Me, The wife & the tropical storm
Honeymoon last year. Australia, New Zealand and Fiji over a month. The last place we are staying is a island resort in Fiji, 34 huts on an isolated island. Only way there that we know of is a 2 hour boat trip.

We land at Nadi airport, and it's raining hard. I mean coming in at angles. Wind up to Gale force 6. We go down to the docks, and they have a big Katamaran to take us to the island. We get on, the crossing to the 1st drop off point is rough.

When I say drop off point, I mean "lets put you over the side of the boat and into a basic 3 man canoe, and you get to sure in 6 ft swells."

We go on for anothe couple of drops, and the weather is getting worse. The Captain pulls over in one of the hotel Lagoons, and gets on the loud speaker. "The weather is too rough, we are pulling over for an hour or two to see if it clears".

We wait 4 hours, and our captain comes along to say a bigger boat has arrived and everything is fine to go. It still looks like a tornado out there and we are piled onto a boat that I wouldn't trust to cross the a brook. It's about 20ft long, flat hulled and looks as though Noah rejected it as a possible Ark.

Off we sail. The captain (according to the crew, the most skilled plot in the waters) is conecntrating so hard he's sweating, the other crew have the life preservers on, and we are all sitting there in shorts and t-shirts. I hate being on deep water, and I'm shitting bricks. My wife is pregnant, and isn't a good swimmer. The swells are about 8ft, and water is coming in at various points on the ship. I'm seeing which island is closest in case we have to swim! I have never been so scared in my life. I was whiter than Powder...

AFter 2 hours of a supposed 45 minute journey, the Captain has contacted the local coast guard saying that the GPS has gone down and he's not sure where he is. All of a sudden, we hit something, and the front of the boat is pointing up at a 30 degree angles. I'll be honest, I screamed and pissed myself at this moment.

By blind luck, he's ran into the coral reef protecting the island we are supposed to be staying on. We are still about 500 yds out, and the resort are sending out little boats to take us in. I asked the pilot how deep the lagoon is "About 4 ft", he replies. I jumped off the front of the boat with the wife and we waded to shore. The other 12 people on the boat do the same. We get on shore, and they offer us whisky and sedatives, and a refund of £100 for all the passengers in the boat.

The next morning we looked out of our room into the relative calm, and see our boat, floating upside down, about 100 yds out to sea.

I paid £230 for a private helicopter to pick us up from the Island on the way back, and I haven't been in a boat since.
(gjb006, Mon 26 Feb 2007, 18:51, Reply)