Diving on the Naia December 3-9

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Fiji 2011​

December 3​

The flightfrom Chicago – LAX- Nadi, Fiji went well, we got a day room at TokoToko resortand it was kind of a dirty room and old. I wouldn’t stay there again. The Naia bus picked us up around 1:30 P.M.and we were off to the ship. This is one fantastic boat with two skiffs to diveoff and the crew sets up everything after you do it once on the first day.After a dive briefing we were off to a dive site off Lautoka for a check outdive, I needed 10 pounds with this new wet suit and it was a nice dive.

December 4 on the Naia​

First divewas at 7:30 A.M. at Howards Diner at the Vatu – I - Ra passage. Good dive withnice coral and gentle current. We saw lion fish, 1 reef shark and a turtle.Dive time 45 minutes
Second diveat Yellow Mellow, decent current with bigger fish around, saw some wahoo, tuna,lots of clown fish in the anemone. I used 11 pounds on a weight belt, a littletoo much weight I believe. Sue is having some cramping of her toes so far.
Third divewas at GoMo, easily the best dive of the trip so far. Sue says it’s because shedidn’t go with to give her legs a rest. Several good sized Reef and White Tipsharks in all sizes were around 60 ft. Some huge school of Barracudas and everyother normal reef fish you see were there. There was a good current and that’swhat causes so many fish to show up according to Haley and Ed, who are thecruise directors. Dive lasted 50minutes. The reefs here at Vatu-I-Ra passage are extremely healthy with a lotof fish from young to old, large too small.
The fourthdive was at Charlie’s Garden, nice shallow dive of 40 ft. with tons of hardcoral that stretched forever. Saw a giant Bump Head Parrott fish of around 100lbs. Sue found a nice brown moray eel that I got a couple of nice pictures ofand we dived for around 55 minutes. We decided to pass on the night dive andhad a few glasses of wine and fell into bed at 9:00 P.M.
The food onthis boat is fantastic, give this chef a raise. I can’t imagine dining anybetter if we were in Fiji’s best restaurants.

December 5​

Wakaya isthe new anchorage. Vatu Vai was our first dive at 7:30 A.M., very nicepinnacle, saw mostly small stuff with the highlight being a clown fish withtiny babies and a Chinese Dragon nudibranch. Dive lasted 50 minutes and then agreat breakfast of a cheese omelet with lamb sausages and hash browns, yummy!Wakaya was the island that Bill Gates rented out completely for hishoneymoon. The island is owned by aCanadian that owns Fiji water.
Dive 2 wasat the Great White Wall for 50 minutes and we saw our first Blue Ribbon eelpoking his head out of some coral about 6 inches. While we were back rolling off the boat myleft fin came off and it slowed me down enough to be lagging behind the group about100 feet, so of course, 3 hammerhead sharks showed up but they were too faraway for Sue and I to see them. This is a nice dive where Manta Rays and sharksshow up on occasion and I think we are going to dive this again this afternoon?Great pasta with chicken and an amazing assortment of vegetables and garlicbread for lunch, things just keep getting better.
Dive 3 wasat Great White Wall again and this dive was even better. There were 4 or 5 goodsized white tip sharks resting in the sand and then swimming around us. I finally got a good picture of the BlueRibbon eel and figured out how to boost myself up into the skiff at the dive’send. Sue was impressed, well maybe it was more like pissed off that she hasn’tdone it yet. Dinner was filet mignon,very good.
At 5:00 P.M.we went to an island, Makogai, to meet the local village and have a Kava Party.You drink this stuff made from a Kava root they put in what looks like a dirtysock and it’s mixed with water. It made Sue’s tongue numb. Then it turned intoDonovan’s Reef with singing and dancing and tribal dress put on by thevillagers. Big Fun and the kids weregreat. The island was once a Leper colony from 1911 until 1962 run by Frenchnuns. The chief took us to the remains of the buildings and the cemetery. The villagers have a clam hatchery now andstock surrounding islands with clams for their fishery department who now ownthe island.

 

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December 6​

Gau is thenext anchorage and our 7:30 A.M. dive is at Nigali Passage which is an area weshould see a lot of reef sharks? Dive 1 – As we descended we found out thecurrent was going in the wrong direction and visibility wasn’t that good, soafter a long swim we sat down in the bleachers but didn’t have much air leftand my nitrogen level was bumping up against yellow. There were a lot of reeftip sharks and 2 giant white tips in the sand as we rose from the depths. Gooddive but exhausting for everyone.
Dive 2 – Nowthis is more like it. We dived in thesame place, Nigali Passage but this time it was much better visibility and thecurrent was going in the right direction. There were 30-40 reef sharks andtheir babies swimming everywhere in this channel, I’ve never seen anything likethis, just fantastic. Sue seems to think there were a thousand sharks, butshe’s a wack job, so if she tells you that just nod and smile like I do. J
Dive 3 – Jim’s Reef, nice dive of 55 minutes, found somecleaner shrimp and tons of fish. Someone on the starboard boat saw a Manta Ray,we didn’t see any though. Sue finallydragged her butt up into the boat after some excellent coaching from Korio andI, she’s all proud of herself.
Dive 4 – Anthias, found 7 or 8 nudibranchs, half with theassist of Haley, our dive guide, saw a nice brown eel, a few shrimp and lot’s afish of every variety. Dive lasted 60 minutes with a lot of plankton but theMantas never showed up. Nice dive thoughbut Sue sat this one out, evidently, she’s not the finely tuned athlete I am. JWe sat up on the sun deck and watched the stars and I pretended to know whatthey all were, they didn’t buy my B.S.

December 7​

Namena isthe next anchorage. The 7:30 A.M. dive was at a site called Fantasea, I’mrenaming it “One Wild Ass Expensive Ride”. When we descended and got to 80 Ft,I noticed my camera housing had flooded, major bummer, then the current was sostrong Sue kept losing me, finally I was just above her and she was lookingeverywhere but up, I tried to reach out to her from 4 feet away and a rippingupwelling grabbed me and swept me up and around a pinnacle and separated mefrom the group. Now I was at 35 feet up from 80, so I hung onto some coral fora while to catch my breath and bearing. Finally, I saw another pinnacle 50 feetaway that the top looked to be around 20 feet that I could grab onto and waitfor the group and do a safety stop and sure enough, they showed up around 5minutes later. Sue was relieved to find me but she seems disappointed she can’tcash in the insurance money? What a gal. Exhilarating dive, but I don’t wantthat chain of events to happen again. Luckily I was able to retrieve all the pictures from the SD card, so atleast I have pictures from the first 3 days and the village visit. What did I see? Who the hell knows, I washanging on for my life, so was Sue, heck, so was everyone. The dive lasted 26 minutes which seemed muchlonger and I had 300 psi when I came up.
Dive 2,10:00 dive was at South-Save-A-Tack area and the dive site was “Two Thumbs Up”.This was a nice dive of 45 minutes from 75 to 20 feet with some nudibranchs andmillions of small fish. The current was much easier and we were all grateful.This was my first dive without my camera, which is now trashed. I’ll try andtake just the housing down on a later dive to see if I can salvage the housing.
Dive 3, 2:00P.M. dive was at North-Save-A-Tack and this was a great dive, just a minimum ofcurrent and tons of fish, Reef Sharks, schools of barracudas, fusiliers andbump head parrot fish, napoleon wrasse, wahoo, tuna, a stone fish, nudibranch,a nice sized lobster, groupers, it seems like everything was here but mantas.When we first dived in we descended to 100 feet and then came back up to 80along the sand and that’s where the schools of barracudas and sharks were at.The tops of these bommies are unbelievable with the amount of sea life on themand the colors are other worldly. The Good Lord was on the top of his game whenhe came up with this area. Eddie has been our guide a lot and has done aterrific job finding things.
Dive 4,Kansas at North-Save-A-Tack, beautiful swaying soft coral (simularia) at thetop of this bommie is how it got its name. We saw eels, white tip sharks, tuna,and barracuda really all the same fish from dive 3 but we spent more time atKansas. The dive lasted 60 minutes andwas the last dive of today. We are going to have a boat Kava party tonight, Ihope Sue behaves herself? J

December 8​

Dive 1,North Save-A-Tack, Two Thumbs Up, fantastic dive with gentle current and twokinds of nudibranchs, lobster, hermit crabs, cleaner shrimp and big groupersswimming around. I kind of tweeked my back suiting up so we’ll see how thatresponds later. The dive lasted 50 minutes, and Sue loved it.
Dive 2,Tetons 1, one large pinnacle from 90 feet to 15 feet is the site with a bigrock coral off to one side. We saw two pygmy pipe fish in the sand and whileleaving that spot a big reef shark passed by. The pinnacle had numerousnudibranchs at various depths but I kept seeing the same blue and whiteones. The top of the bommie was again sobeautiful with hundreds of clown fish and anemones. It’s just impressive thatso many of these reefs extend to just below the surface and the light is ofcourse as good as it gets.
Dive 3,North-Save-A-Tack, by the arch. This dive starts out with you descending to 90feet and swimming with schools of barracuda, fusiliers and several reef sharks,next, you head up hill under an underwater arch to beautiful coral on a fewbommies, that are loaded with nudibranchs and big toothed tuna with anoccasional white tip shark, just an awesome dive but this one had a decent currentgoing so it was hard to travel too far because of it.
Dive 4,Kansas, just like yesterday this pinnacle never disappoints, this time a whitetip shark came around a corner 3 feet away and surprised me. Since this waslater in the day a lot of predators started to show up on the reef, like bigtuna a wrasse, but there was plenty of small stuff around too. No Spiker onthis dive, she can’t take the physical activity that the King of the Castlecan. J Thiswas our last dive in the Namena Marine Preserve and I’ll never forget thisexperience, it was awe inspiring. Three more dives tomorrow and an overnighttrip back to Lautoka to the port and our Naia trip will end, but the memorieswill remain.

December 9​

Dive 1,Mount Mutiny at Vatu-I-Ra passage, just another normal Fijian dive with anincredible sea mount that rises from the abyss to the surface but this time ataround 80 feet we saw 3 Hammerhead sharks and at 60 feet a hawksbill turtle. Igive this dive an A+, Sue was happy that she finally saw some hammerheads andthat was my first turtle of the trip, although some other had seen a couple.The top had numerous swim thru’s and it was very pretty with the morning sunall over it. Sue was able to pull herself onto the boat again, she’s a morninggal. Sue says she just swished herself right up on the boat gracefully, I sayshe clumsily dragged her butt up with howls of laughter from everyone on board.
Dive 2, E-6,this was another mountain rising from the abyss, but the attraction here at thebeginning was a few nice swim thru’s. Sue really likes a shallow dive like thiswith little current and calm water’s on the surface, heck, who doesn’t. Divelasted 50 minutes but we could have stayed down at least 10 minutes longer butSue was a little cold. Beautiful coraleverywhere and I’m a little surprised we didn’t see more eels? One more dive togo at 2:00 P.M.
Dive 3,GoMo, This was our last dive off the Naia and a good one, lobsters, lots offish, a big school of skip jacks with thousands of fish in it. The dive depthwas 90-15 feet with the usual beautiful soft coral formations that just takeyour breath away. I believe the biggest difference between Fiji diving andCaribbean diving is the amazing diversity of the soft coral which requirescurrent to thrive and Fiji has plenty of it, but the Naia dive guides do afabulous job of scheduling the dives when the tidal flow isn’t as strong as itcould be. There has to be 6 different clown fish species and 2-3 differentanemones they live in, we love those fish.
The Naia,according to my fellow passengers that have been on many liveaboards throughoutthe world, is the finest ship of its kind operating anywhere in the world, wehighly recommend it, but be prepared for a little engine noise while travelingat night if you’re a light sleeper. The food is outstanding; the crew is allexperts at their respective jobs and the diving is some of the best in anyocean with a great biodiversity and fish from the young of the year to hugepredators of all kinds. I’d come back onthis ship in a minute. Our cruisedirectors, Ed and Haley were very attentive and had a great knowledge of thisand many other areas, they were a delight to be around and of course, terrificdivers. Give it a try, one couple on the trip was relative novices, less than50 dives, and they handled the dive sites without much of a problem although Rhonda did unfortunately hurt her back somehow.
Jim

 

[BDSC]

I know this post is a few years old but I appreciate the time you took to write it. I am thinking of chartering the entire boat in 2015 and this was a great read.

 

[greylion]

I know this post is a few years old but I appreciate the time you took to write it. I am thinking of chartering the entire boat in 2015 and this was a great read.

Do it, best liveaboard in the world IMO. We had the trip of a lifetime. Great food too.

 

[BDSC]

I did it Bro! I have the boat Saturday, April 25th - Saturday, June 2nd, 2015. I've sent the word out to some of our regular people and already have 12 signed up. If we fill the boat I should be able to discount everyone's price by about $500!

 

[greylion]

I think you mean May 2? If you have that boat for over a month I coming with.

 

[BDSC]

I think you mean May 2? If you have that boat for over a month I coming with.

I wish it were a month but May 2nd is right bro. Thanks.