Thursday, January 31......Vinaka vaka levu! Thank you very much! Our Wednesday was spent much like our Tuesday...sitting under the canopy outside the restaurant watching the rain! We did manage to get out for a bit on Tuesday afternoon and headed east towards Suva to survey the terrain. Lots and lots of trees down and vegetation strewn all over. 80% of Viti Levu was without power and late Wednesday we heard the road out of Nadi was flooded so no one could get in or out of the city!

We managed to get all the way to Suva on Wednesday and found a gas station that had generator power so we could fill up our gas tank....imagine...no lines at the service station! The two Aggressor boats were moored next to the Tradewinds Hotel just outside of Suva so we knew those guests/crew were safe. We hadn't yet been able to connect with the Nai'a staff because of the power outages, but later in the day I reached Rob, one of the Nai'a owners.

The Nai'a has been out of service for several weeks getting her "annual refit" so she was safe in port in Lautoka when the storm hit...no guests were onboard and the crew was all safe. With the road to Nadi and therefore, Lautoka, blocked, right now Rob is trying to get his crew to the boat so they can finish all the last-minute tasks that have to take place at the end of a refit....but she'll be ready to sail on Saturday afternoon, on schedule!

As of Wednesday evening, still no power in Pacific Harbour, nor any water! Baths were still being taken in the ocean, but the staff at the Pearl was awesome, to say the least. Every few hours they'd have to shut down the generator so it could cool off, but in between food was being cooked, rooms were being cleaned and everyone had an upbeat attitude! We learned that the storm was to the West over Vanuata but the front was still affecting Fiji to a certain degree and it was raining hard most of the day....

This morning when we woke we still had no power..until about 9:00 a.m. when the power was restored, but still no word on water. We tried to reach our next destination, Wananavu Beach Resort up on the north shore, but from what we read in the papers, they were still having flooding issues and no one was answering the phones there.

We headed west along the Coral Coast knowing we'd be able to find a hotel with electricity, water & INTERNET! We stopped at Waidroka Bay Beach Resort and did a lovely tour there...it's a modest resort deep in the rainforest that caters to divers and surfers...small and compact, a great place for a group of serious divers or surfers to spend some time! We then continued west on Queens Highway and stopped at the Outrigger on the Lagoon and did a short tour and had a lovely lunch there. About 30 kilometers west was our ultimate destination....The Fijian Shangri-La and "Shangri-La" it is! It's a beautiful hotel, on absolutely gorgeous grounds on a small private island just across a man-made bridge from the mainland.

The first thing we did was jump into the glorious shower! It's still a little overcast but I'm in heaven and planning on staying here until Saturday when we head for the Nai'a. The front desk here at the hotel told us that traffic is now crossing the bridge into/out of Nadi so barring any more heavy rains, we should be all set when we're ready to head into Nadi on Saturday!

It's been an adventure so far, for sure, but everyone is so friendly and always smiling. Their villages may be flooded, their crops have been essentially destroyed by the floods but you'd never know it from talking with them...the Fijians are truly a caring, smiling culture!

Now it's time to look at all the e-mails! I'll update again soon....