Fiji 2016: Tokoriki Day 3

Path to the beach

On our last full day, we had a pretty packed schedule. Okay not really, but something planned in both the morning and afternoon, so for vacation that seems like a packed schedule. I had French toast for breakfast. It was good, but after the insanely good French toast on the Nai'a, it was a bit of a disappointment.  Shortly after breakfast I headed to the spa to get exfoliated and wrapped in a banana leaf. Okay, there wasn't really a banana leaf involved, but that was how Rob referred to it (I think because I did get wrapped in a banana leaf the last time we came to Fiji). I spent an hour and a half getting scrubbed with various things (one of which involved papaya and smelled very good), then was wrapped in a space blanket and baked in that for a while, while I got a head massage. It was an interesting experience, though not as good as the time when I was actually wrapped in a banana leaf. The reason that I did it was because my skin was very itchy from spending a week in salt water. I think the scrubbing helped, but if I were going to spend that much time at the spa again, I'd probably just go for a massage.

After that was done, I found Rob back at our bure, snoozing on the patio. We went to lunch (I had tempura prawns, Rob ate my tails :P), and then after a bit more doing nothing, we went fishing around 2:30. We met up with our guide, Joe, and headed out to "Tokoriki rocks" which were some small rocks sticking out of the water to the north(west). They really were just rocks... That's not a euphemism for a small island. Apparently fish like to hang out near there. We were trolling, which is not a fishing technique that I've used before, but I'm sure it will be a handy skill when we sail around the world. We were in a pretty decent-sized boat for the three of us -- a 25'ish aluminum boat.  

We put the lines out and basically circled waiting to hear the zing of a fish on the rod. Eventually we got a hit, and I was enlisted to drive the boat while Rob and Joe worked on getting the fish into the boat. It was a Spanish mackerel, which I recognized from diving :P  We drove around the rocks for a while, getting one more hit that we did not get into the boat. After a while more of driving around without much fish interest, we decided to head over to the next island to the north to do some real fishing (casting). Joe told us to reel the lines in. So I was reeling in the reel on the port side and Rob was on the starboard side. I was reeling and reeling and getting really bored. Then right as the line was almost the whole way in, I felt it get harder to reel, and suddenly a fish was flopping around on the surface on my line :). I squealed and Joe cam over to help me get the fish in the boat. It was a feisty fish who made a pretty good attempt to flop back into the water even once it was on the deck, but we put an end to that. It was a skipjack tuna, a nice sized fish, but not big by tuna standards (or not what I think of as tuna standards). 

Once the excitement was over (and I was finished posing with my fish), we continued to that other island, but by the time we got to the vicinity, the wind had really picked up, to a pretty unpleasant state, so we decided to head back instead.  When we got back, we took the tuna to the kitchen, and left the mackerel for Joe. It was too late to prepare it for dinner, so we chatted with the chef about how to prepare it, and then headed back to our room to get ready for dinner. On the way back, we passed the volleyball court, where the staff seems to have a game around sunset every night. Rob joined them for a few minutes (until it was too dark to play) while I got ready for dinner. 

Some interesting looking mystery dessert

We went to the lounge (and sat inside after the bug bites from the previous night), and I had a piña colada.  Or maybe two. Last night of vacation :P. We eventually headed to dinner. I had beef tenderloin which was fine, but not spectacular. The service at dinner was terrible, I guess because there was a wedding going on that day, so they were presumably understaffed in the restaurant.  So dinner went on and on. For dessert, I had cheesecake with a chocolate (brownie-ish) crust, which was super tasty!