terapnstn
Registered
Hi all,
Thanks for everyone's advice before we went. Here's a brief trip report.
We spent our first week at Daku resort in Savusavu and dove with JMC dive center. Daku Resort was absolutely lovely. We had a mbure with a kitchen, so didn't eat meals there, but the place is beautiful, relaxed, and Raj, who was the manager while John was away, is amazing. Whatever you need, Raj will make it happen. He really did an incredible job.
Diving with JMC was great. It was before high season, so they had a 2 for 1 deal where if you do 10 dives over 5 dives you get 2 people diving for the price of 1. We were even luckier to be there while Jean-Michel was there and got to dive with him. The dive operation is extremely professional. We rented their gear except mask and fins, and the gear was in excellent condition. The dive masters are excellent, and they let us all stay down until we reached 500 psi (unlike some operations I've seen that make everyone come up at 45 min regardless). We all agreed that Fiji has the most beautiful safety stops, and we could have stayed there forever. The dive sites closer to the resort seemed a little fished out to me, though the soft coral is incredible, but Namena Reserve is an absolute must. Pristine diving, gorgeous coral and lots of fish and many reef sharks and a couple mantas and . . . fantastic.
Then we went to Taveuni for a couple days, and stayed at Tuvununu, a backpacker's lodge but with a gorgeous view and very friendly and helpful people. We dove with Jewel Bubble Divers. My husband and I were the only 2 divers on the boat for 2 days, and went to Rainbow Reef (although not to the white wall). Rainbow Reef is also amazingly pristine, with large schools of anthias and barracuda and fusiliers and reef sharks (similar to Namena) with a bonus of seeing bottlenose dolphins swim next to the boat on our way to the dive site. Again, excellent gear and great crew. Qio (Gee-o) is the owner and picked us up at our lodge. He didn't take credit cards, though, and we had to go all the way to town to use the ATM, so check on payment options before you go.
The last week we stayed at Naigani Resort. Just a small village and the resort on the island. We didn't dive there, but the snorkeling just offshore is spectacular. We would snorkel for 2-3 hours in the morning, then another 2-3 hours in the afternoon and never got tired of it. Sharks, sea snakes, morays, squid and cuttlefish, gorgeous coral and reef fish, endless entertainment. The mbure's were simple but nice (the beds were a bit too soft for me, but not much of a complaint, is it??). The staff was amazing, the food was delicious, live music from Johnny at dinner every night, a trip to the village that was a great learning experience and very worth it, free use of kayaks. We were actually only going to stay 4 nights but stayed 7.
Feel free to ask any questions. Wish I could go back right now!
Thanks for everyone's advice before we went. Here's a brief trip report.
We spent our first week at Daku resort in Savusavu and dove with JMC dive center. Daku Resort was absolutely lovely. We had a mbure with a kitchen, so didn't eat meals there, but the place is beautiful, relaxed, and Raj, who was the manager while John was away, is amazing. Whatever you need, Raj will make it happen. He really did an incredible job.
Diving with JMC was great. It was before high season, so they had a 2 for 1 deal where if you do 10 dives over 5 dives you get 2 people diving for the price of 1. We were even luckier to be there while Jean-Michel was there and got to dive with him. The dive operation is extremely professional. We rented their gear except mask and fins, and the gear was in excellent condition. The dive masters are excellent, and they let us all stay down until we reached 500 psi (unlike some operations I've seen that make everyone come up at 45 min regardless). We all agreed that Fiji has the most beautiful safety stops, and we could have stayed there forever. The dive sites closer to the resort seemed a little fished out to me, though the soft coral is incredible, but Namena Reserve is an absolute must. Pristine diving, gorgeous coral and lots of fish and many reef sharks and a couple mantas and . . . fantastic.
Then we went to Taveuni for a couple days, and stayed at Tuvununu, a backpacker's lodge but with a gorgeous view and very friendly and helpful people. We dove with Jewel Bubble Divers. My husband and I were the only 2 divers on the boat for 2 days, and went to Rainbow Reef (although not to the white wall). Rainbow Reef is also amazingly pristine, with large schools of anthias and barracuda and fusiliers and reef sharks (similar to Namena) with a bonus of seeing bottlenose dolphins swim next to the boat on our way to the dive site. Again, excellent gear and great crew. Qio (Gee-o) is the owner and picked us up at our lodge. He didn't take credit cards, though, and we had to go all the way to town to use the ATM, so check on payment options before you go.
The last week we stayed at Naigani Resort. Just a small village and the resort on the island. We didn't dive there, but the snorkeling just offshore is spectacular. We would snorkel for 2-3 hours in the morning, then another 2-3 hours in the afternoon and never got tired of it. Sharks, sea snakes, morays, squid and cuttlefish, gorgeous coral and reef fish, endless entertainment. The mbure's were simple but nice (the beds were a bit too soft for me, but not much of a complaint, is it??). The staff was amazing, the food was delicious, live music from Johnny at dinner every night, a trip to the village that was a great learning experience and very worth it, free use of kayaks. We were actually only going to stay 4 nights but stayed 7.
Feel free to ask any questions. Wish I could go back right now!
