Out to watch whales

On the boat out to see whales. Takes about an hour to the to the Channel Islands. Fingers crossed...

We seen dolphins! They were swimming right next to the boat and you could see them cruising under water and then leaping! Woo!

Anyone who has a better leaping dolphin photo shot with an iPhone is a better man than me! Try it some time :-/

Drive to Ventura

Up in the morning and popped out for coffee and croissant and then set off for Ventura where we'd booked to go whale watching.

Arrived and got lunch in marina - Brian ordered salad to cut down and it was enormous! There is no escaping American portions - ha ha :))

Santa Monica and on

Got a bit confused on the roads but ended up in Santa Monica by the pier. Took a walk along the beach and then got burger on the pier - real old time sea front. Weather amazing - such a change from Fiji!

Drove out to Malibu and found a motel for the night. Spent the evening using da free wifi and drinking our duty free :)

We is here!

Ok immigration 1 1/2 hours! Puts you off really :(

Anyway picked up a car - actually a massive 6 people mover thing. Forget what American cars are like: automatic everything - even auto-sliding doors!

Decided to head north out of LA on the Pacific Highway. No idea where we are going though!

Howdy California!

Slept most of the flight. Pacific Airways not much cop - Brian asked what the meal options were and got the response: chicken sandwich!

Well looking forward to our 4 days in California now - gives us some time to get out of LA now.

Off the plane and waiting and waiting in the usual grumpy officious US passport control queue - gonna take a while...

A swift exit

So flights booked for tonight it seemed all of sudden we were leaving.

Bus took us to Smugglers Cove where the whole group stayed. Checked in and had a final couple of drinks with everyone. The experience definitely brought the group together and it felt a bit of a wrench to suddenly be saying goodbye - a nice bunch :)

Packed our bags, said our goodbyes and off the the airport for our flight at 11pm.

A mixed stay all in all!

Rescue!!!

So we got back to Nandi and across the bridge again and they put us in cars with all our stuff on our laps. There were 3 major floods to get through. But we made it. Waved to the otters in the car behind.

Never been rescued before! As soon as we were through we called up to see if we could change our flights and amazingly got through to the Fiji office and booked to fly that night rather than sit for 2 days in the hotel as the weather was much worse as soon as you got to Nandi - rain pretty torrential!

Everyone really relieved to be back - a drink is in order!