Shore diving at Beqa and Volivoli question

[darook]

Bula! I will be diving in Fiji in March 5 days at Beqa and a week at Volivoli. Our package includes shore diving at both locations. My question is if it is doable with full foot fins or will I need dive booties? My preference is the full foot as I love my old Cressis and can save a bit of weight. If it is a sand beach entrance or pier I am good with full foots. If it is rugged ironshore then I want my booties. Thanks for any info!

 

[WetPup]

Well Beqa is definitely sandy, but it's got coral rubble and broken shells etc. I prefer booties to avoid the ouchies, but I'm a wuss.

 

[diverguytasmania]

I stayed at Volivoli last year and I didn't do any shore dives. Nobody else was shore diving either. There's mangroves around Volivoli and the area off the dive shop is sandy, might be a muck diving spot but I doubt it or the DM's would have recommended it, but it's certainly not rocky or difficult to enter. Quite shallow, you'd be wading out a bit, but it must get deeper as the Fiji Siren used to park off the beach about 50 metres out.

 

[Glenndini]

I did a shore dive from Voli Voli about a year ago. We went a couple of hundred metres up along the shore and back as recommended by the dive shop. Maximum depth was something like 5 metres, vis was about 2 metres. Surprising number of small coral bommies and fish but definitely not a dive to "remember". As far as needing booties, well it was so rocky and shallow I ended up crawling on my hands and knees to the last 50 metres to the shore on the way back to the shop.

 

[BDSC]

You shouldn't need booties to do the shore dive at Beqa. I had full foot fins and had no problem at all.