The Blue Lagoon- Nacula Island, Fiji
Nucula Island, Fiji
Back in early April I was dreaming of a trip to the Philippines and was checking out prices for flights and lodging. While doing this I saw a little banner at the top of the page mentioning that Fiji had recently reopened to travelers. Fiji Airlines was running a temporary discounted airfare for a direct flight from San Fransisco to Viti Levu. Being one that loves a good bargain I decided to look into it more. Upon looking at the deal, I decided to divert from my original plan and decided to book a two-week holiday for my husband and myself.
After I booked the tickets, it was now time to decide where we were going to go. I looked at going to Taveuni Island, the Lau group of islands (which I wanted to visit but they are very remote), Kadavul Island, the Yasawa’s, and Vanua Levu. As you can imagine this process was overwhelming. I normally do not have any problem picking a vacation destination and finding a place, but Fiji turned out to be rather difficult for me. I don’t have any friends or family that have been there so I couldn’t ask anyone for a recommendation. This may sound completely ridiculous but I seriously was worried about not choosing an epic spot.
Sonny and I work a lot, so we knew that we wanted to pretty much chill for our vacation. Our goals were laying out on the beach, swimming, snorkeling, reading on the beach, and watching sunsets repeat.
After doing extensive research, in the end, we decided we were going to go to the Yasawa’s.
Yasawa’s- Nacula Island
The Yasawa’s are a group of Island’s off the west coast of Viti Levu. The islands are known for their white sand beaches. Multiple islands make up the Yasawa’s. After looking at things like price point and things to do we decided to go to Nacula Island to the Blue Lagoon Resort.
Nacula Island is the second to last island in the Yasawa Group. While researching where to go, I knew that if we stayed here we would have to take either a boat ride or a seaplane. In the end, we decided to go by boat on the Yasawa Flyer to the island. The boat was more economical and on top of that I knew that choosing this method of transportation would allow us to see all of the other islands on the way to our destination. I also knew, that choosing this method meant we were going to be on the Yasawa Flyer for five hours. I know that may sound grueling, but if I had to do it over again I would hands down choose to go by boat again and again.
Nacula Island is a small island that has no roads. There are four villages on the island. As you can imagine this makes the island feel remote and amazingly peaceful. This is exactly what we were looking for in this vacation.
Things To Do While on Nacula Island
Snorkeling- Right in front of the Blue Lagoon Resort is a reef that goes out pretty far. Every day (sometimes multiple times a day), we would check out snorkeling gear and cruise along the reef. There were so many beautiful fish it was easy to spend 2 hours swimming around and looking at everything. The resort also offered snorkeling excursions (which cost money but were reasonably priced. We did two snorkeling excursions the first was in between two islands that were to the south of our island and then we did a night snorkel.
SUP/Kayak- The resort offers Stand Up Paddleboards and Kayaks. I believe these are free for guests but we never did it. We talked about it but always ended up going snorkeling instead.
Hiking- There is a hiking trail right behind the resort. The trail takes you up to the top of the mountain ridge line where you can get 360-degree views of the island. We did this on an overcast morning and started around 7:00 am. We live in Northern California where a warm day here is about 75 degrees. I am pretty sure this hike would have been hard for us if we chose to do it during the day.
Scuba Diving- The resort offers many different scuba diving trips. Neither of us has any sort of scuba diving certification. You could take classes at the resort, but we didn’t want to spend our vacation taking classes. Though, now that we are home, I would like to get certified here so that next time we are on a trip I can go scuba diving if I want to. Had I been certified I am positive I would have gone on a dive.
The Beach- The beach in front of the resort was absolutely stunning! We spent so much time laying out, reading, soaking in the water, and just listening to the gentle roll of the water.
Sawa-I-Lau Caves- This was my favorite excursion that we did. The cost to go to the cave was very reasonably priced and was worth every single cent. Once you go into the cave there is ocean water for you to swim around in. The top of the cave is open so natural sunlight filters into the cave from above. After spending some time in the first cave you then have to swim underwater through a large hole to get into the second cave. The second cave is pitch black except for the flashlight that the captain had.
Watching the Sunset- All I can say is wow! The sunsets here were so unique. We tried to enjoy the sunsets every night. We would order ourselves a couple of Fiji Bitters and sit in the sand to watch the setting sun. It never got old!