A great start to our Fiji Islands cruise

Day 1 of a 7-day Fiji Islands cruise

We're now on our Fiji Islands cruise. Although wifi is included in the cruise in the lounge areas, the reception is sporadic or slow. This, along with our busy daily schedule, may affect how much detail I get to share.

A few days ago I mentioned a ship that had a helicopter on the back. This is the photo I shared. The ship's name is SuRi. I searched it on Google but couldn't find any details of the owner; it was kind of like Mission Impossible (there's a hint there). I'm now told it's named after an actor's child. Many of you will now know who owns it.

Here's our ship in dock, just before we were to board. With 64 cabins and a maximum passenger capacity of 130 people, it's a small ship. This week it has 40 passengers, and has about an equal number of crew aboard. It's certainly allowing us to be truly pampered!

We left at 2 pm and by 3 pm we were off the ship and headed towards this idyllic island to snorkel.

This picture cannot match the real thing. The scene reminded me of postcards of the desert island escapes. It’s a private island owned by our cruise ship company, and we were the only ones on the island. We snorkeled for an hour or two and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was my first time seeing large blue star fish, and Greg saw large clams. The water temperature was warm, which was great.

With such a small group, it’s easy to quickly get to know people. It’s certainly a social crowd. Many are from New Zealand and Australia, with one couple from China and two couples from America. We are the only Canadian passengers, but our dive master onboard is a Canadian from Montreal and she's lived here for six years and loves the culture and spirit of the people. 

The first evening is the only one where we were encouraged to dress up to any degree, which was fine by us as we hadn’t packed any formal clothes. I bought a dress in Australia, and Greg was pleasantly pleased to see me wearing a dress, which is certainly unusual for me.

We had a lovely meal with assigned seating. There is one other Beattie (our last name) on this cruise, and he was sat next to Greg. Perhaps they thought we were related! We had a great day; good snorkeling, great food and great company.