Just got back from a week on Naigani Island. Home - Naigani Island Resort Ltd
No UW pics, so this is just a mini-report on the trip...
The trip was a mixed bag:
The journey is time consuming- Nadi to Suva by air, Suva to Natovi by 'road' and then 30 minutes out to the island from the Natovi jetty...not extreme, but organizing your connects is not easy...We flew Air NZ, but Air Pacific has much better connections to domestic flights...We overnighted in Nadi on the way out and had to stop in Auckland on the way back (but was a loooong day)
The diving was very, very good if shallow reefs are your thing...we did 10 dives, all on pinnacles/bommies with depths of 25m or less. Most dives in the 15m range. The water was 29/30 degrees and vis was generally good, with 30+m on a couple of days. Very nice soft corals on ALL dives and the reefs were teeming with life. Having dived quite a lot in QLD as well as Bali, The Solomons and Taveuni (Fiji), I was impressed with the quantity, variety and size of the reef fish...Was great to see BIG reef fish that had been there for a while, not just little ones that have avoided the fishermen ...heaps of reef sharks around too ...very easy diving with flat calm seas most days and little current for most dives...like diving in a giant swimming pool!
The resort was not great. It may have been quite nice when it was built, but seems a bit tired now. The bures are spacious and were probably well built, but haven't been maintained. We had a 2BR unit big enough for a family...and it joined another unit behind ours (though the doors between them did not lock :shocked2::shocked2
...Meals were generally expensive, even for Fiji (a captive audience) and of marginal quality. Divers are not well catered for with lunch served during the second dive of the day and some unwillingness to provide meals after 2pm as the electricity gets shut off from 2-5pm. For the first time ever, I lost weight on holiday...
The staff are nice enough but don't have the enthusiasm/energy at other places we've been in Fiji. The manager seems to have a negative effect on staff morale and its evident whenever he turns up to chat to staff.
The dive op was also not great. The guides were not outgoing or friendly and we carried our own gear to/from the boats about 65% of the time...Our guide was always first out of the boat, first to wash his gear and first to disappear with his mobile phone after the dive. There were two big(ish) dive boats with twin outboards, but with a large party of German tourists, the group was split between one big boat (covered, fast and comfortable) and one smaller boat (open, slow, small single engine). The two boats would head for the same site, one getting there in 10 minutes, one about 5-10 minutes later. We were relaxed and so didn't mind being in the small boat too much, but it was an odd sense of us/them.
Safety was not a priority. On the fourth dive day, the weather turned, wind and rain came in and swell came up...we were at a site about 20 minutes from the resort...13 divers in the water with two guides (one toting a speargun, don't ask)...we surfaced after the dive to fine 4-6 ft swells, and only the small boat waiting to take us back to the resort...that is 13 divers + 2 guides + boat driver + gear on the equivalent of your uncles bass boat...the 110hp yamaha struggled from the start and soon waves were breaking over the sides and stern...it was clear that the boat was in trouble...but no communications gear, no flotation devices (except dive gear)...just then, the big boat came speeding onto the scene and swooped in to take the transfer to 8 passengers...then sped away, leaving the small boat to limp in with the dive gear and remaining divers...
Would we go back? probably not to Naigani Island Resort, though I'd love to do the area from a liveaboard. The diving was worth the drama in the end, but only barely so.
No UW pics, so this is just a mini-report on the trip...
The trip was a mixed bag:
The journey is time consuming- Nadi to Suva by air, Suva to Natovi by 'road' and then 30 minutes out to the island from the Natovi jetty...not extreme, but organizing your connects is not easy...We flew Air NZ, but Air Pacific has much better connections to domestic flights...We overnighted in Nadi on the way out and had to stop in Auckland on the way back (but was a loooong day)
The diving was very, very good if shallow reefs are your thing...we did 10 dives, all on pinnacles/bommies with depths of 25m or less. Most dives in the 15m range. The water was 29/30 degrees and vis was generally good, with 30+m on a couple of days. Very nice soft corals on ALL dives and the reefs were teeming with life. Having dived quite a lot in QLD as well as Bali, The Solomons and Taveuni (Fiji), I was impressed with the quantity, variety and size of the reef fish...Was great to see BIG reef fish that had been there for a while, not just little ones that have avoided the fishermen ...heaps of reef sharks around too ...very easy diving with flat calm seas most days and little current for most dives...like diving in a giant swimming pool!
The resort was not great. It may have been quite nice when it was built, but seems a bit tired now. The bures are spacious and were probably well built, but haven't been maintained. We had a 2BR unit big enough for a family...and it joined another unit behind ours (though the doors between them did not lock :shocked2::shocked2
...Meals were generally expensive, even for Fiji (a captive audience) and of marginal quality. Divers are not well catered for with lunch served during the second dive of the day and some unwillingness to provide meals after 2pm as the electricity gets shut off from 2-5pm. For the first time ever, I lost weight on holiday...The staff are nice enough but don't have the enthusiasm/energy at other places we've been in Fiji. The manager seems to have a negative effect on staff morale and its evident whenever he turns up to chat to staff.
The dive op was also not great. The guides were not outgoing or friendly and we carried our own gear to/from the boats about 65% of the time...Our guide was always first out of the boat, first to wash his gear and first to disappear with his mobile phone after the dive. There were two big(ish) dive boats with twin outboards, but with a large party of German tourists, the group was split between one big boat (covered, fast and comfortable) and one smaller boat (open, slow, small single engine). The two boats would head for the same site, one getting there in 10 minutes, one about 5-10 minutes later. We were relaxed and so didn't mind being in the small boat too much, but it was an odd sense of us/them.
Safety was not a priority. On the fourth dive day, the weather turned, wind and rain came in and swell came up...we were at a site about 20 minutes from the resort...13 divers in the water with two guides (one toting a speargun, don't ask)...we surfaced after the dive to fine 4-6 ft swells, and only the small boat waiting to take us back to the resort...that is 13 divers + 2 guides + boat driver + gear on the equivalent of your uncles bass boat...the 110hp yamaha struggled from the start and soon waves were breaking over the sides and stern...it was clear that the boat was in trouble...but no communications gear, no flotation devices (except dive gear)...just then, the big boat came speeding onto the scene and swooped in to take the transfer to 8 passengers...then sped away, leaving the small boat to limp in with the dive gear and remaining divers...
Would we go back? probably not to Naigani Island Resort, though I'd love to do the area from a liveaboard. The diving was worth the drama in the end, but only barely so.
