Fiji trip and pics

[ryssyr]

Hi all,

I'm new to the forum as a registered member, but have been reading a lot of posts. This forum has been a great source of information. I thought I would supply some content for everyone to enjoy.

I just got back from a trip in Fiji. This was the first trip I had a camera on and it was a good thing. Lots to see and lots to take pictures of.

I posted the pics on my website. I posted a summary lower in this thread.

http://www.traveleri.com/Diving

[ScubaJW]

I agree that this forum is full of wealth knowledge that we all need! BTW, Very pretty pictures!! Did you shore diving? Maybe you should post a short report so I can learn from you!

Happy Holidays!

[teog]

Cool pics. Glad you had a great trip.

[Daved]

Nice Web site! Great way to view pics

[ryssyr]

Originally Posted by ScubaJW

I agree that this forum is full of wealth knowledge that we all need! BTW, Very pretty pictures!! Did you shore diving? Maybe you should post a short report so I can learn from you!

Happy Holidays!

Not sure how much you will learn from me, but here is a short summary of the trip: ( no shore diving, but one shore snorkel site)

The first location was Taveuni Island in Fiji: The dive sites were in the Somosomo Straight just off the island. The reef area is known as Rainbow Reef. I went with a local outifit called Jewel bubble divers. The owner was the DM. A great group of folks. I stayed at the Maravu plantation, they had a special online for $1900, 5 nights and all inclusive... great food btw.

The two sites I visited here were:

1. The great white wall- 96 ft depth, very high current. The plan was to do a swim through down into the wall area, but once we got in the current was to rough, so we all went over the wall and down the face instead of the swimthru. The wall was pretty amazing, white coral everywhere, no large pelagics but a lot of smaller life around the wall. It was a short dive due to the depth and the current made all of us work a little harder than we wanted going over the top of the wall.

We did our SI at a nice beach then moved onto our second site

2. The three bommies: I dont know if this is the official name, but the current was lower at this site. Depth was around 60ft. We lingered for about 45 min on this site. Lots of coral, fish, and macro life here.

Misc: This was the first dive trip with a camera for me and it was a little to get used to the extra tasking while under. I was in a full exposure suit 3mm. It got a little chilly in the cold current when we were deep, but otherwise a warm dive. Note: strange thing about the current, our bubbles did not go up. They swirled sideways and down in some areas! This is not for beginners, and I was a little challenged but otherwise comfortable on the drift.

Jewel bubbles was closed on sunday and on monday I couldnt dive due to a tuesday flight to another island group. I will go back to taveuni for a longer dive trip in the future, and book with Jewel bubbles.

The second group of islands were the Mamanuca group islands. We stayed at the castway island resort. This island group is very tourist-y. Taveuni is very quiet, and peaceful in comparison.

The Mamanaca group has tons of dive sites. I visited four while at castaway.

1. The Big W's. is at the edge of the barrier reef. A few good swimthrus. Lots of cool underwater formations to see. It was a ~80ft depth. Water was warm. 5 divers on this trip.

2. Bills cave. A very fun cave and swimthru site. Nice coral at this location. The pictures show how enclosed it became and while navigating it was necessary to use your buoyancy skills to control your movement so you dont hit the top of the rocks and coral. Lots of fun. Only two of us on this dive. Quiet.

3. Gotham City. Named for the large batfish schools in the area. Larger pelagics are here. We spotted a couple of white tips. Also there are a few free swimming eels here, but I couldnt get a clear shot of them. The currents here started picking up, but it wasnt too difficult to navigate under water. The boat return was tough though. This dive had 8 folks broken into two groups. One had trainees and a separate DM. We let them get on board first, so the remaining four of us had a lot of surface swimming to stay with the boat.

4. Magic Island. This is a surf spot island with a large break over the barrier reef. This dive starts on a sandy slope with some lava rock outcropping then develops into a nice canyon covered with interesting and uniform coral. Lots and lots of fish schools and macro life here. There were 6 divers on this trip.

Misc. I wore a shorty for all of the Mamanuca group dives. Plenty warm, but I wish I had full coverage due to some stings I picked up under my exposed knees. (I dont know what they were but i got a good rash)

I need another 15 days of two tank dives to cover the 30 sites at the castaway area. We couldnt do a night dive since most of the folks were with family and we couldnt get the minimum of 4 on the clear nights to dive. A few of the nights had pretty rough storms so we couldnt do those either.

I took all of my equipment (less weights and tank) on this trip. I use a Zeagle ranger BC, apeks reg setup, and use a VT3 dive comp for all of my logging. I do not use a redundant gauge setup. I packed all of my gear into a $25 duffle I bought from Target a year ago. Its the exact same as some of the dive duffles at the local shop, but less $$. I carried on my reg, comp, and mask on the long flight. I didnt have too many problems through security with all of the gear.

The camera I recently purchased was a sea&sea 860G with strobe. It was very easy to use, but it is a little slow on the focus. I processed the photos using aperture (apple software).

Aperture did a really good job with taking out the excess blue and handling the white balancing under water. The web site was published using iWeb. I used to set up all my own web gallery, but its just easier to use the templates.
In general one of the best vacation & dive sites (next to Bali) that I have been to.


Let me know if I should add any other flavor!

[ScubaJenn81]

Nice Pics

[Scubakraut]

Great report and nice pics, thanks for sharing

[Defman]

Welcome to the board and thanks for the pic's!!

[hychang]

Thanks for the great report and pics. Your pics makes these grey cold days here a little brighter.

[skippy11]

Great Pics, Thanks for Sharing. PS. Welcometo the Forum