One of the highlights of my travel experiences was a trip to Fiji on the way back from New Zealand several years ago. My friend, Kevin, and I stayed in a small hut near the beach on the Coral Coast of Viti Levu, the largest island in the Fijian island group. The place we stayed at was Tambua Sands Resort. It was a beautiful spot. We enjoyed snorkelling in the reef, visiting with local people, and travelling around the island. Our idyllic trip was rudely interrupted, however, by the approach of a major cyclone, what we in the U.S. would call a hurricane. To make matters worse, Fiji’s only working radar system conked out and we were not really sure when the island would be hit. I was pretty scared, I can tell you! It all ended ok for us in that we got on the last flight out of Nadi before the cyclone hit. Below is an article about the devastation caused by the cyclone shortly after we left. I was recently going through some old files and ran across this clipping. Reading it reminds me of how serious our situation was. The takeoff of our flight was real interesting…we were in an Air New Zealand 747, heading out into a cyclone, with no radar telling the pilot where he should go. So he just flew around in low circles for about an hour until he could find a break in the clouds. I have seldom been so nervous.
