December 10 TaveuniIsland
December 11, 2011
Dive 2,Storm, another nice shallow dive cut 10 minutes short by Sues crampingproblem. Shes searching for a reason for this, hopefully it goes awaytomorrow? We came up to a driving rain storm and had zero visibility on theride back to Garden Island Resort.
December 12, 2011
Dive 2,Great White Wall, this is the signature dive of Rainbow Reef and it doesntdisappoint. The wall has at least 100 vertical feet of soft white coral allover this wall, quite a sight. There aretwo swim thrus at the halfway point of this dive and after we came through thelast one there was this white tip shark laying in the sand right out the exit,pretty cool sentry. Sue never had anyproblems here, maybe the cramps are over with?
Dive 3,Nuku, This was a beautiful shallow dive that we never went below 55 feet. Wesaw some eels again, nudibranchs and lots of clown fish and one kept swimmingright up to my mask trying to scare me away, tough guy. Sue was fine here tooand really liked this 60 minute dive. Between dives 2 and 3 we went to this beautiful park to have a picniclunch right on the water on Taveuni, what a nice spot. They bring a lot ofschool kids there for nature study but theyre all off for the summer rightnow. Too cool, youd never find this spot or have a reason to come here otherwise.
December 13, 2011
Dive 2,Cabbage Patch, this dive has a bommie filled with the green gold coral that lookslike cabbage and has a ton of fish on it. We saw a moray eel and another whitetip shark. Sue liked this dive a lot because it had a gentle current withnudibranchs. No more leg cramps for Susie Q.
December 14, 2011
Dive 2,Rainbows End, Im still amazed at some of the life weve seen this week. Justafter we got to a sandy bottom at 65 feet we saw a good sized blue ribbon eelway out of his hole and not 3 feet away was another one of similar size, thatsa one in a million encounter, truly unbelievable. Then we head down the reef and see around 5sharks and a giant moray eel, maybe the biggest one Ive ever seen. This was our best dive in Taveuni by a longshot. There were thousands of fish of all kinds on this part of rainbow reef.
Our surfaceinterval was at that terrific park again and this time we walked around shoreand used some lounge chairs. This is without a doubt the prettiest and mostisolated spot to have a picnic on Fiji, and we have this whole place toourselves every single day, just another slice of heaven.
Dive 3,Jacks Place, more ripping current and another big eel. We did this dive as ashallow dive and avoiding all the shallow coral flying by at 5 knots is ablast. While we were on the top of one bommie my spring strap on my left fincame off and I had to refasten it on the fin while floating by the coral,thats a first for me. This was our last dive with Wanny and Melania, our diveguides all week at Garden Island Resort, they did a fabulous job and wellleave a nice donation in the dive shops Christmas fund because of how good theywere.
December 15, 2011
Dive 2, EndsBommie, another beautiful large coral head at the end of the dive, but beforethat we saw many nudibranchs and a giant moral eel. The top of this bommie wasfilled with sun and it was a great last dive of our trip. One last shark showedup to wave us good bye.
GardenIsland Resort has a first class dive operation and we happened to be there on avery slow week and Sue and I were the only two divers on the boat except for anew dive master, Baptiste, from France, who had just arrived from anotherisland in Fiji the day after we started diving, nice young man. The weather hasbeen fantastic all week with sunny skies, 85 degree temperatures and calm seas,you couldnt ask for better conditions. Id love to make it back here someday but there are just so many placesleft to visit that it make be awhile so until then, Bula Vinaka!
Jim
