, even that early, greets you with "bula bula" and a smile. We met up with a rep for the island and, after coffee and a short shopping stop headed for the marina and sea plane, a 1958 De Havilland Beaver. A beautiful, classic plane if you are not planning a trip across the South Pacific in rain squalls.


After bailing out the floats and backing the plane back into the water on a tractor,


a very handsome, young, French speaking pilot gave us a wink and a thumbs up and we were off. Our highest altitude during the flight was about 900'. We had the windows open the whole way and enjoyed the breeze scented with the slight smell of burnt oil and sprinkled with the occasional light rain. As we approached the island, Luke, the afore mentioned handsome young (like maybe 22) French aviator dropped down to several feet off the water and carved along the valleys betweens volcanic peaks, mere inches over the lush vegetation and volcanic outcrops, before dropping down into the blue lagoon of Turtle Island. Luke taxi'd in to about three feet of water and shut down. Two strapping Fijians promptly appeared to carry Paula ashore while I was left to awkwardly hop off the pontoon and splash ashore on my own. We had another breakfast with our fellow castaways, I think there are eleven couples here, and then had a short nap before lunch.

Our bure is fantastic. I've attempted to snap several pictures but it is difficult for me to capture the charm. It is almost completely hidden from our beach and the lagoon. As you approach from the beach you cross a bridge over a small stream and ascend several broad steps entirely paved with previous guests names, initials, foot print, hand print, etc.... The covered front porch extends the length of the bure with a large, salt water fish pond on one end.


Opposite from the pond is a queen size bed upon which we took our aforementioned nap.


Above the porch, they hung this welcoming sign


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