Snorkelling in paradise

We were feeling lazy on day three of our Blue Lagoon cruise and skipped the Sunday morning church service in Soso village.

We curled up on an outdoor sofa with our books for a few hours instead. Forgive us!

After lunch we were transferred to a deserted beach for a snorkelling trip, which was gorgeous, with a huge variety of coral and fish, including clusters of clownfish darting in and out of anemones.

We even saw a huge clownfish with a blue stripe across his back.

I don’t have pics that capture its magic other than the one above that I stole from my friend Emily’s GoPro.

DD is wondering if he needs a GoPro of his own for his birthday.

Sadly, a lot of the coral we have seen is dead. Much like the rest of the world, it has been damaged by storms, global warming and crown of thorns starfish.

But my search continues for little pockets of magic among the ruins.

Back on the Yasawa Princess, we dozed and read our way through the afternoon on our favourite outdoor sofa with its gorgeous ocean views.

Sunset drinks were served on the back deck and DD captured this cool pic …

Then the crew serenaded us over dinner …

We scored another free bottle of wine to enjoy with our meal, from the second patient DD treated on the cruise. Nice!

The three-night passengers aboard the Yasawa Princess were partying hard before their reluctant departure the next morning.

They sent one of their sozzled gang over to settle a bet about whether DD and I were married. I have no idea why they needed to know so badly.

We were very glad not to be among the three nighters … and not just because they were placing bets on the marital status of strangers.

Blue Lagoon Cruises offers seven-night, three-night or four-night itineraries.

We opted for the seven-night cruise and were fortunate to keep our bookings after the company’s other ship running aground on a reef in early April.

It couldn’t be saved, which meant a lot of shuffling. Many passengers on our cruise were meant to do the seven-night cruise, but had to switch to three nights on the boat and four nights in a resort.

After dinner, the three-night party animals joined a karaoke session on deck, where the table lamps from dinner played an unexpected starring role.

Hangovers are not my thing, so we snuck off for another early night and left them to it.

PS My tip if you’re thinking about a Blue Lagoon cruise but don’t fancy seven nights at sea is to book the four-night cruise – it has more highlights. I’ll share them with you over the next few days.

Song of the day: Jack Johnson “Only the ocean”