profmason
Registered
I took advantage of the amazing $799 roundtrip direct flight from LAX to Nadi airport. Great flight, leaving at 9:45 PM and landing at roughly 6:00 AM. Walked out to the main road and found a taxi return to Lautoka ($5 35km). Lautoka is one of the main industrial / port towns. Not much to it beyond the sugar mill and distillery, however the only regulator / compressor repair spot is on Queens Wharf it you are desperate. I took the 2.5 hour bus from Lautoka to RakiRaki Village. RakiRaki village has about 15 shops and is the biggest place around, stock up on any supplies. I grabbed a taxi from here to Ring Gold Divers.
Day 0: Traveling to RakiRaki
Jioji runs a miniature Dive empire out of his family compound (11 children mostly adult with many cousins, etc) just off the Bligh waters. You homestay with which ever of his family has space and eat in the big outdoor dining room based on whatever is in season and what you brought back from spearfishing / trolling. Typically there were 3-5 of us staying.
I did 13 dives over 6 days with Ring Gold.
Day 1: Bula Maker and Breath Taker
Day 2: Mellow Yellow and Pot Luck
Day 3: 3 dives in the Marine Reserve
Day 4: Swimthrough heaven and Neptunes Rhapsody
Day 5: Golden Dream Lost pinnacle
Day 6: Why Not and Purple Haze
Ring Gold dives all the same sites as VoliVoli (Joiji's son in law Josh is the Dive Manager at VoliVoli). These sites are amazing, both for the healthy condition of the reefs, the diversity of fish, and lots of interesting macro stuff. Fun swim throughs abound along with white and black tip sharks. A five minute drive out to the Maleki point boat landing in either Joiji's truck or in a vehicle owned by one of his Son in Laws and you are on the boat. They run 2x "Fiber" boats which a basically very flat bottom boats with Yamaha 60s. Max 4 divers with a DM and boatman (also a DM) on the boat. Entry is back roll off the side of the boat, nice aluminum ladders on the side for boarding, but the boats are low so this is easy. Water temperatures in early November were 78-80 with 60 -80 ft of visibility. There is current at a lot of the dive sites, this makes for good diving! The boats are typically moored, so you would go down one side of the reef, cross over and then back to the boat. 20-30 minutes to the dive sites, except we did 1 day of hour plus to get out to the marine reserve.
Joiji discovered many of the dive sites in the Bligh Waters, after moving there from Taveuni 25 years ago. His son Tom DM'd for me and any other experienced divers with help from different cousins etc as Joiji mainly works with less experienced divers doing open water / DSD. Dives are to 700 psi (typically an hour with average depth 18m profiles) with surface intervals on the boat or a local island. Some fresh fruit from the garden is packed along with some baked goods. We did stop to have fresh sashimi on the beach from skip jack we caught trolling and did one extra long interval on Kon tiki beach where we grilled fish we caught (mangrove trout) Yum!
If you want a NON resort setting that involves a village home stay with GREAT diving, lots of local interaction and meeting interesting folks from all over, this is a very NON resort experience. The food was amazing and one of the highlights was learning to make kokoda (Fijian Ceviche) from fish we caught and getting to attend Joiji's mothers 84th birthday with a massive spread of dishes and his extended family from all over the islands.
Leaving Ring Gold divers, I did a 4 day trek with Talona Treks hiking up over the highest point in Fiji (4500 ft) and over to the other side staying in highland villages to end up in Pacific Harbor (Beqa Lagoon) If you like trekking, I highly recommend it. Nice low impact 10km / day with 1500 ft of elevation Gain / loss. Day 7-Day 10 Trekking.
Pacific Harbor is famous for baited shark dives.
Day 12: Diving in Pacific Harbor. I dove with Coral Coast divers doing a NON shark dive. We got a very intense safety briefing from the owner. There boat was nice, but it was two experienced divers (1 photog and me),1 experienced DM, 1 open water student with instructor, a brand new DM, a PADI super instructor something something and a (we discovered) struggling diver. Quite a diverse group on the boat. I ended up diving with the new DM to give him a hard time as the instructor who was supposed to be evaluating him was trying to keep the struggling diver on the end of a yoyo. Visibility was 30-40' (fine, but not great compared to Bligh waters.) Packaged cookies at the surface interval. Very WIDE boat was nice and stable with giant stride entry and rear ladder.) We dove the Tasu II wreck (100+' 2 level fishing vessel) Lots of nice places for penetration, but I could see how nervous my 20 dive DM was. Good growth on the wreck and was sitting upright sunk deliberately. 2nd dive was the seven sisters. 7 coral heads that my young DM seemed determined to visit each of them twice. Fun diving, but I was ready to move on. Note, the sharks here are VERY interested in divers. They are used to being fed, so will come over and pester you, be prepared to keep them off.
I stayed in a lovely Airbnb hosted by Daya who with her husband relocated from Toronto and have made hosting Airbnbs their retirement hobby.
Day 13: Transport to Taveuni, Daya was nice enough to drive me to the airport on the way to pickup her sister to go visit her eldest brother. A afternoon flight out of Suva to Taveuni on a de Havilland DHC-6. If I had known the flight would be low altitude / unpressurized, I would have dove that morning!
Taveuni diving.
Day 14: Baracuda Ledge, Rainbow Ridge
Day 15: Great White Wall, Rainbows End
Day 16: Great White Wall, Rainbow Passage
Day 17: Fish Factory (Neat coral head in current with tons of surgeon fish, other varieties like there is a factory making fish) Cabbage patch (Looks like a giant cabbage patch under water with giant clams hidden in the cabbages, I loved this)
Day 18: Travel Home
Wow, reef is in amazing shape. Colors of the rainbow with lots of fish, octupus, nudis and a few whitetip. Very fishy but not as much as Bligh waters. Vis was back to 60-80ft. Salt Divers operates a single western style dive boat (tank wells and seats facing inward) designed for 12 divers (two groups of 5 with 2 DMs). Pickup is from the front of the dive shop. Boat has twin yamaha 250s so could really move. Salt is a bit north of Rainbow Reef, and it was nice that it was a fast boat as we typically had 25-30 minutes out to the dive sites. We had snorkelers on the boat a couple of times, but they had there own DM (SM?) and weren't an issue. The boat is nice and spacious. We had 2-6 divers, with 2 we had 1 DM, and more had 2x DMs. (There was a photog on a paid trip for a chinese phone company doing 80 minutes dives staying in place on a single nudi, so he had his own DM Thank you!) Water temperature were 79-81, so I was able to go down to a rash guard (nice!) Surface intervals on the boat, though we did go to a local island village to drop supplies one day. The shop manager made Roti (indian bread stuffed with curried potato / egg) or fresh baked goods along with local fruit for the surface intervals. (Yum!)
I stayed at Kay's house which is owned by the family that runs Salt Divers. This is a homestay that is more like you are a roommate in a house with 32 year old Jason who caretakes the house. You have access to the kitchen and will need it. I took a couple of trips down to the local market for groceries, and Jason took me around the farm to pick vegetables for cooking. He taught me to make roti and we cooked up some nice meals. There are only 3x restaurants in town, so if you are not doing a resort option, be self sufficient. It was a nice change that most of other divers were young and staying at a back packing dorm hostel down the road from the dive shop.
Nice spur of the moment trip to Fiji. The bargain airfare enticed me in with the 10 hour non stop flight, which is not any longer then getting to Cozumel now that the direct flights aren't running. So nice to see healthy coral.
Diving costs USD:
Ring Gold $120 / 2 tanks Bligh Waters
Coral Coast $130 / 2 tanks Pacific Harbor
Salt Divers $125 / 2 tanks Taveuni
Cheers,
mason
Day 0: Traveling to RakiRaki
Jioji runs a miniature Dive empire out of his family compound (11 children mostly adult with many cousins, etc) just off the Bligh waters. You homestay with which ever of his family has space and eat in the big outdoor dining room based on whatever is in season and what you brought back from spearfishing / trolling. Typically there were 3-5 of us staying.
I did 13 dives over 6 days with Ring Gold.
Day 1: Bula Maker and Breath Taker
Day 2: Mellow Yellow and Pot Luck
Day 3: 3 dives in the Marine Reserve
Day 4: Swimthrough heaven and Neptunes Rhapsody
Day 5: Golden Dream Lost pinnacle
Day 6: Why Not and Purple Haze
Ring Gold dives all the same sites as VoliVoli (Joiji's son in law Josh is the Dive Manager at VoliVoli). These sites are amazing, both for the healthy condition of the reefs, the diversity of fish, and lots of interesting macro stuff. Fun swim throughs abound along with white and black tip sharks. A five minute drive out to the Maleki point boat landing in either Joiji's truck or in a vehicle owned by one of his Son in Laws and you are on the boat. They run 2x "Fiber" boats which a basically very flat bottom boats with Yamaha 60s. Max 4 divers with a DM and boatman (also a DM) on the boat. Entry is back roll off the side of the boat, nice aluminum ladders on the side for boarding, but the boats are low so this is easy. Water temperatures in early November were 78-80 with 60 -80 ft of visibility. There is current at a lot of the dive sites, this makes for good diving! The boats are typically moored, so you would go down one side of the reef, cross over and then back to the boat. 20-30 minutes to the dive sites, except we did 1 day of hour plus to get out to the marine reserve.
Joiji discovered many of the dive sites in the Bligh Waters, after moving there from Taveuni 25 years ago. His son Tom DM'd for me and any other experienced divers with help from different cousins etc as Joiji mainly works with less experienced divers doing open water / DSD. Dives are to 700 psi (typically an hour with average depth 18m profiles) with surface intervals on the boat or a local island. Some fresh fruit from the garden is packed along with some baked goods. We did stop to have fresh sashimi on the beach from skip jack we caught trolling and did one extra long interval on Kon tiki beach where we grilled fish we caught (mangrove trout) Yum!
If you want a NON resort setting that involves a village home stay with GREAT diving, lots of local interaction and meeting interesting folks from all over, this is a very NON resort experience. The food was amazing and one of the highlights was learning to make kokoda (Fijian Ceviche) from fish we caught and getting to attend Joiji's mothers 84th birthday with a massive spread of dishes and his extended family from all over the islands.
Leaving Ring Gold divers, I did a 4 day trek with Talona Treks hiking up over the highest point in Fiji (4500 ft) and over to the other side staying in highland villages to end up in Pacific Harbor (Beqa Lagoon) If you like trekking, I highly recommend it. Nice low impact 10km / day with 1500 ft of elevation Gain / loss. Day 7-Day 10 Trekking.
Pacific Harbor is famous for baited shark dives.
Day 12: Diving in Pacific Harbor. I dove with Coral Coast divers doing a NON shark dive. We got a very intense safety briefing from the owner. There boat was nice, but it was two experienced divers (1 photog and me),1 experienced DM, 1 open water student with instructor, a brand new DM, a PADI super instructor something something and a (we discovered) struggling diver. Quite a diverse group on the boat. I ended up diving with the new DM to give him a hard time as the instructor who was supposed to be evaluating him was trying to keep the struggling diver on the end of a yoyo. Visibility was 30-40' (fine, but not great compared to Bligh waters.) Packaged cookies at the surface interval. Very WIDE boat was nice and stable with giant stride entry and rear ladder.) We dove the Tasu II wreck (100+' 2 level fishing vessel) Lots of nice places for penetration, but I could see how nervous my 20 dive DM was. Good growth on the wreck and was sitting upright sunk deliberately. 2nd dive was the seven sisters. 7 coral heads that my young DM seemed determined to visit each of them twice. Fun diving, but I was ready to move on. Note, the sharks here are VERY interested in divers. They are used to being fed, so will come over and pester you, be prepared to keep them off.
I stayed in a lovely Airbnb hosted by Daya who with her husband relocated from Toronto and have made hosting Airbnbs their retirement hobby.
Day 13: Transport to Taveuni, Daya was nice enough to drive me to the airport on the way to pickup her sister to go visit her eldest brother. A afternoon flight out of Suva to Taveuni on a de Havilland DHC-6. If I had known the flight would be low altitude / unpressurized, I would have dove that morning!
Taveuni diving.
Day 14: Baracuda Ledge, Rainbow Ridge
Day 15: Great White Wall, Rainbows End
Day 16: Great White Wall, Rainbow Passage
Day 17: Fish Factory (Neat coral head in current with tons of surgeon fish, other varieties like there is a factory making fish) Cabbage patch (Looks like a giant cabbage patch under water with giant clams hidden in the cabbages, I loved this)
Day 18: Travel Home
Wow, reef is in amazing shape. Colors of the rainbow with lots of fish, octupus, nudis and a few whitetip. Very fishy but not as much as Bligh waters. Vis was back to 60-80ft. Salt Divers operates a single western style dive boat (tank wells and seats facing inward) designed for 12 divers (two groups of 5 with 2 DMs). Pickup is from the front of the dive shop. Boat has twin yamaha 250s so could really move. Salt is a bit north of Rainbow Reef, and it was nice that it was a fast boat as we typically had 25-30 minutes out to the dive sites. We had snorkelers on the boat a couple of times, but they had there own DM (SM?) and weren't an issue. The boat is nice and spacious. We had 2-6 divers, with 2 we had 1 DM, and more had 2x DMs. (There was a photog on a paid trip for a chinese phone company doing 80 minutes dives staying in place on a single nudi, so he had his own DM Thank you!) Water temperature were 79-81, so I was able to go down to a rash guard (nice!) Surface intervals on the boat, though we did go to a local island village to drop supplies one day. The shop manager made Roti (indian bread stuffed with curried potato / egg) or fresh baked goods along with local fruit for the surface intervals. (Yum!)
I stayed at Kay's house which is owned by the family that runs Salt Divers. This is a homestay that is more like you are a roommate in a house with 32 year old Jason who caretakes the house. You have access to the kitchen and will need it. I took a couple of trips down to the local market for groceries, and Jason took me around the farm to pick vegetables for cooking. He taught me to make roti and we cooked up some nice meals. There are only 3x restaurants in town, so if you are not doing a resort option, be self sufficient. It was a nice change that most of other divers were young and staying at a back packing dorm hostel down the road from the dive shop.
Nice spur of the moment trip to Fiji. The bargain airfare enticed me in with the 10 hour non stop flight, which is not any longer then getting to Cozumel now that the direct flights aren't running. So nice to see healthy coral.
Diving costs USD:
Ring Gold $120 / 2 tanks Bligh Waters
Coral Coast $130 / 2 tanks Pacific Harbor
Salt Divers $125 / 2 tanks Taveuni
Cheers,
mason
