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 On
our first night at Seashell we pitched the tent, had a game
of football, and then hit the sack exhausted. The very next
morning we caught a skiff out to Wilkes Passage, a world-class
right-hander. Throughout our entire first week we enjoyed
superb surfing at Wilkes. It was the first time that any of
us had ever surfed a coral reef, and we were all expecting
it to be pretty gnarly. The reality wasn't that bad, and after
a few sessions we got used to seeing the coral under the water.
The
day after we arrived at Seashell Cove, Helen
and Alex pitched their granny flat next to our 6 man tent.
They travelled with us for the rest of our time in Fiji. George
and Olly arrived next, Olly amusing us all with a story about
a German man on a ski chairlift that we'll never forget. Steve
and Ric did their PADI
Open Water Diver courses at Seashell, and saw a few turtles,
reef sharks and moray eels swimming about. One of the highlights
of their course was seeing a 7ft Nurse Shark sleeping in a
cave.
 The
highlight of our stay at Seashell Cove was getting to surf
Cloudbreak. Unfortunately it was really busy the day that
we surfed it, with 14 of us out. Trudy Todd, Kate Skarratt,
Samantha Cornish and Dan Bigham were all in the water with
us. It was about 5 foot on the sets but was sectioning a bit.
None of us really believed that one day we'd be standing on
Tavarua. Cloudbreak is so exclusive that we could barely believe
that we'd managed to get to surf it.
The
week after we surfed it the trip from Seashell Cove was cancelled
because the owners of Tavarua said that some pros were surfing
it and were doing a photo shoot. Some of the people that were
booked on the trip from Seashell had been waiting at the resort
all week to get to surf Cloudbreak, and they were only told
the night before that the trip was cancelled. I suppose we
were lucky?!
 Al,
a friend from University in Scotland, came out to see us for
a two week holiday. He arrived a day early. Al did the diving
course as well. We would go surfing at about 7am every day,
and usually get back to Seashell at about 12pm. The rest of
the day we would lounge around the pool, read, and drink beer.
We spent most of, in fact all of our evenings drinking beer
and kava. After 2 weeks at Seashell we went to stay on the
island of Yanuca.
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