As you cross through the gate everything changes. There’s watchmen there, staring at you as you easily drive through in the sturdy shuttle bus. They must stand there all day, keeping the poverty out. I’m surrounded by Californian style homes and bright green golf courses, the atmosphere you would expect in a suburb of LA, wealth weighing heavy in the air. A road leads through the residential community to the port where the Flyer leaves from, and within an hour we are on board ready to hop away from the mainland to the small islands off the coast known as the “Yasawas.”

Our first stop in Mantaray Resort, known for their close proximity to a Mantaray feedings site a short boat ride away. We load off the Flyer onto a small water taxi which brings us onto the island’s shore. Greeted by the staff singing a beautiful Fijian melody, we receive tropical drinks and are lead to our rooms.

Mantaray island is beautiful. The beach is full of endless coral and shells, a collectors dream location. The rocks on either side of the shore harbor all sorts of starfish, crabs, and small fish stuck in the pools. We pay $25 Fijian for snorkeling equipment and when we dive beneath the surface there’s a rainbow of fish. Of course you need to be far enough out to see the good stuff, past the reefs that have been torn by flipper kicks. But the back reefs are something to be seen. Sea cucumbers of tremendous sizes litter the ground, huge blue starfish spread wide over the rocks, and nemo and his friends just keep swimming, just keeping swimming, everywhere else.

There are three things I saw while snorkeling that were unbelievably cool. I’ll start with the least exciting one. Most of the fish we were seeing were pretty small, maybe the size of my hand or two hands together if placed side by side. But one fish we saw was huge. I’m not sure what it was, but it was spotted and puffy and probably the size of a soccer ball or basketball, in width as well as length. It glided right below us for a while, not disturbed or startled, just slowly passing by making its way across the ocean floor.

Now for the second thing, get ready for it- I swam with a shark. I swam within feet of a shark. A small shark, but a shark all the same. It was a white-tipped reef shark, slinking in the dark shadows of an overlying rock. He was just in sight for a few seconds, but enough time to acknowledge what it was I was looking at.

And the last one you might already be able to guess, considering the name of the resort we were staying at. The last day at the resort, just hours before the Flyer was coming to take us to our next island, they banged the drums. Banging of drums symbolizes two things at this resort. It can mean that it is a meal time and everyone can head up the hill to the restaurant to eat. Or, any other time of the day, it can mean that a Mantaray was spotted. That is what is meant this time, and we grabbed our snorkeling gear, hopping on one of the water taxis, and rode to the spot to swim with the Mantas. We saw three in all, two way deep down in the water below our feet, and one higher up that swooshed across the ocean floor as we followed it on its travels. These were huge creatures, perhaps longer than me in length!

The second island we visited was also beautiful, but in its own way. The place we stayed was on the outskirts of a small village, and the cabins we stayed in were simple with no electricity, warm water, or proper shower. It was a cozy little place, with a wonderful local Fijian women who took care of everyone, cooked traditional feels, and cleaned the inn. There were only a couple of guests there, so meals were family style, everyone sitting together and talking. Other guests included a lovely french couple who spoke broken English but were sure to show us many pictures of where they were from in France and of their sons, a young guy from Australia, and an even younger guy from Germany who was traveling all around the south Pacific and had been working in New Zealand prior to visiting Fiji.

We only stayed one night at this inn. We might have stayed longer except we were both still not feeling great after our sicknesses we’d had on the mainland, and something about staying at a place where we couldn’t shower or eat normally didn’t quite strike our fancy at that point in time. But the place certainly was the most gorgeous location I saw anywhere in Fiji, and the people were quite friendly.

We did take a walk around the island in the morning before we departed. We walked over rocks and across long stretches of sand beach to reach a patch of mangrove trees by a river. All at our feet as we walked were crabs, darting in and out of holes in the ground. Some had large different colored claws on one side, that looked beneficial for carrying food. Following the river alongside the mangrove we looped our way around the island on the outskirts of the land. Before making it back to the Inn, we managed to pass through two other large crowds of travelers using the islands. The first being a cruise ship of what were mostly older persons that were pit-stopped on the island. The second was a second resort on the other side of the island which had a completely different feel, one more similar to where we had stayed at Mantaray. After briefly pretending we were guests at the other resort by treating ourselves to some soda and chips from the bar, we headed back in time to catch the Flyer to the main land!