Fiji 2011
December 3
December 4 on the Naia
Second diveat Yellow Mellow, decent current with bigger fish around, saw some wahoo, tuna,lots of clown fish in the anemone. I used 11 pounds on a weight belt, a littletoo much weight I believe. Sue is having some cramping of her toes so far.
Third divewas at GoMo, easily the best dive of the trip so far. Sue says its because shedidnt go with to give her legs a rest. Several good sized Reef and White Tipsharks in all sizes were around 60 ft. Some huge school of Barracudas and everyother normal reef fish you see were there. There was a good current and thatswhat causes so many fish to show up according to Haley and Ed, who are thecruise directors. Dive lasted 50minutes. The reefs here at Vatu-I-Ra passage are extremely healthy with a lotof fish from young to old, large too small.
The fourthdive was at Charlies Garden, nice shallow dive of 40 ft. with tons of hardcoral that stretched forever. Saw a giant Bump Head Parrott fish of around 100lbs. Sue found a nice brown moray eel that I got a couple of nice pictures ofand we dived for around 55 minutes. We decided to pass on the night dive andhad a few glasses of wine and fell into bed at 9:00 P.M.
The food onthis boat is fantastic, give this chef a raise. I cant imagine dining anybetter if we were in Fijis best restaurants.
December 5
Dive 2 wasat the Great White Wall for 50 minutes and we saw our first Blue Ribbon eelpoking his head out of some coral about 6 inches. While we were back rolling off the boat myleft fin came off and it slowed me down enough to be lagging behind the group about100 feet, so of course, 3 hammerhead sharks showed up but they were too faraway for Sue and I to see them. This is a nice dive where Manta Rays and sharksshow up on occasion and I think we are going to dive this again this afternoon?Great pasta with chicken and an amazing assortment of vegetables and garlicbread for lunch, things just keep getting better.
Dive 3 wasat Great White Wall again and this dive was even better. There were 4 or 5 goodsized white tip sharks resting in the sand and then swimming around us. I finally got a good picture of the BlueRibbon eel and figured out how to boost myself up into the skiff at the divesend. Sue was impressed, well maybe it was more like pissed off that she hasntdone it yet. Dinner was filet mignon,very good.
At 5:00 P.M.we went to an island, Makogai, to meet the local village and have a Kava Party.You drink this stuff made from a Kava root they put in what looks like a dirtysock and its mixed with water. It made Sues tongue numb. Then it turned intoDonovans Reef with singing and dancing and tribal dress put on by thevillagers. Big Fun and the kids weregreat. The island was once a Leper colony from 1911 until 1962 run by Frenchnuns. The chief took us to the remains of the buildings and the cemetery. The villagers have a clam hatchery now andstock surrounding islands with clams for their fishery department who now ownthe island.