Diving in Fiji

So we’re now almost halfway ‘round the world again. We actually returned to a land-based dive resort on Taveuni Island, the third largest island in the Republic of Fiji. Because of the rest of our itinerary after this stop (more on this later), I didn’t really research Fiji much. February (and March) marks the rainy season. And by raining, I’m talking about pouring for 12 hours straight one afternoon and night. I was going to insert a video of pouring rain in the tropics, but y’all know pouring rain, right? This is what we wished we had for the whole week -

But I get ahead of myself…

As we flew in on a small plane (from the main island to Taveuni), we got a glimpse of the lush greenery and surrounding reef -

We stayed at the Taveuni Dive Resort for a week, and dove 3 times a day for 5 days. For those who might wonder (like my family did), about half of an hour-long dive would be deeper (60+ feet), then finish with the second half at 30 - 40 feet. The latter is my favorite depth because that’s usually where most of the fish are, as well as the better light.

(not the best lighting, but it lets you see the variety and density of the fish life)

Rather than bore you with too many stills, I want to share some of the great videos that Steve shot with his GoPro. I’ll intersperse the videos with stills, so be sure and open this blog by clicking the link “read in browser” at the bottom of the post.

Steve made this video by freezing the start so you can see the Blue and Gold Fusiliers, then let the video run, so you can experience what we did - they swam away at high speed!

The fish above is a BIG Longnose Butterflyfish, in contrast to the ordinary Longnose Butterflyfish -

The Big one has a nose that is 50% longer than the other fella’s. It was actually quite obvious when we first saw it. :)

I had the best time just settling down on the sand and watching these guys at work -

The fish is a Spotted Shrimpgoby and he’s always paired with a shrimp (or two) that keeps his den cleared.

Besides fish, we were always on the lookout for nudibranchs, which is a fancy name for sea slugs. The guides were so sharp eyed that they’d spot one of these one inch or smaller creatures from 6 feet away from the very busy reef, and I could barely see them, even when they were pointed out to me.

That purple one was a little easier to see than this little white one that was probably 1/2 inch long. Even with magnification, the detail is hard to appreciate until you expand it even more on your screen -

Fiji is known as the soft coral capital of the world, and it did not disappoint.

The variety and lushness were astounding.

One of our favorite dives was on the White Wall. This is a sheer vertical wall that has only white soft coral extending from a depth of about 60 ft to over 200 ft! I came close to my personal deepest dive here at 108 feet. First we passed this guardian…

… and then enjoyed cruising along the expanse. Stills don’t really do it justice…

… but Steve’s video helps to give some of the sense of scope. Lighting is difficult at depth, and especially when trying to illuminate a big expanse with lots of particulates in the water.

After we gently cruised at 100 feet for about 10 minutes, we ascended to 30 feet, and spent the rest of the dive enjoying the fish activity and sunlight. Here’s a Spotted Boxfish that didn’t like the paparazzi -

Our surface intervals (one hour spent above water between dives to help blow off some of the absorbed nitrogen from breathing compressed air) were spent admiring scenes that looked like a watercolor painting -

Another amazing nudibranch…

… and a semi-closeup of soft coral -

This little crab thought he could hide from me -

definitely enlarge this one to see the detail

One last video where I’m the one to show the scale of the Cabbage Patch (a huge congregation of cabbage coral) -

Now we’re off to New Zealand!