Recently in Fiji Category
I wrote an article about my Asian diving for the monthly Hiroshima ALT newsletter Wide Island View. Its nothing I've not written here before, but worth a read if you're interested in what we English teachers in Japan write about. Click on it to view in your browser, or right click to download it. The file comes in at about 550 kbs.
Out of all the photos I sent them why did they use the clownfish photo? Seriously. Clownfish. Sigh...
Technorati Tags: diving, fiji, japan, koh tao, philippines, scuba, thailand, travel
Fiji stands as one of the best places in the world to dive. There are thousands of dive sites on hundreds of islands that will take your breath away. Back in August of 2007 I headed down to Fiji for some summer diving and relaxing. Our trip required us to fly from Osaka to Korea and then to Fiji. A trip that took about 12 hours to complete, plus some additional over land travel.
Because of our time restraints we decided to stay on the main Fijian island as opposed to one of the smaller, more remote areas. We ended up staying on the small island of Nananu-i-ra which was a two hour drive from the capital and a 10 minute boat ride off the northern coast of the main island. Nananu is attractive for several reasons. First it doesn't require an internal flight within Fiji, just a cheap cab ride and boat ride. While it is well set up for tourists it is also far away from the busy tourist hubs on the southern coast. There are plenty of sandy beaches, beautiful landscapes, and really good diving. While the lodging and food isn't super cheap, it also won't tax your budget. Plus everyone spoke English and was quite friendly. If you want to get away from everyone else and just relax, Nananu is a perfect choice.
For some nice high pictures of Nananu-i-ra check out these google maps images.
Setting up diving with the local dive shop Ra Divers was quite easy. They were located on the main island but were more than happy to pick up divers staying on Nananu. Their staff was friendly and knowledgeable, equipment clean and functional, and prices very reasonable. I was able to do 8 dives over 4 days with equipment for 400 Fijian Dollars. Every morning I was picked up at my hotel, did two dives, and was back for a late lunch at around 1 pm. The reason for this quick turn around is that Nananu is about a 10 minute boat ride from a whole host of fine diving. Hard and soft corals. Sharks and snakes. Several sunken wrecks. Everything you could hope for. I don't' know if it was the time of the year it, or just the state of the local tourist economy, but we were the only boats on the water each day. Its a wonderful change from the busy waters of Koh Tao and Bohol.
From what I'm told the visibility is usually around 20 meters or more, but in the week before I came a series of bad storms with heavy wind had hit the area. Thus visibility was not as good as I had hoped, but still rather nice.
The dive sites around Nananu were full of rock pinnacles, mazes, and arches which made for rather wonderful sights. Though several of the arches were a bit tight for me and I ended up cutting myself on a couple of dives.
While the area is known as a "soft coral heaven" of sorts its also a great spot to watch sharks. At least once a day our group encountered sharks. At one point in the trip we hung onto some rocks and watched as about a dozen reef sharks swam no more than 10 meters away from us.
We also ran across several black and white sea snakes who were quite curious about us. I was also able to take some video of one of the snakes, which you can view at the bottom of this post.
Some more shots of the caves and canyons we often swam through. Simply breath taking.
If you wanted to see coral, Nananu would do it for you. The amount and variety of health coral was astounding. The problem I found was that I was virtually in a forrest of coral, and was in constant fear of touching something or running into something in the narrow straits. I also ran across quite a few massive fans. Several of them stretching out over 2 meters.
Speaking of things that were nearly two meters, pictured below is one of several massive eels we came across. Plus the obligatory clown fish picture.
Lastly a couple of fish/ coral pictures. The fish variety was quite impressive with interesting variations as you changed depths. The only thing I didn't see on my dives, which I wished I had, were rays. Several divers I was with had spotted a group of eagle rays the day before I showed up. But sadly I saw none.
I took a very large amount of video using my digital camera while diving. An edited down version of it can be viewed below.
I can't really think of anything bad to say about diving at Nananu except that Fiji is quite expensive to fly to. If you can get there its a divers paradise. If you look around you can also find insanely cheap diving deals depending on the area and the season. Its defiantly worth going to if you want to both dive and relax away from the crowds. I only wish I had the cash to go again!
