Executive Summary:
Beqa Lagoon Resort (BLR): Recommended with caveats about maintenance and travel.
The Dive Shop, Tucson AZ (Booking agent): Recommended.
Overview
My wife and I made our first dive trip to the western Pacific in March, a week at the Beqa Lagoon Resort in Fiji (pronounced "Benga"). Beqa Lagoon Resort This was pretty sudden by our habits; my sister's LDS in Tucson takes groups there once or twice a year for the past 12 or 15 years, dating back to previous resort ownership, and most recently in February. While we couldn't make that trip, my BIL listened to the stories from some friends that had been there in past years, and in January they just decided they were going in March, and asked if we wanted to go along.
We've mostly dived the Caribbean and Florida, and been talking about the Pacific for awhile, but never got organized to do it. Comments here on SB and elsewhere suggested that maybe Beqa wasn't even the best diving in Fiji, and there was better elsewhere in the Pacific, but this trip was either going to be Beqa or nothing, and we decided to go for it. We did 12 dives over 6 days, including the shark dives. All in all, a good week of diving, and no regrets at all that we went, but I think it's unlikely we'll be going back there. With the novelty gone, the diving would have to be more spectacular than it was to justify the cost, inconveniences, and travel hassle.
We let the LDS owner, Mark Rogers of The Dive Shop be our booking agent. Prices seemed the same as initial inquiries directly to BLR, and he got us a free upgrade to a beachfront bure. In exchange for whatever commission he got, we were able to use his experience with the resort, including just weeks earlier, to prepare. Friendly, helpful, no issues, and I'd be happy to use him for this again if he had experience with someplace we wanted to go.
We bought a week package including round-trip air from LAX, all transfers, meals, and five two-tank boat trips. There were some extras. Our bill was accurate, although we heard of a few minor discrepancies (wetsuit rental, internet) from some other guests. The resort is set up so no cash is used; everything not included is billed to the room. We had no need for Fiji currency, although a little might have been handy for the stop on the bus trip.
There is no pier or jetty, the dive boats are moored 50-100 yards offshore. There are two or three metal tenders with outboard motors that ferry everything and everyone from the beach to the boats. Max capacity 20 people with no gear. You will be in several inches of water getting in and out at the beach, including on arrival and departure at the resort, so plan footwear accordingly.
They asked in both the written FAQ and the orientation that we not tip individuals. Instead, they have a "Christmas fund" that we could give to that's shared equally by all dive, kitchen, service etc.. staff. We did the usual per-tank gratuity, added something for the other staff, converted to FJD, and had them add it to our bill, which we settled by credit card the morning of departure.
Diving
My computer logged all bottom temps as 82 degF except two at 84; my wife got all 82s. Visibility was mostly 40 feet with a couple of 50s and one 60, and one 30. The weather was mostly overcast, getting sunnier towards the end of the trip. We had a couple of rainy days earlier. I gather this is the end of the rainy season, but on the other hand, we had looked at information on Fiji water temperatures, which historically start dropping in April, so later would have meant even colder water temps. Hence the timing of out trip.
Beqa Lagoon lies inside a vaguely circular barrier reef about 15-18 miles in diameter. Beqa Island is 4-5 miles in diameter, at the east end of the lagoon, and about 8 miles south of the main island of Viti Levu. BLR is on the west side of the island. Most of our dives were within the lagoon a bit north of the island, but we went outside the reef on the east side to a site called Blue Wall, and one day did two dives at the west end of the lagoon, at sites called Three Sisters and Turtle Head. The shark dive is at the north end of the lagoon, about halfway to Viti Levu. Within the lagoon, most of the sites we dived are pinnacles topped with coral at 20 feet or so, rising above a coral rubble/ sandy bottom at 60 - 80 feet
The seas were mostly pretty flat, with a little chop one day.There was a noticeable but manageable current on almost every dive. To stay in one place required pointing into the current and doing a bit of finning. They almost always had a float line behind the boat. But all dives were moored, out and back, not drift dives. Well, except for one that turned into a drift dive when the mooring line broke.
We were hanging at the safety stop at a site called Gee's Rock when an old tire that was the mooring hitchpoint broke in half, and the boat started moving off at a pretty good pace, certainly faster than I could swim. My wife had been holding the line, and at first held on, to stay with the boat. She quickly realized it was pulling her above 10 feet, let go, and rejoined us. We, another diver, and the DM surfaced together, the DM put up his sausage, the boat spotted us, and we were picked up within 5 minutes. The DM's response and calmness was textbook perfect.
As our first trip to the western Pacific, the fish all seemed a little strange, and some very strange. A standout in terms of novelty for us were the Regal Angelfish, a slightly smaller and much shyer cousin to the angels we're familiar with. Vertical broad white and yellow stripes with thin black stripes between, and purple tail and fins. Very elegant.
The Anemone Fish were very pretty, some familiar orange clowns, but also some mostly white, black, and yellow. Something called an Oriental Sweetlips; we saw a pair on one dive, very striking yellow and black longitudinal stripes with a wide body maybe 14-16" long. And a Crown of Thorns Starfish about a foot across. Some of the most enjoyable fish watching was just hanging at the top of a pinnacle at the safety stop, watching the intense density of 2-4" fish darting in and among the coral, pinks and purples and black/white/yellow. Sometimes it seemed like a pack of monkeys chasing each other through the coral convolutions.
A few clams between one to two feet wide. An 6 foot whitetail shark sleeping on the bottom. A Blue Ribbon Eel, the visible part about 6" long, half an inch in diameter, translucent blue and yellow, very pretty, that the DM coaxed out of his hole. A few nudis. A couple of Lionfish, a Mantis shrimp about 6" long. Something called magic coral, a coral body maybe 18" wide that changed instantly from dull brown to all white when the DM touched one polyp with his finger. Some of the soft coral formations, for which Beqa is renowned, were quite impressive.
They asked us to do a checkout dive off the beach on Saturday afternoon after arrival, so we'd be all set with weights and gear Sunday morning. The entry was a fairly long walk to chest deep over some pretty nasty and uneven coral; we floated the gear out and put it on in the water. The visibility was horrible, maybe 10 feet. We managed to get in and do a 4-minute dive to 16 feet, and then my wife thumbed it as enough. My BIL cut his hand on some coral getting in and went back for first aid, and they never did the checkout. Other divers were similarly unimpressed. On exit, my wife found a lost camera in housing on the bottom, which we turned in.
The package included unlimited shore diving, but we were aware of only one guy who did any after the checkout, at high tide, and he had to go out solo. We later realized that it might have been a more sandy than coral entry 30 yards south of the spot in front of the dive shop, but that wasn't marked. And without 25 divers churning things up, and further out, maybe the vis would have been better. But with the vis issues and long swim out to where it might get deep, no one seemed very interested in more shore diving.
They offered a night dive one night, at extra cost. We'd brought lights, but it was the same day as the shark dives and the afternoon trip to the school, so we decided to skip it. Turned out one of the two boats that went out had an engine failure and had to be towed back by the other boat, so those folks had a very late dinner.
Shark Dive
On Tuesday they offered a shark dive trip, at extra cost. The shark dive is run by an operator called Aqua-Trek. The BLR boats took us there and BLR dive staff herded the guests; Aqua-Trek had a boat there and put on the show. This is supposed to be one of the big attractions of Beqa lagoon diving. I'm glad we did it, it was interesting and it would be a shame not to see it, but I probably don't need to do it again.
There were two adjacent sites for the two dives, similar, the first at 84 feet, the second at 60. There's a big rope stretched between two rocks a couple of feet off the bottom. They want all the guests low, holding on to the rope, one-deep, forming a stage. BLR staff is behind us with short shepherd crooks, keeping us low and behind the rope, and ready to deal with anyone who needs to bail out, or to poke a shark that was getting too close.
Aqua-Trek staff is 15-20 feet past the rope, with big plastic bins, say 2x2x4 feet, with fish scraps that they feed to the sharks. There were only half a dozen or so large sharks, and I'll make no attempt to ID species. There were at least a couple of hundred remoras, and they were already circling around up at the surface on entry. And maybe a thousand or more smaller fish, mostly vertical black stripes with a little yellow, perhaps Pacific Sergeant Majors. All just milling around looking for scraps and forming an almost solid mass of moving life, punctuated every 20 or 30 seconds by a 12-15 foot shark swimming across the stage 15 feet in front of us. The show was 15 minutes on the first dive and 27 on the second, just non-stop fish, so fast and close and wide it felt like too much to see.
BLR Dive operation
BLR has three dive boats. I'm not a boat person but they seemed rigged for about 20 divers each, tanks back to back in the middle, passages along both gunwales, and racks for more tanks to be swapped in forward. Enclosed bridge, working head, O2, first aid, VHF radio, and maybe GPS. Shade, either hard roof or canopy, and some open seating above the bridge. We never had more than 15 divers, and most of the week just 8 or 9. Crew was a captain and three DMs. There were always two DMs in the water, and sometimes all three. All dives were follow-the-leader, but groups were small.
There was a large group from Idaho that mostly stayed on two of the boats and ate together. The rest of us were usually on the third smaller boat, "C-Harley". On the first day, when some hadn't arrived, and the last day, when not everyone was diving, they only ran two boats, and we moved to "Reef Runner", slightly larger, but then more crowded. They also only ran two boats to the shark dive, but in that case they added several divers to C-Harley. But it worked out that we had the same three DMs all week, whatever boat we were on.
Each trip leaves nominally at 8:00 AM and returns in time to rinse and shower and get to lunch at 1:00, more or less. Two dives a little under an hour each , with a one hour SI between. Cookies, juice and water for the SI. The boat rides were mostly upwards of half an hour, with some about an hour. For the roll call check after each dive, they asked each diver to respond with their max depth and bottom time, and recorded that, something I hadn't encountered before. I like it for several reasons, and hope the practice becomes more widespread. Several people had to be shown how to retrieve that from their computers, and the staff seemed able to that in the cases I observed.
The BLR staff takes care of rinsing and basic setup for everything except wetsuit and cameras. They give you a large mesh bag with your dive number on it that holds everything except BC. They mark the BC with tape on the tankband. Weight pouches and loose weights go in a plastic crate. We would leave the bag and BC on the boat, the crew would rinse the gear, hang it in a locked cage overnight, and the bag would be under our first tank, with the BC and regs already mounted, the next morning. We would rinse our own wetsuits and hang them in the cage and retrieve them the next morning. They would also swap tanks for you between dives, unless you prefer to do it yourself.
There was plenty of time to check and tweak your setup on the ride out. The first day they set it up, my 5' long hose primary was dragging on the deck, and I called it to a couple of the DMs attention and showed them where to clip it off. The rest of the week it was clipped off. Sometimes on the wrong side, but off the deck. I was surprised that they were unfamiliar with the configuration. A couple of times I got a DM studying me as I geared up with the bungied backup and long hose etc., but they never asked about it.
All tanks we saw were al80s. All yoke valves. All fills were 2900+ psi with one 2700. They had a good selection of weights, including several 1 pounders, which I appreciated for distribution purposes. Entries are mostly giant stride from a swim step at the stern, but they said we could do back rolls over the gunwales, and many of the DMs did that. Midway on the second day, I realized I could skip the awkward walk with fins on, and the congestion at the stern, by just rolling off, drifting back to the tow line, and waiting for my wife, and I did that the rest of the trip.
Exits are up a single ladder. C-Harley had one of those open-side ladders you can climb in fins, but I didn't see anyone do that. Most divers would take off fins at the ladder and hand them up. Some also handed up weights, and even the entire scuba unit. Whatever help the divers asked for, the DMs provided. But they also didn't have a problem with me just climbing out with my fins on my wrists and walking my gear to my seat with my reg in my mouth.
The package includes 5 two-tank trips, nominally Sunday-Thursday. Since we don't fly until Saturday night, it's possible to dive Friday morning for an extra FJD $150. The once-a-week shark dive was FJD $250, or $100 as an upgrade to a day of the package. We dove Friday, so we paid for the shark dive as the extra day.
Nitrox is available; I understand this is only recently. They do partial pressure blending with O2 brought in from the main island, and it's pricey; FJD $30 (about USD $18) per tank surcharge. We thought that was a bit much for daily use, but Mark suggested that if we were going to use it at all, then the shark dives, which push the air no-deco limits a bit, would be the best use, and we did that. They clearly don't do a lot of nitrox; we had reserved it the day before but it wasn't on the boat when we got there, so they had to go back for it. There was an analyzer on the boat. Both my tanks were 34%, my wife's were 30 and 31. Just the way it worked out. I think there was one other couple using nitrox on our boat for the shark dive, none otherwise.
It turned out to be a bit of overkill; the first dive had a bottom at 84 feet between minutes 5 and 20 of a 38 minute dive, with stops at 40 for 3 minutes and the last 10 or so above 20. After a 1:07 SI, the second spent 27 minutes at 60 feet, with a similar slow ascent and extended stop. I don't have the software to compute N2 loading for the profile, but I don't think it was very close to deco for air. But we prefer to dive nitrox for the perceived fatigue mitigation when it's reasonably priced, so sticking a day of it in the middle of the trip, on the deepest profiles of the trip, was ok with us; I'd probably do it again.
They photocopied our C-cards when we brought them to the office, as requested, the day of arrival. I'm skeptical that anyone would have noticed if we hadn't, or if anyone checked to see if we'd shown them an EAN card when we requested nitrox for the shark dives a couple of days later. But perhaps I'm quite wrong; they did get the nitrox onto our bill correctly, so someone in the office was paying attention to the dive operation.
All the dive staff, and in fact all of the staff except the manager and his wife (Aussies, maybe) were Beqa natives. They only offer PADI OW instruction per the posted information, and I think the dive staff needs to go off-island for training. But they seemed completely competent. One of the DMs mentioned that he'd gone to DEMA in Orlando a couple of years ago, representing the resort, and had visited Disneyland. But he didn't go diving, and in 11 years, hasn't dived outside of Fiji. DM is a job, not a calling.
The most troublesome thing about the operation is the state of the boats, most notably the engines. I mentioned the night dive where one boat had to tow the other back. Another day we learned at lunch that one of the other boats had failed to start that morning and BLR had to hire a boat from somewhere else for the day, obviously with considerable delay. Our boat, C-Harley, failed to start one morning. The crew went at the starter motor and battery cables for 10-15 minutes, and they got it going. Twice, the outboard in the tender we were in failed to start, and we had to either move to a different tender, or get towed by a different tender.
Also, we had the sense that they run the boats at a slower than usual speed for a dive boat, possibly to conserve fuel and minimize stress on the engines, resulting in longer trips to the divesites, and on the trips to Pacific Harbor.
In discussing things with the manager at meals, they acknowledge that the resort needs some reinvestment, and particularly in the dive boats, but the owners don't seem currently inclined to make that investment. There's a general feeling, shared by most of our fellow guests in discussion, that they're cutting corners and milking the resource, and waiting for the fat times to come around again before putting any real money back into the facility. But we also understand that the bures have been recently remodeled, so maybe the dive boats are waiting their turn.
What we had worked, with some inconveniences. I'm not qualified to judge how far they are from breakdowns they can't handle.
They're less than 24 hours air freight from New Zealand or even the US, if some critical part needs replacement. Like the boat they had to rent for a day, maybe it's just a well-calculated balance of where to best use limited funds. I'm just passing on what I observed and was openly discussed among the guests, and attempting to minimize interpretation.
[ continued ... ]
Beqa Lagoon Resort (BLR): Recommended with caveats about maintenance and travel.
The Dive Shop, Tucson AZ (Booking agent): Recommended.
Overview
My wife and I made our first dive trip to the western Pacific in March, a week at the Beqa Lagoon Resort in Fiji (pronounced "Benga"). Beqa Lagoon Resort This was pretty sudden by our habits; my sister's LDS in Tucson takes groups there once or twice a year for the past 12 or 15 years, dating back to previous resort ownership, and most recently in February. While we couldn't make that trip, my BIL listened to the stories from some friends that had been there in past years, and in January they just decided they were going in March, and asked if we wanted to go along.
We've mostly dived the Caribbean and Florida, and been talking about the Pacific for awhile, but never got organized to do it. Comments here on SB and elsewhere suggested that maybe Beqa wasn't even the best diving in Fiji, and there was better elsewhere in the Pacific, but this trip was either going to be Beqa or nothing, and we decided to go for it. We did 12 dives over 6 days, including the shark dives. All in all, a good week of diving, and no regrets at all that we went, but I think it's unlikely we'll be going back there. With the novelty gone, the diving would have to be more spectacular than it was to justify the cost, inconveniences, and travel hassle.
We let the LDS owner, Mark Rogers of The Dive Shop be our booking agent. Prices seemed the same as initial inquiries directly to BLR, and he got us a free upgrade to a beachfront bure. In exchange for whatever commission he got, we were able to use his experience with the resort, including just weeks earlier, to prepare. Friendly, helpful, no issues, and I'd be happy to use him for this again if he had experience with someplace we wanted to go.
We bought a week package including round-trip air from LAX, all transfers, meals, and five two-tank boat trips. There were some extras. Our bill was accurate, although we heard of a few minor discrepancies (wetsuit rental, internet) from some other guests. The resort is set up so no cash is used; everything not included is billed to the room. We had no need for Fiji currency, although a little might have been handy for the stop on the bus trip.
There is no pier or jetty, the dive boats are moored 50-100 yards offshore. There are two or three metal tenders with outboard motors that ferry everything and everyone from the beach to the boats. Max capacity 20 people with no gear. You will be in several inches of water getting in and out at the beach, including on arrival and departure at the resort, so plan footwear accordingly.
They asked in both the written FAQ and the orientation that we not tip individuals. Instead, they have a "Christmas fund" that we could give to that's shared equally by all dive, kitchen, service etc.. staff. We did the usual per-tank gratuity, added something for the other staff, converted to FJD, and had them add it to our bill, which we settled by credit card the morning of departure.
Diving
My computer logged all bottom temps as 82 degF except two at 84; my wife got all 82s. Visibility was mostly 40 feet with a couple of 50s and one 60, and one 30. The weather was mostly overcast, getting sunnier towards the end of the trip. We had a couple of rainy days earlier. I gather this is the end of the rainy season, but on the other hand, we had looked at information on Fiji water temperatures, which historically start dropping in April, so later would have meant even colder water temps. Hence the timing of out trip.
Beqa Lagoon lies inside a vaguely circular barrier reef about 15-18 miles in diameter. Beqa Island is 4-5 miles in diameter, at the east end of the lagoon, and about 8 miles south of the main island of Viti Levu. BLR is on the west side of the island. Most of our dives were within the lagoon a bit north of the island, but we went outside the reef on the east side to a site called Blue Wall, and one day did two dives at the west end of the lagoon, at sites called Three Sisters and Turtle Head. The shark dive is at the north end of the lagoon, about halfway to Viti Levu. Within the lagoon, most of the sites we dived are pinnacles topped with coral at 20 feet or so, rising above a coral rubble/ sandy bottom at 60 - 80 feet
The seas were mostly pretty flat, with a little chop one day.There was a noticeable but manageable current on almost every dive. To stay in one place required pointing into the current and doing a bit of finning. They almost always had a float line behind the boat. But all dives were moored, out and back, not drift dives. Well, except for one that turned into a drift dive when the mooring line broke.
We were hanging at the safety stop at a site called Gee's Rock when an old tire that was the mooring hitchpoint broke in half, and the boat started moving off at a pretty good pace, certainly faster than I could swim. My wife had been holding the line, and at first held on, to stay with the boat. She quickly realized it was pulling her above 10 feet, let go, and rejoined us. We, another diver, and the DM surfaced together, the DM put up his sausage, the boat spotted us, and we were picked up within 5 minutes. The DM's response and calmness was textbook perfect.
As our first trip to the western Pacific, the fish all seemed a little strange, and some very strange. A standout in terms of novelty for us were the Regal Angelfish, a slightly smaller and much shyer cousin to the angels we're familiar with. Vertical broad white and yellow stripes with thin black stripes between, and purple tail and fins. Very elegant.
The Anemone Fish were very pretty, some familiar orange clowns, but also some mostly white, black, and yellow. Something called an Oriental Sweetlips; we saw a pair on one dive, very striking yellow and black longitudinal stripes with a wide body maybe 14-16" long. And a Crown of Thorns Starfish about a foot across. Some of the most enjoyable fish watching was just hanging at the top of a pinnacle at the safety stop, watching the intense density of 2-4" fish darting in and among the coral, pinks and purples and black/white/yellow. Sometimes it seemed like a pack of monkeys chasing each other through the coral convolutions.
A few clams between one to two feet wide. An 6 foot whitetail shark sleeping on the bottom. A Blue Ribbon Eel, the visible part about 6" long, half an inch in diameter, translucent blue and yellow, very pretty, that the DM coaxed out of his hole. A few nudis. A couple of Lionfish, a Mantis shrimp about 6" long. Something called magic coral, a coral body maybe 18" wide that changed instantly from dull brown to all white when the DM touched one polyp with his finger. Some of the soft coral formations, for which Beqa is renowned, were quite impressive.
They asked us to do a checkout dive off the beach on Saturday afternoon after arrival, so we'd be all set with weights and gear Sunday morning. The entry was a fairly long walk to chest deep over some pretty nasty and uneven coral; we floated the gear out and put it on in the water. The visibility was horrible, maybe 10 feet. We managed to get in and do a 4-minute dive to 16 feet, and then my wife thumbed it as enough. My BIL cut his hand on some coral getting in and went back for first aid, and they never did the checkout. Other divers were similarly unimpressed. On exit, my wife found a lost camera in housing on the bottom, which we turned in.
The package included unlimited shore diving, but we were aware of only one guy who did any after the checkout, at high tide, and he had to go out solo. We later realized that it might have been a more sandy than coral entry 30 yards south of the spot in front of the dive shop, but that wasn't marked. And without 25 divers churning things up, and further out, maybe the vis would have been better. But with the vis issues and long swim out to where it might get deep, no one seemed very interested in more shore diving.
They offered a night dive one night, at extra cost. We'd brought lights, but it was the same day as the shark dives and the afternoon trip to the school, so we decided to skip it. Turned out one of the two boats that went out had an engine failure and had to be towed back by the other boat, so those folks had a very late dinner.
Shark Dive
On Tuesday they offered a shark dive trip, at extra cost. The shark dive is run by an operator called Aqua-Trek. The BLR boats took us there and BLR dive staff herded the guests; Aqua-Trek had a boat there and put on the show. This is supposed to be one of the big attractions of Beqa lagoon diving. I'm glad we did it, it was interesting and it would be a shame not to see it, but I probably don't need to do it again.
There were two adjacent sites for the two dives, similar, the first at 84 feet, the second at 60. There's a big rope stretched between two rocks a couple of feet off the bottom. They want all the guests low, holding on to the rope, one-deep, forming a stage. BLR staff is behind us with short shepherd crooks, keeping us low and behind the rope, and ready to deal with anyone who needs to bail out, or to poke a shark that was getting too close.
Aqua-Trek staff is 15-20 feet past the rope, with big plastic bins, say 2x2x4 feet, with fish scraps that they feed to the sharks. There were only half a dozen or so large sharks, and I'll make no attempt to ID species. There were at least a couple of hundred remoras, and they were already circling around up at the surface on entry. And maybe a thousand or more smaller fish, mostly vertical black stripes with a little yellow, perhaps Pacific Sergeant Majors. All just milling around looking for scraps and forming an almost solid mass of moving life, punctuated every 20 or 30 seconds by a 12-15 foot shark swimming across the stage 15 feet in front of us. The show was 15 minutes on the first dive and 27 on the second, just non-stop fish, so fast and close and wide it felt like too much to see.
BLR Dive operation
BLR has three dive boats. I'm not a boat person but they seemed rigged for about 20 divers each, tanks back to back in the middle, passages along both gunwales, and racks for more tanks to be swapped in forward. Enclosed bridge, working head, O2, first aid, VHF radio, and maybe GPS. Shade, either hard roof or canopy, and some open seating above the bridge. We never had more than 15 divers, and most of the week just 8 or 9. Crew was a captain and three DMs. There were always two DMs in the water, and sometimes all three. All dives were follow-the-leader, but groups were small.
There was a large group from Idaho that mostly stayed on two of the boats and ate together. The rest of us were usually on the third smaller boat, "C-Harley". On the first day, when some hadn't arrived, and the last day, when not everyone was diving, they only ran two boats, and we moved to "Reef Runner", slightly larger, but then more crowded. They also only ran two boats to the shark dive, but in that case they added several divers to C-Harley. But it worked out that we had the same three DMs all week, whatever boat we were on.
Each trip leaves nominally at 8:00 AM and returns in time to rinse and shower and get to lunch at 1:00, more or less. Two dives a little under an hour each , with a one hour SI between. Cookies, juice and water for the SI. The boat rides were mostly upwards of half an hour, with some about an hour. For the roll call check after each dive, they asked each diver to respond with their max depth and bottom time, and recorded that, something I hadn't encountered before. I like it for several reasons, and hope the practice becomes more widespread. Several people had to be shown how to retrieve that from their computers, and the staff seemed able to that in the cases I observed.
The BLR staff takes care of rinsing and basic setup for everything except wetsuit and cameras. They give you a large mesh bag with your dive number on it that holds everything except BC. They mark the BC with tape on the tankband. Weight pouches and loose weights go in a plastic crate. We would leave the bag and BC on the boat, the crew would rinse the gear, hang it in a locked cage overnight, and the bag would be under our first tank, with the BC and regs already mounted, the next morning. We would rinse our own wetsuits and hang them in the cage and retrieve them the next morning. They would also swap tanks for you between dives, unless you prefer to do it yourself.
There was plenty of time to check and tweak your setup on the ride out. The first day they set it up, my 5' long hose primary was dragging on the deck, and I called it to a couple of the DMs attention and showed them where to clip it off. The rest of the week it was clipped off. Sometimes on the wrong side, but off the deck. I was surprised that they were unfamiliar with the configuration. A couple of times I got a DM studying me as I geared up with the bungied backup and long hose etc., but they never asked about it.
All tanks we saw were al80s. All yoke valves. All fills were 2900+ psi with one 2700. They had a good selection of weights, including several 1 pounders, which I appreciated for distribution purposes. Entries are mostly giant stride from a swim step at the stern, but they said we could do back rolls over the gunwales, and many of the DMs did that. Midway on the second day, I realized I could skip the awkward walk with fins on, and the congestion at the stern, by just rolling off, drifting back to the tow line, and waiting for my wife, and I did that the rest of the trip.
Exits are up a single ladder. C-Harley had one of those open-side ladders you can climb in fins, but I didn't see anyone do that. Most divers would take off fins at the ladder and hand them up. Some also handed up weights, and even the entire scuba unit. Whatever help the divers asked for, the DMs provided. But they also didn't have a problem with me just climbing out with my fins on my wrists and walking my gear to my seat with my reg in my mouth.
The package includes 5 two-tank trips, nominally Sunday-Thursday. Since we don't fly until Saturday night, it's possible to dive Friday morning for an extra FJD $150. The once-a-week shark dive was FJD $250, or $100 as an upgrade to a day of the package. We dove Friday, so we paid for the shark dive as the extra day.
Nitrox is available; I understand this is only recently. They do partial pressure blending with O2 brought in from the main island, and it's pricey; FJD $30 (about USD $18) per tank surcharge. We thought that was a bit much for daily use, but Mark suggested that if we were going to use it at all, then the shark dives, which push the air no-deco limits a bit, would be the best use, and we did that. They clearly don't do a lot of nitrox; we had reserved it the day before but it wasn't on the boat when we got there, so they had to go back for it. There was an analyzer on the boat. Both my tanks were 34%, my wife's were 30 and 31. Just the way it worked out. I think there was one other couple using nitrox on our boat for the shark dive, none otherwise.
It turned out to be a bit of overkill; the first dive had a bottom at 84 feet between minutes 5 and 20 of a 38 minute dive, with stops at 40 for 3 minutes and the last 10 or so above 20. After a 1:07 SI, the second spent 27 minutes at 60 feet, with a similar slow ascent and extended stop. I don't have the software to compute N2 loading for the profile, but I don't think it was very close to deco for air. But we prefer to dive nitrox for the perceived fatigue mitigation when it's reasonably priced, so sticking a day of it in the middle of the trip, on the deepest profiles of the trip, was ok with us; I'd probably do it again.
They photocopied our C-cards when we brought them to the office, as requested, the day of arrival. I'm skeptical that anyone would have noticed if we hadn't, or if anyone checked to see if we'd shown them an EAN card when we requested nitrox for the shark dives a couple of days later. But perhaps I'm quite wrong; they did get the nitrox onto our bill correctly, so someone in the office was paying attention to the dive operation.
All the dive staff, and in fact all of the staff except the manager and his wife (Aussies, maybe) were Beqa natives. They only offer PADI OW instruction per the posted information, and I think the dive staff needs to go off-island for training. But they seemed completely competent. One of the DMs mentioned that he'd gone to DEMA in Orlando a couple of years ago, representing the resort, and had visited Disneyland. But he didn't go diving, and in 11 years, hasn't dived outside of Fiji. DM is a job, not a calling.
The most troublesome thing about the operation is the state of the boats, most notably the engines. I mentioned the night dive where one boat had to tow the other back. Another day we learned at lunch that one of the other boats had failed to start that morning and BLR had to hire a boat from somewhere else for the day, obviously with considerable delay. Our boat, C-Harley, failed to start one morning. The crew went at the starter motor and battery cables for 10-15 minutes, and they got it going. Twice, the outboard in the tender we were in failed to start, and we had to either move to a different tender, or get towed by a different tender.
Also, we had the sense that they run the boats at a slower than usual speed for a dive boat, possibly to conserve fuel and minimize stress on the engines, resulting in longer trips to the divesites, and on the trips to Pacific Harbor.
In discussing things with the manager at meals, they acknowledge that the resort needs some reinvestment, and particularly in the dive boats, but the owners don't seem currently inclined to make that investment. There's a general feeling, shared by most of our fellow guests in discussion, that they're cutting corners and milking the resource, and waiting for the fat times to come around again before putting any real money back into the facility. But we also understand that the bures have been recently remodeled, so maybe the dive boats are waiting their turn.
What we had worked, with some inconveniences. I'm not qualified to judge how far they are from breakdowns they can't handle.
They're less than 24 hours air freight from New Zealand or even the US, if some critical part needs replacement. Like the boat they had to rent for a day, maybe it's just a well-calculated balance of where to best use limited funds. I'm just passing on what I observed and was openly discussed among the guests, and attempting to minimize interpretation.
[ continued ... ]
