Thigh Slapping Fun!!!

It's going to be one helluva week at Rydges Hideaway – we have the Fiji Country Music Festival (apparently Fiji's first), six days of thigh slapping, toe tapping fun. Not that I know any country music, unless it was sung by Dolly Parton... Isn't Celine Dion a little country too? Although none of the names on the menu mean a thing to me, all the Australians get themselves all excited when I mention John Williamson is headlining... Apparently he wrote some song or other that is a bit of an Ozzie anthem – True Blue, or something along those lines. At least it means that I can reclaim Oggy, Oggy, Oggy... Just cos it sounds a little like Ozzie, does not make it automatically theirs! I think we may be coming to Hideaway for a bit of a jig this evening, after special cocktails. Apparently the Fijians are very good at line dancing, and I am sure they can make a cowboy hat look rather fetching – they manage to make man skirts look awesome!

ChiChi completed her Rescue course on Monday with great aplomb. We were a real little entertainment troupe round the pool that morning, yelling 'diver diver are you OK?' whilst everyone enjoyed their breakfasts... We coerced Te to be the body, all 6 foot and kava belly of him, and ChiChi and I spent an hour dragging him in and out of the water... neither of us won much in the height lottery, so poor old Te got mostly dragged and dumped, before getting his wetsuit ripped open so we could practice CPR – much to the horror of two little girls, both around two, who just stood beside Te, dripping wet in their water wings, with looks of great concern on their faces at ChiChi's administrations, almost in tears when Te bounded back up again for another round of drag and drop. I wish I had a camera!

You'll of course notice that there is no mention of Mere completing her course... Poor old Mere got another ear infection and was off work for three days last week. I have told her to give up her ear cleaning addiction and be at one with her ear wax, so it can do it's job and protect her ears from the nasty bugs that seem to find her so tasty. Funnily enough, I mentioned rescue to her again last night, and she turned up to work with cotton wool in her ear again, think I am just going to have to surprise her one day...

ChiChi also completed her Deep Diver Speciality with Alex before she returned to Canada, one of the many specialties we offer. Our reefs are perfect for deep diving, with lovely visibility currently, the only problem being making sure you don't go too deep. I'm not telling the boys that I am a drysuit speciality instructor, as I refuse point blank to teach that out here, however much they plead! The water is a balmy 26°C at the moment (around 80°F), but they all want hoods and if they find gloves the excitement levels are super high! I'm still diving in my 3mm shortie, and am happy as long as the eight day wind is not blowing up top.

Two of our first time divers, Marie and Jack, booked in for two dives with us, and the weather conditions were perfect to take them out to The Edge for their first dive. I've been out the water for a few days, so was really excited to get back out there. The Edge is one of those dives sites I find really hard to brief, as there is just so much to see, it's kind of one of those 'ahhhh!' dives, where you don't know what to look at as it is all so beautiful. We regularly get 20m vis, but this particular day it was like diving in gin – just stunning! Only problem being that Marie and Jack are now way too spoilt!!!

Anyway, time to go and crash the Jim Haynes Big Beach Brunch, see if I can snaffle any bacon...