Finally, we had putzed around with some so-so snorkeling on the other island, but this is the reason we came to Lomani. We pulled out the gear and met our activities guide, Paul. He was awesome. Sadly he's the only activities guy on duty which I think is really too much for one person but he always was on the go and willing to make things fun. I also provided the musical entertainment at dinner. That's quite a job description.
We had a little wooden skiff. It had nails sticking out of it and a 40 horsepower motor. Off we went just a few minutes from the resort to "Sandbar". Aaron and I were pretty much the first ones in. This, my friends, was the best snorkeling I've experienced since leaving the Marshalls. It left a little room for improvement and my guess is if you could get away from the resort a local could take you to some truly world-class areas. Still, this was pretty darned good! We were both pleased. It's just nice to be floating out there. Paul fed the fish bread so there were giant schools going nuts. There were big angle fish, trigger fish, parrot fish, clams and Fiji's trademark Blue Start Fish. They were everywhere, all sized, and all dark, dark blue. Just beautiful. It was just absolutely wonderful. We were the last ones to stop snorkeling and all too soon we were headed back to the hot-house.
We had our forgettable lunch and then struck up a conversation with some Aussies sitting by the pool. We asked them what they thought of the food and in a fabulous Australian accent they said, "really quite shitty". That would be another way of putting it. They turned us on to "Dicks Bistro" at the Musket Cove just up the beach. This island was made up of three resorts and that was it (no village school here). We were more than happy to make a booking for Dicks.
We took the afternoon to explore the other resorts. Just a very short walk up the beach is the Plantation Resort. This is a family resort that's sort of a disney-esk sort of thing. There's some family that owns Plantation (all 200-some rooms of it!) and their kids own Lomani (a reasonable 12 rooms). As a result all the systems were connected and you could do any of the activities or eat there and just bill it to our room.
Their dinning hall (and it was a "hall" not a "room". "Room" would imply a certain amount of decorum that simply didn't exist) was something like Chuck-e-Cheese on steroids. I mean totally mayhem and completely out of control laughing, yelling, crying, freaking out little toddlers. Holy Cows! Instant birth control right there. Still, we totally understood why families would go there. They have a lot of kid-friendly activities, and a shallow warm lagoon. It was packed with Aussies. It's only 3-4 hours for them. Still, we would not be eating there.
We saw that they had all sort of activities that we could sign up for and a fish-and-chip hut...and I noticed a milk shake bar. Plantations was going to have some real advantages. That night we went to Dicks where it was Mongolian Grill night. We both quite enjoyed it.
Back home...we have 10 hours of shut-eye to catch.
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