The MV Yasawa Princess II, recently added to the Blue Lagoon fleet, is designed to navigate waters inaccessible to larger cruise ships. On a recent trip to Fiji's Sacred Islands, Hudson describes anchoring between two islands connected by a narrow sandbar. While snorkeling in waters teeming with pastel corals, tropical fish, stingrays and parrot fish, she was startled by shouts from the shore. The commotion turned out to be a group of local schoolchildren struggling to drag their boat across the shallows to beat the retreating tide.
Rather than remaining a detached observer, the ship's passengers and crew joined the children in a tug-of-war with the tide, eventually freeing the runabout. The children cheered and waved as they sped off, shouting 'vinaka' (thank you). The experience, according to Hudson, illustrates the kind of genuine local encounters that small-ship cruising can facilitate in Fiji.