Back from Fiji...

[stevenq99]

WOW is all I can say!  Can't wait for part 2

[schultz]

Garden Island Resort’s rooms are simple, yet they have to have some of the quietest air conditioners I’ve ever heard, making sleeping at night very restful. Although after ten hour flight from Los Angeles, I think I could have fallen asleep at a rock concert. The gardens around the resort are very beautiful and provide the fresh flowers you have every day in your room and at the dinner table. The food is spectacular, the staff very friendly, to the point where and at times you feel like royalty. There are also several hikes you can take in the surrounding area – but be wary with some of the tropical rains since they can produce flash floods when near some of the streams and waterfalls.

On our first day of diving we had a nice laid-back breakfast and afterwards we headed over to the dive shop to climb aboard our dive boat for the day. Garden Island Resort and Aqua Trek have teamed together to cater to the diving community in a manner that gives you a memorable, pleasurable, and relaxing vacation. Aqua Trek’s staff members are friendly, knowledgeable, and have some of the best divemasters we’ve seen in recent memory. They like to have fun, which makes for a better dive for vacationers while at the same time ensuring diver safety at all times. The dive shop is simple, yet well laid out, allowing ample drying racks inside for all your equipment. They also have great compressor facilities and provide nitrox fills at a standard mix of 32 percent.

As divers that are used to hauling our own equipment, we truly felt spoiled by Aqua Trek’s staff as they would carry all your equipment to and from the dive boat, thoroughly rinse your dive equipment at the end of the day, and hang it up in their locked shop at night to have it all ready for you the next morning. As far as safety is concerned this shop has one of the best operations we’ve seen in a long time. After every dive, they do a roll call, while recording your depth and time on a chart that they file in their shop. At the end of every day, you must sign off on your dives. As with any reputable dive shop, Nitrox fills are analyzed, logged, and signed-off before you even leave the shore.

The dive sites are spectacular, with many healthy corals, ample fish life, and many other critters. Currents at the White Wall can be strong, so newer divers should watch their air consumption. Divemasters here seem to respect the coral and aquatic life a great deal being certain not to disturb their surroundings with their group as much as possible. That being said, they still manage to find things in the coral heads that will simply amaze you. Surface intervals are always on a beach where you can spend the time eating a snack either on the beach or in the shade of trees, or snorkeling in the shallows where lionfish, octopus, and eels can be found in as little as six feet of water. Night dives are offered, but they require a minimum of four divers and 24 hours notice to the staff.

We did a total of 13 dives at this resort – Fish Factory, Rainbow’s End, Blue Ribbon Eel Reef, Annie’s Bommie, The Ledge (night dive), White Wall (twice), Baracude Reef, Port Luck, Coral Garen, Jack’s Place, The Zoo, and Corner and Point. I could go into detail on each of these reefs, but there is simply too much information to relay in what we saw at these sites. It is sufficient to say that each reef we visited was a little different from the next, each having its marvelous features, and each making a memorable dive. Locations you shouldn’t miss however would be Annie’s Bommie, White Wall, and Jack’s Place.

Our first dive was at Fish Factory, and no small wonder on the name here, since in the first five minutes of the dive we encountered two things on our checklist of must-see fish. The first was the Blue Ribbon Eel. Second was the Lion Fish, which was conveniently located two feet from the eel. Aside from these two specimens, this reef and all others we visited were in no small words TEEMING with schools of every fish imaginable. Take your best dive in the Caribbean scoop up all those fish, multiply by twenty, and then you begin to approach the levels we saw. No question about it, we were swimming in a huge fish bowl.

By our third day of diving, we had both gotten used to converting our depths into meters. Having everyone report his or her profiles in this manner makes it easier for the dive crew on the boat to keep track of everyone. They carefully log every dive, and then at the end of the day, divers must sign off on their profiles. Using the metric system is also much easier when determining maximum operating depths (MOD) on Nitrox fills. Here they tend to run a 32 percent blend which extends one’s bottom time by as much as 10 minutes on the deeper wall dives.

Day three gave us an opportunity to meet some Europeans that could actually boast a longer flight schedule than ours – over 35 hours! Three of them are Spaniards from Madrid, while the other is from the Czech Republic, but who has been living in Los Angeles for the past few years. All were fun to hang around with and they were really good divers as well as phenomenal videographers and photographers. Thankfully we would all share photos and video at the end of the dives, and I actually received many pointers from two of them that I later found out are actually professional underwater photographers.

We shared our travel stories over our nightly viewings, beer and wine. In no small words, getting to Fiji from anywhere but New Zealand is not easy, and not exactly the cheapest thing to do for a vacation. Like our newfound friends, our package at this resort had only included five days of two-tank diving and we wanted more. We all thought it might be a while before we returned to this part of the world, so we might as well make the most of it and cough up some addition money for a sixth day of diving. Our last two sites at this resort would be the Zoo, followed by Corner and Point.

The Zoo is supposed to be THE big animal encounter place for this region of Rainbow Reef, with its massive wall and great depths but when we were under the water, nothing came out of the deep blue. Disappointed, we did an hour-long surface interval and then motored to Corner and Point. This was mainly a drift dive, but the last 15 minutes we spent looking at two white tips feeding off the scraps of what appeared to be a blacktip shark – and a big one at that. This blacktip was hunting in the coral heads and continued to circle back to one specific location where it would lunge headfirst into an opening and thrash widely about trying to feed on something. Most people stayed clear of the shark, but I decided to take a closer look.

The shark was not deterred by the presence of my fellow divers nor my loud bubbles as they blew away from my regulator. In fact the shark gradually swam closer and closer to me as it continued its figure-eight stalking mode. Typically, most reef sharks are timid and tend to shy away when divers approach. This one was different, and seemed to want to take a closer look at anything within its current hunting area. Using the shark’s interest in me, I positioned myself with my back to a coral head, and camera out in front. This stance had come in handy in the past when a shark came a little too close to me and I used the camera to nudge it out of my way.

I was convinced it was a blacktip even with this somewhat abnormal behavior and no matter how hard I tried, I could not seem to get a decent photo of the animal, frustrated, I swam away. It wasn’t until Melissa and I compared photos after the dive with some identification charts when we realized that this wasn’t a blacktip, but rather a very large (easily 8 feet), and very dangerous Lemon shark. My only misgiving about the experience was that I failed to get the entire animal into frame since it instantly turned away whenever my pre-flash on my camera lit up. Looks like I’ll have to invest in some more camera equipment and invest in some sync-cords!

With our diving day done, and a memorable big animal encounter to boot, we spent the rest of the afternoon packing. The next day would be another travel day, and another resort in the diving paradise that is Fiji.

[schultz]

At 8:15 we left Garden Island Resort for the Taveuni airport. It only takes about 30 minutes, and we assumed our flight would be late. This time however, as soon as we unloaded the luggage from the car, the plane had landed. It was early. We quickly checked in for the flight, and wished our newfound Spanish friends safe travels. They were embarking on yet another dive adventure aboard the Fiji Aggressor, while we were heading back to Nadi to grab our ride to our next resort – Wananavu.

As soon as we were off the plane, a man of obvious Indian heritage met us. With our last names scrawled on a piece of paper, he shook our hands and politely said, “Everyone calls me Goodie.”  A slight mispronunciation of his proper name, but it worked. Goodie showed us to the shuttle that would carry us to the next destination. This was going to be a 2 to 3 hour car ride, so we loaded our dive equipment, and watched the scenery pass by.

One of the interesting things that had struck us from the plane were all the fields around the airport that were billowing smoke. We weren’t certain what they were from the air, but as we drove by them, Goodie pointed out that these were the sugar cane fields – one of Fijii’s main exports. The smoke was quite sweet smelling and pleasant – far different from those experienced around an evening campfire. And as we drove to the next resort, you could see the various stages of burning the fields, cutting the cane, stacking the cane onto small railroad flatbeds, and then a train pulling as many as 50 carts to the processing plant.

Much of the fields reminded us of the endless cornfields that one sees while driving through Iowa. There is so much cane, that your eye tends to look for something else to look at so as not to become hypnotically sleepy. If it weren’t for the occasional glimpse of the ocean along the journey to keep our diving spirits up, we may have done just that. But we were on our way to Wananavu Resort, located on the heart of Vatu-i-Ra Passage, also known as Bligh Water, and we remained excited.

In 1787, William Bligh, aged 33, was given command of ‘The Bounty’, a three year old merchant ship. His mission was to transport breadfruit from Tahiti to the West Indies. The Bounty set sail on December 23, 1787 and on April 1789 the famous mutiny took place, led by Bligh’s one-time friend, Fletcher Christian. Bligh and 18 other crew members loyal to him were set adrift on April 28th in the Bounty’s launch, an open boat, 23-foot long by 6’9” wide. In most cases such an act would have led to certain death for the men aboard, but Bligh was a magnificent seaman and he sailed from Tofua, one of the Friendly Islands, through the Fiji waters later named after him, and finally landing in Timor, Java, without any loss of life on June 14th.  The journey of 3618 nautical miles took them 47 days.

Wananavu Resort’s lies on the Northern tip of Viti Levu, and just several miles south of the path Captain Bligh took on his journey. The rooms are not rooms at all, rather, bungalows named bures in the local vernacular. The bures have one or two bedrooms and sleep up to 4 adults. There are no phones, radios or TVs in the bures, giving you the chance to experience a peaceful slice of paradise. The restaurant and bar area is quite spacious, providing a breakfast buffet, lunch menus, and a semi-formal dinner venue. A Traditional Fijian Feast, also known as a 'Lovo', is organized once a week. Food is wrapped in banana leaves, cooked over hot stones and buried underground. When the tasty feast is unearthed, it is then setup for every guest to enjoy.

There is little to do near the resort, and going anywhere, even to the closest town of Rakiraki requires a shuttle ($10 FJ). The resort does offer day trips for hiking, picnicking, kayaking, snorkeling, and such. We did not do any of these, opting instead to dive, eat, and relax. Fortunately the dive shop is on the same property as the resort. Although the dive shop is well equipped, they unfortunately do not run any Nitrox.

One of the benefits that the Kai Viti dive operators provide is the use of Mike Trussell’s boat, which is admittedly a little larger than Bligh’s launch. This is a 38-foot, Hamilton inboard jetboat that can easily hold 16 divers. Thankfully most days we only had eight divers, giving plenty of room for all aboard. The other great thing is that it’s big enough and fast enough to motor out to the reefs that are a good 16 miles from the resort. These are some of the same reefs that the Fiji Agressor will take you to should you decide to use their services. The difference here is that in rough waters, you stay on the Agressor, whereas with Mike’s boat, you can continue to dive in sheltered reefs closer to the resort. The downside to the inner reefs is that they are frequented by other dive operators, and therefore not as pristine.

That being said, the outer reefs here are simply amazing! My wife and I have been diving close to eight years, and this is the first time we felt simply astounded by the quantity and quality of sea life. I wish I could give Mike and his divemasters Seci and Bola credit for the beauty found here. As far as the crew is concerned, we’ve truly been pampered after this trip. The crew will pick up your equipment from your bure, have it ready on the boat the morning of your dives, and then take it to their shop for rinsing and drying.

Our only criticism is that we wish the operators would warn people not to damage the pristine coral found in these waters while diving. There were numerous dives where my wife and I observed other divers simply plowing through soft corals, breaking off pieces of hard coral, and breaking other reef features like sponges and anemone. While I can understand satisfying your customers, I firmly believe that as dive operator, you should also be in a position to protect the reef life you want to show. Even so, this was truly a memorable and enjoyable dive trip.

We did a total of 13 dives at this resort – The Pinnacle, Breathtaker, Instant Replay, Purple Haze, Black Magic Mountain, Mount Muntany (both sides), The Amazing Maze, Dream Maker, The Pinacle, Golden Dream, Dragontail, and Canyon. Again, I could go into detail on each of these reefs, but there is simply too much information to relay in what we saw here. It is sufficient to say that each reef we visited was a little different from the next, each having its marvelous features, and each making a memorable dive. Locations you shouldn’t miss however would be Purple Haze, Black Magic Mountain, Mount Mutiny, Golden Dream, and Canyon.

Whatever I said about memorable dives – forget it. Thar be whales in these waters! Since the conditions were still favorable, we decided to once again motor 16 miles out into the open waters to get some more deep-water experiences. On this day we decided to make three dives, and while under way to the locations, we could see a large humback whale breaching off in the distance. Humbacks are extremely rare in Fijian waters, so to see one from the boat even had the crew awestruck. Surely this was a good omen.

Purple haze had to be one most memorable dives to date with its massive purple soft corals hanging on the sides of this massive pinnacle. Black Magic Mountain gets it’s name for the massive quantities of black coral around the site, and Mount Mutiny stands another large pinnacle out in the middle of the ocean.

If you ever wanted to dive a site that is nothing more that a tiny point rising out of the ocean depths, Mount Mutiny is the place to do just that. The tip of this coral mountain starts at about 20 feet, but the base of this mountain is a sheer drop to 3000 feet. The entire feature can be circumnavigated in two dives and features many soft corals on the western side, while harder corals are on the eastern. Starting on the southern end you’ll encounter many white tip sharks, schools of barracuda. You end your dive on the northern side, where you’ll encounter the resident hawksbill turtle. What made this diving even more memorable was the fact that there was a humpback whale near our boat at the end of our dive. Although the water conditions weren’t good enough to see it underwater, you could definitely see it once you surfaced. Truly breathtaking!

Although I’d hate to say it, most of the more memorable dive we definitely the locations that were further out. Perhaps it is due to the pristine conditions of the corals due to a fewer number of humans. Whatever the case, the dives were incredible, and I would love to get back to experience more dives in that area of Fiji. If you’ve got the time, and the money, I would highly recommend it.

[stevenq99]

looks and sounds very cool.  Thanks for sharing.