Best Fiji Shore Diving?

[haughki]

Hi All,

I've read a number of great and helpful threads on diving in Fiji, but still haven't found much on the shore diving there. I'm actually more of a freediver, and I'm looking for a place where I can more easily access the reefs from shore. I dive comfortably to ~30m, and I'm looking for diving around that depth (i.e., not your traditional snorkeling). I plan to spend two-three weeks diving in Fiji, so I'm also hoping to find an area which has a lot of different places to dive. Also, I'm very much the budget traveller: I really want to go to Fiji, but the air alone is hugely expensive for me, so I need to stay somewhere at the very low end of the options. I'm looking at a few places in Kadavu and Taveuni, but I've been reading amazing things about Bligh Water....

Any thoughts or advice would be really helpful.

Thanks in advance,

Hawkeye Parker

 

[WizFromOz]

Hi All,

I've read a number of great and helpful threads on diving in Fiji, but still haven't found much on the shore diving there. I'm actually more of a freediver, and I'm looking for a place where I can more easily access the reefs from shore. I dive comfortably to ~30m, and I'm looking for diving around that depth (i.e., not your traditional snorkeling). I plan to spend two-three weeks diving in Fiji, so I'm also hoping to find an area which has a lot of different places to dive. Also, I'm very much the budget traveller: I really want to go to Fiji, but the air alone is hugely expensive for me, so I need to stay somewhere at the very low end of the options. I'm looking at a few places in Kadavu and Taveuni, but I've been reading amazing things about Bligh Water....

Any thoughts or advice would be really helpful.

Thanks in advance,

Hawkeye Parker

I'd go to Mana Island, it's not far from Nadi, about 40 mins by water ferry out to the chain of Islands called the Mamanuca's. If you want a cheaper Island try Beachcomber, but they all have inter-connecting ferry service so you can choose which island you'd like to dive each day.

Second choice would be Kadavu's Astrolabe Reef, stay on Ono, I did for about 3 weeks, had my own Bure right on the beach and a local girl would come in and do all my cooking, washing and tidying every day (She baked GREAT bread in the village for breakfast, and it was still warm when she delivered it! The Astrolabe Reef is perfect for free diving, and it's crystal clear.

Have a great time.

WizFromOz

 

[Wiggsy]

Interesting - won't be easy to find 30 metres off shore in Fiji. But a good option would be also to check out Nagigia Island down the end of Kadavu - there is a small surf resort there (see www.fijisurf.com ) and I did some snorkelling there a couple of years back. The island is on the edge of a coral wall that drops off straight into 500 metres or so near the surf break known as King Kong left. There's a lot of Barracuda; Hump Head Maori Wrasse and I dived with Hammerheads here on the south side of the island. Always gin clear water and the most beautiful place I have ever seen.

But there are few soft corals and it is not aas colourful as at Naigani Island which also offers great shore diving - but not much deeper than 15 metres.

Good luck in your quest.

 

[haughki]

Interesting - won't be easy to find 30 metres off shore in Fiji.

Thanks for the helpful replies! Here's where I'm still a little confused: all the diving I've done in the tropics (Bonaire, Kona, Maui) has been really straight-forward shore diving: the reef starts pretty much right at the shore and gets deeper as you swim out. After swimming out a few hundred meters at most, the water is getting quite deep, certainly more than 20-30m. This is what I'm used to, but it seems like the typical fiji dives are quite different...?

Most of the threads I've read here about Fiji mention taking a boat ride to the dive spot. This makes me think that it must be quite a swim to get out to deeper water, or at least that is a common layout in Fiji. Is this correct? I guess I'm imagining water between 2 - 10m over a shallow reef extending 10's or 100's of meters out to a barrier reef where the water finally starts to get deeper; and, tide depending, the possiblilty of running into some heavy/sketchy break while trying to swim though out to the reef's seaward edge (and getting out is the easy bit....).

Am I on the right track here? Or is there some other reason I'm missing which makes it tough to find fairly deep shore dives?

Cheers,
Hawkeye