Fiji 2016: Tokoriki Island Resort

Tokoriki Island

On Saturday morning, we packed up and bid farewell to the Nai'a and her crew :(. We left a little early, to catch a ferry to the resort where we would stay for the next three days. We took a car to Denerau, and then a ferry (on South Sea Cruises) to Tokoriki Island Resort. The ferry terminal in Denerau was fairly well organized and civilized and after checking our bags, walking around to look at the boats in the harbor, checking in, and getting coffee and a muffin for breakfast, it was finally time to board our ferry. We sat on the middle deck, so we were outside and had a view, but it was also well shaded by the top deck. We made a stop about 25 minutes in, which was not on the schedule I had, at a tiny little island ("South Sea Island") where people can pay to go for the day (or so I gather). An enormous ember of the people on the ferry disembarked here, and so Rob and I were left with the middle deck all to ourselves :) ), we got a briefing about the island and the various islands around it. Once we arrived, we were given a cold juice drink and there was guitar playing and singing to welcome us. We went to the lounge to fill out paperwork and wait for our room to be ready (and they brought us champagne somewhere in there too).  The lounge was looking out on the pool and the awesome view of the ocean, and it had wifi, so we were perfectly happy to hang out there.  The view from the lounge really looks exactly like the pictures on their website.

View from the bedroom

We were taken to our room (villa) a little after noon. It was awesome. Both the living room and bedroom had basically wall to wall windows/glass doors looking out on the water. The patio had a small pool, lounge chairs, and a day bed under its own bure. There was a rock pathway down a hill to the beach. I walked down there and waded into the water, but it was a very low tide, so not a great time to swim.

We eventually headed to the restaurant for lunch. I had veggie pizza (a classic Fijian dish, I'm sure). After that, I tested out the pool for a bit. We wanted to take out one of the Hobie Cats, but there was no wind. But after laying around on the patio for a while, we noticed the wind had picked up, so we decided to give it a try. Rob has always claimed that he sailed in high school and college (mostly on the Charles River, but occasionally on longer trips in the big bad Atlantic Ocean). But I never quite believed it, since I'd never seen any proof of this former life of sailing. It turns out he does actually know how to sail, which he proved quite well while maneuvering us through the channel to deeper water. It's a bit squirrelly, not exactly straight, and the tide was very low. Once we got out to deeper, less obstructed water, he even tried to teach me. That went okay, but I found it much more enjoyable to sit on the boat while Rob did all of the work. So, I mentioned that on the tender ride from the ferry, we got a small orientation to the islands around us. There was one pretty big one, which is inhabited, called Yanuya, to the west of Tokoriki.  We headed out in the direction of that island. We were really moving. I couldn't believe how fast we were going. Enforce you know it, we were more than halfway to Yanuya, so we decided to go take a closer look. There was a beach that had houses overlooking it on the south end, then some cliffs, then another small be patch with palm trees lining it, then some smaller cliffs. We decided to scoot along the uninhabited beach and the small cliffs and take a look at those. 

Denerau marina

Then we turned around to head back. Upon turning around, we saw a boat from the resort heading in our direction. Apparently we had exceeded the unspoken bounds of where they wanted us to go in the boat. Hehehe. We were already heading back anyway, but the guy kind of hung around and escorted us until we got pretty close to the channel and then he took off. Apparently the unspoken boundary was not very far out. They basically only wanted us to go out of the channel and then along the reef drop off that is right there. I was just glad that we went on our little adventure before anyone explained that there was such a boundary :). Rob looked on a map and estimates that the two islands are about 4km apart. 

View from the patio

Once we got back, we headed to our room, very amused with ourselves for having broken the rules, and hung out on the patio and watched the sunset. I was a big fan of the day bed. We then went to happy hour at the lounge, and sat outside as the last bit of light disappeared over the horizon. We forgot to put bug spray on (got used to the bugless nights on the boat), but they had some at the front desk that we used. I had a mai tai, and Rob had something that was supposed to involve guava and some other juices, but which was not very guava-y. We then went to dinner, which was super tasty. To start, I had a duck salad, which I actually got because it had beets in it. Yum. Rob got the Fijian ceviche thing that has coconut milk (Kokodo). Rob ended up getting that every night... It was really good! Then I had salmon, which was cooked perfectly, and came with a bunch of other tasty things, including a carrot purée and a fairly fluffy lemon cream sauce was drizzled around.  It was pretty fancy food.  I think Rob had chicken curry. For dessert we shared ice cream, which was rolled in some butter crunch type thing and topped with a cookie.