Diving in Fiji

[lisa_sk8]

I will be traveling to Fiji on May 22 of this year for 5 weeks!!! It is my graduation present after 6 years of school. I know we are landing in Nadi but I believe we will be staying in Suva where my aunt and uncle have a property there.

I do not have my own dive gear (at the moment) and may be relegated to going down only with snorkeling apparel and having to rent the rest. Unfortunately, with the cost of my flight alone, I feel like passing out already! My one hope is that the next door neighbor and I get to know each other because apparently she is the local dive instructor and has her own boat. Wouldn't that be helpful?!? Haha.

Has anyone dove in this area? Any tips or information you could pass along? I would appreciate anything you could share with me (even non diving related - like if you wish you could have brought something that you didn't).

[Aussie]

Originally Posted by lisa_sk8

I will be traveling to Fiji on May 22 of this year for 5 weeks!!! It is my graduation present after 6 years of school. I know we are landing in Nadi but I believe we will be staying in Suva where my aunt and uncle have a property there.

I do not have my own dive gear (at the moment) and may be relegated to going down only with snorkeling apparel and having to rent the rest. Unfortunately, with the cost of my flight alone, I feel like passing out already! My one hope is that the next door neighbor and I get to know each other because apparently she is the local dive instructor and has her own boat. Wouldn't that be helpful?!? Haha.

Has anyone dove in this area? Any tips or information you could pass along? I would appreciate anything you could share with me (even non diving related - like if you wish you could have brought something that you didn't).

I went to Fiji a few years ago and had a very interesting trip so to speak.

I flew into Nadi which is the major township and Gateaway on the islands. Suva is the political capital of Fiji but Nadi is were everyone starts or finishes they journey in Fiji.

To the west of Nadi there is all the tourist resorts like Hilton, Sheridan, Hyatt etc etc and off shore from these resorts is the Mamanucas islands and to the North of these are the remote Yasawas Islands. The Mananucas islands are were you have the island resorts which range from backpacking islands to $1000+ a night places.
I dived with Sub-surface Diving when I stayed on the backpacker island Beachcomber. They kind of run most of the diving in the Mamanucas island Group. They had good boats and experienced crew but I wasnt impressed with the diving profile which was air table based. This was the same if you had your own computer or not. Which meant I was coming up with LOTS of air after a dive. The diving was very good on the reefs that were exposed to the ocean but inside the reef the diving was ordinary.

After the Mamanucas I flew by small plane to Taveuni, which is a large island to the North East of the main Fiji Island of Viti Levu. I stayed at the Garden island resort which is an older style (i think built in the 70's) resort in a quiet and peaceful part of Fiji. I thought to myself that it would be a nice place for a Honeymoon and is was green and tropical and very very quiet. there was myself and another american couple which stayed at the resort which made the service from the staff very personal. I remember eating Lobster every night and eating chicken curry at the local cafe next door for lunch (i think the chicken curry cost like $3). Straight out infront of the Resort is the famous Samosamo Straights which is warm gin clear water that divides Taveuni with the next island.

I was impressed by the relaxed diving over here and really enjoyed that they didnt impose air table dive profiles. This meant I could just dive as long as i liked in the warm clear water and come up when i had 50bar left. Dives lasting an hour and half were common on the trip.

There is some great dives to be had around Taveuni and the Garden island Resort had their own dive shop. When I go back to Fiji this place would be on my list of places to go too.

The dive group I booked with on Taveuni was Aqua-trek and they also do the tiger shark feed dives at Bega lagoon which is between Suva and Nadi. I havnt been their myself but have been told there is some great diving down that way and accomodation is dirt cheap in some places.

Check out their web-site: Aqua-Trek

Aussie