SURF TRAVEL... NAMOTU, FIJI
BY MICHELLE SHEPTAK
Fly into NADI- Best place to go for a surf trip because when you cross the dateline its actually 5 am and then you are ready to have a normal full day of surf!!! Leave at 11:30pm, take a couple sedatives and sleep the 8hr. flight and boom- in paradise you land!!

You arrive in Nadi at about 5am. Then shop, eat breakfast, and purchase the Kava to take to the island as your gift. Then take about an hour drive to Uciwai Jetty where you board a boat for Namotu. You do a 30 min boat transfer and then there you are on an island you've basically just rented and have exclusive rights to the surf breaks.

It is customary to present a YAGONA which is also known as KAVA. The gift, called a SEVUSEVU is not expensive, about $10.00, and half a kilo is appropriate.
When you arrive to the island you present it to the head of the village (TURAGU NI KORO), which in our case it was the owner as well, Scotty. The Kava we brought was used for Fijian Night held each Thursday on the island.

CULTURE
Fijians are soft spoken and any raising of your voice is interpreted as anger so it is important to be respectful and follow the customs. Fijians are considered the friendliest people in the world so be prepared to shake hands, and answer many personal questions when you meet including even how much you make a year.

SURFBREAKS
The main surfbreaks are Wilkes Passage, Namotu Lefts and Swimming Pools. Islanders have exclusive use of Namotu Lefts and Swimming Pools and Wilkes is shared with some surrounding islands. Namotu Lefts is as it says ….a left, and Wilkes and Swimming Pools are Rights. Wilkes is the furthest out and the more advanced wave. Identical to the Left but depends on what you wanted that day! Wow to pick your front or backside was a treat!!!

I scored some really fun Rights and that day was the day that prepped me for the rest of the trip. It was about 8ft at Wilkes this day and solid with some 10-12 ft sneaker sets rolling in and cleaning us all up! I remembered watching the boatman laughing at 5 of us one time, cause we were kidding ourselves thinking we were gonna paddle thru the one set.
If you weren't constantly paddling the current was pushing you down the line and inside and then when a big set came- good luck. The sets broke wide and there was nowhere to go! This was the only spot I actually got held down long enough to hit the REEF and it was at that a minor mishap.

The first day when we arrived, because the time zone worked well, we surfed for 6 hours. Every spot was glassy and breaking perfect! We surfed like you thought we had to leave, not just arriving!!!!!!!!!

SURF ON YOUR SCHEDULE
From Namotu to go surfing you literally had no time schedule. You just walked to the waters edge and a boatman was waiting on you all day. No matter if you were the only one surfing or just a couple of you, they were there and often stayed in the water while you surfed too, so your ride in and out was always there.
Now if we could only have had a rope to be pulled back to the lineup sometimes!!! Actually there were a couple jet skis for towing available and if the swell got to 20 ft as it was predicted it was definitely getting pulled out.

NOURISHMENT
Meals were simply AWESOME!!! Everyday at daybreak the beating of the Lali (wooden drum) was done to announce meal times. Other than breakfast, meals were served buffet style.

Breakfast was at 6:30am, with coffee, tea, fruit, cereal, muffins. You could place an order for a hot breakfast between 7-9am only, with the staff and they would hold it for you till you came back from surfing. Often I had some cereal with GREAT intentions of eating breakfast so I would order for late breakfast and end up surfing all morning missing breakfast.
Typical of me, always late but the infamous "just one more wave" kept me out there. Dinner was 7:30pm with drinks at the bar and watching the days surf video or pictures was often mocked- ha ah!

A wide variety of fish was enjoyed as every morning 6:00am the island Fisherman – Liam, cute blonde Aussie would go out and then again at 4pm to sundown. We had many nights of the freshest fish and sushi a couple of times.

ISLAND ACTIVITIES
I only surfed, napped and surfed. Some of the group, snorkeled or just swam. Walks were a great mix but the walk around the island only took 15 min if you were dragging your feet and looking for shells. You could also go spear fishing.

OUTER-ISLAND SURF
Midweek, we did a boat trip to neighboring Tavarua Island, literally only 5 min. boat trip away. I have never felt like such an invader as I did when we arrived at Tavarua. There was a group of surfers already there, so they- like us, rented the island and you can imagine the looks of "what and who are you guys" when we dropped in on there turf!
It was all good; it always happens and once the initial quick looks came at us we found ourselves swapping surf stories drinking maitai’s or some kind of beverage!!
Of course this turned into an "My Island has waaaaaay better surf than yours.." and in reality for one day we had better surf on Namotu than Cloudbreak. You really had to surf one side of our island by a certain time for tide and wind and then the other the 2nd part of day.     . . . . . . . . next page