Saturday, April 5, 2014

Sawa-I-Lau Caves

Aka the Blue Lagoon caves. We visited them Friday morning along with the two Swedish couples here we have enjoyed getting to know. Staff member Moses was our guide. All this involved a 40 minute boat ride past a variety of islands, and back, including a fair amount of "open" sea. Lots to look at. We were rather less impressed with the caves themselves, but that's often the case with travel. It's the getting there that's important, the company, and incidents along the way. We purchased a "sports" camera--a disposable, good down to 30 meters or so, like the one we used kayaking at Milford in 2009 that I didn't get developed until 2013--and I'll include some shots from it in the cave, as well as snorkeling later, whenever we can get them developed.
Moses at the helm, as it were, speeding us away from Nanuya
















Reefs and shoals along the way















Sea-faring Vicki













To me it looked just like Tom Hanks' island in Cast Away; Moses informed us,
with a wicked grin, that it was called "Cannibal Island"














Some of the islands we passed were clearly volcanic in origin, recently; others,
not



















Approaching the island of caves















"Righty tighty, lefty loosey"...a mechanical interlude a mile off-shore, as Moses
re-attaches the motor to the boat
















The Blue Lagoon Caves Centre...steps to the right leading to the caves, to the left,
the market, with beads, necklaces, etc., to the extreme left, the toilet, behind a rock
("pee only")

















Someone else's photo of the large cave...I'll have my own in the following post...
soon...
















It's all this weirdly-eroded limestone (plus beautiful waters surrounding the
island)
















Pretty, if tiny beach















We took a different route back, on the outside, looking westward to the Coral
Sea, still hugging the shore, where possible, and enjoying the reefs 

















Schools of jumping fish (I swear they were...)















And the many different shore features








































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