Nevin & Kristina's Trip to New Zealand

January 28th, 2008.

Bula from Manta Ray Resort,

Today we were scheduled for our first transfer to another island. We are headed to Manta Ray resort on Nanuya Balavu Island. It is about a 1.5 hour boat ride south. We have also heard good things about this resort, people that have stayed in Manta Ray say the snorkelling is great! At certain times of the year you can swim with the Manta Rays, they are reported to have a 3-5 meter wing span! Unfortunately, we visited in the off-season, they are there from April to November. We arrived in the late afternoon and decided to get settled in to our new bure on the beach before dinner.
During dinner we were acquainting ourselves with the new group of travellers and had sat down to eat and visit with a couple we had just met from Denmark. Shortly into our meal, the resort manager advised us that a tropical cyclone named “Gene” was expected to hit the main island of Fiji (to the south of the islands we were travelling) and that we would likely experience high winds and heavy rain through the night. (Little did we know at the time that South of the equator this type of storm is called a cyclones, however North of the equator we call them hurricanes!)
The staff seemed fairly calm and indicated that they would keep us informed throughout the night if anything changed. We went to bed and locked down our bure, but it was a pretty sleepless night as the wind picked up. Around midnight the storm intensified and around 4am we woke up to hammering outside. We opened our door to see the staff nailing plywood over the doors and windows of the nearby bures. One of the resort personnel indicated we need to grab our valuables and head to the main office as the cyclone had changed direction and was headed for the islands! It was expected to hit us in a few hours.
From this point on it became a bit of a blur as we moved our belongings to higher ground and camped out on the floor of the administration building waiting between the next meal and for the next storm update, which arrived by fax about every three hours. At this point the winds were about 100km per hour and the rain was coming down in sheets. We were only scheduled to stay on this island for one night and then move to another island and resort island to the south. However, since there were no boats daring to travel the seas during the storm, we were stranded!
Unfortunatley, because of the intense wind and rain we did not brave the elements to take many pictures – at some points during the storm the wind was between 160-180km/hour!

Cheers,

Nevin & Kristina

We are just to the left of the center in the second ring!!