Bekana Island and Bounty Island resorts

Anastasia
Phil May and Andrea Twigg
Sun 24 Jun 2012 10:50
17:40.1S 177:18.7E
 
Last night we anchored off Lautoka, Fiji's second largest town after Suva.  We were hopeful that there would be a nice place on nearby Bekana Island for a cocktail, but the resort has been closed for several years.  We still went ashore on the island to have a look round.  The place opened in 2003 and closed after only five years of operation.  The problem with this part of the coast of Fiji is that there is a lot of organic run-off from the mainland and the water is quite green and cloudy.  There were just too many resorts nearby with whiter sand and clearer water.
 
Today we are travelling down to Port Denerau, but we probably can't get a mooring there until 4pm so we have made a detour to Bounty Island resort for some lunch and snorkelling.  Bounty Island is far enough from the mainland to have blue water.  The water around the island is a bit deep for anchoring but I phoned ahead and booked lunch and they said we could have one of their cruise ship moorings.  The mooring buoy is about the size of our tender.
 
The resort is quite basic, but it has a nice beach with views back to the mainland and the food was good and reasonably priced.  The snorkelling was not up to the standard of some of the places we have been but there were fish and coral and fairly clear water, so overall it was a pleasant way to spend an afternoon.  We rounded off the afternoon with Bounty Uro cocktails, an interesting variation on the coconut theme - gin, amaretto, coconut cream and orange juice.
Bekana Island beach huts with the thatch fallen off
Guard dogs drinking from the swimming pool