Fiji confusion?

[dirtfarmer]

Fiji confuses me.

First up: the background
The non diving wife and I would be traveling in January for 5 weeks.
Our budget tops out at $200/day for lodging, food, drinks. I can add on diving costs from there. For diving costs I prefer not to go over $130/3 tanks. We are ok with being at an isolated resort ( if the food is good) but prefer a choice in restaurants.
I like excellent diving, which I read varies from good to world class there. I shoot photo's and like both coral and macro, love sharks and manta's, and super fishy dives, and prefer dives 60 min or longer and small dive groups.
I tend to do 3 dives/day for the first two weeks then one or two a day the rest of the time but not every day.
Short boat rides are a plus- the wife really likes it when I'm not gone all day.

So back to my confusion, I never seem to be able to get a grip on all the locations in Fiji. I've read and read and it still makes my head swim.

So when you comment it would really help if you can address boat trip lengths, quality of diving, what the area is known for: sharks-coral both hard/soft-fishyness, avrg length of dives group sizes etc. I'm ok with shark feeding dives but don't want to spend a week doing only those.
I also appreciate specific resort-shop comments, especially relating to professionalism, food.

Also I hate traveling somewhere and weather conditions keep me from diving the good spots- so if January is windy and I can only get to selected locations I'd prefer to know. Or it's low season and I can't get to a spot as there is no other divers to get to the good spots.

I know I'm asking a lot but I really appreciate it.

 

[JackConnick]

I can tell you January is monsoon season there. You are going to run into a lot of rain and wind, but it does depend on where you go.

 

[Hintermann]

Agreed. January is summer in Fiji - warm but lots of rain and both land based activities and diving can be affected. Fiji authorities are strict in terms of no-go instructions. If there is a radio message to the boat captain that he cannot go to a certain spot on a certain day, then that's it. No arguments.

July-August is in theory the best time to dive in Fiji - cooler but clearer waters and great weather. But locals disagree because the weather is changing there and suggest May or September as better choices.

The best diving in Fiji is in the Eastern part of the island and most Dive Centres are based in Suva. You can either fly there from Nadi international Airport or (better) arrange a 3-hour local road transport. With dive luggage the latter is far better.

There are a couple of liveaboards. I went on the MV Island Dancer, which was very good with only 10 divers.

As long as the weather does not intervene and stop you from reaching the best dive sites, the diving is great. Lots of colourful soft coral, pelagics (sharks in plenty) and colourful tropical fish. Night diving is great too.

 

[cbm32]

Actually, the best diving in Fiji is found on the outer islands and not the main island (Viti Levu). You won't get to any good diving in Fiji from Suva without putting in a very long day of travel there and back. If I wanted to dive from the main island, I would stay in the Rakiraki area. There are some good resorts there and you can get to some really good diving in the Lomaiviti group of islands from there, but the boat rides will be a bit on the long side to do so.

If you don't have a problem with shark dives aided by feeding the sharks, Pacific Harbor (also on the main island of Viti Levu) is home to a couple of ops that do world famous shark dives. Unfortunately, I have never been impressed by the other diving in that area, and Pacific Harbor gets as much or more rain than anyplace in Fiji and January is prime time for LOTS and LOTS of rain and wind.

Some of the very best diving areas in Fiji are the Lomaiviti group of islands and the Taveuni/Savusavu areas (Taveuni is a mid size Fijian island and Savusavu is a town on Fiji's second largest island, Vanua Levu). These two areas will get less rain in January than Pacific Harbor....but you will still be there in the rainy season and rolling the dice when it comes to the weather. You could get lucky and have mostly great conditions, or you could see very few days with really good weather.

The Yasawa chain of Fijian islands is the one place that you can probably count on good weather in January in Fiji. It is the driest area of Fiji and more desert islands than the other areas...the kind of island most picture when they think of a South Pacifica Island. Beautiful area....the top of the Yasawa islands is where the two Blue Lagoon Movies were filmed. Even in January the weather is going to be fantastic, and there are some really great/fun resorts in the Yasawas (we had such a great time at Blue Lagoon Beach Resort that we extended our stay and extra ten days there). The diving in the Yasawas is not bad, but it is nowhere near the best in Fiji The viz will be mostly good and there will be a lot of things to see, along with some interesting terrain and swim throughs. But you wont find the biodiversity, biomass, or beautiful soft coral that you will find in the best diving areas of Fiji.

Aside from the weather, you have another problem if you want to have both the best diving AND be someplace with a choice of restaurants. Pacific Harbor has a good choice of restaurants and the great shark dives but the rest of the diving is not that great. For a chance to combine the two you best bet is probably staying in Savusavu.

So, diving Fiji in January forces you to make some choices. Personally I would cross off the Pacific Harbor/Bega area immediately....just too much rain and not good enough diving, other than the shark dives. If I was willing to keep my schedule very flexible and book things at the last minute (probably even AFTER being in Fiji) I would go for the Rakiraki or Savusavu/Taveuni areas and book after having a good idea of what the weather is going to be for the next week to ten days. If I wanted to be sure the weather was going to be good, and compromise on the quality of diving, I would book at the top of the Yasawas. My wife is a non-diver as well, and she had a great time at Blue Lagoon Beach resort in the Yasawas. The food at Blue Lagoon was excellent.

If you would like any more specific information/advice on any of the areas or individual resorts, feel free to shoot me a PM.

 

[Sea Shelley]

I would agree with cbm32 on Taveuni for sure. My husband and I took a 3 week honeymoon to Fiji in September 2012. granted, we are both divers (thanks to him encouraging me to try it when we were dating), so we were really there for diving, relaxing, not for shopping. We stayed at full service very small resorts so there was no need to search for a restaurant. the places we stayed were amazing! I would highly recommend them. We are used to piecing together our trips ourselves, but for this trip, I found a travel agent who had personally been to Fiji over 40 times and has done more than 1,000 dives in Fiji. We decided to let her take the lead (South Seas Travel, out of Colorado). couldn't have been happier. We stayed at Paradise Taveuni for the first 9 days (flashlight fish right at their loading dock, pretty cool and rare). did a boat dive package, did 2 or 3 dives each day. White Wall is a don't miss site. Steve's Corner was a nudibranch meca, saw so many different kinds. (we like the little stuff, we take photos, go back to the bungalow, blow it up on the laptop and match it up to the correct ID in the fish and creature books which we take along with us for filling out dive books daily/nightly. also great The Zoo (it WAS - saw sharks, 13 spotted Eagle Rays, barracuda, octopus all on that dive).

the second half of the trip, we stayed at Lalati, around the way from Beqa Lagoon Scuba resort. Did the shark dive one day, worth it to go see and video it. There are no autos on this island, and the place we were at, only had about 8-12 guests staying there at a time. The food choices at every meal were great, but it is not a night life place by any means. It was nice an secluded and beautiful. Hardly any other divers, my newlywed and I actually had all but two of our days that we were the ONLY 2 divers with the dive master. (The other two days, including the shark dive day (6 from our resort, and tons more when we got to the site of the feeding), and only 4 on the other day. The real gem is the shore diving at Lalati. Nobody did it but us, but one night every in our week at the bar, the manager told us that it was totally worth it to dive it and we couldn't have gotten better advice. Found nudibranch and flatworms we haven't seen anywhere else, including Siboga Cuthona, persian carpet worm, spotted hypsoldoris, flatworm discodoris, trynon's risbecia, gloomy tamja, ...we loved it. I really needy to copy this into a trip report, and add the photos from my album on facebook. I'll try to get to that in the next couple weeks and let you know when I post them.

The last comment I'll make here...we quit counting Loch's Chromodoris after we had seen 4 dozen or so. We probably saw 100+ when in fiji between the islands. I think we even "remaned" one of our dives..."Loch's Chrome".

Have a great trip!

 

[bbarada]

Wananavu!

 

[cbm32]

Wananavu!

In depth, insightful, well crafted response. I think you have a real future as a journalist

*Just having a bit of fun...no offense intended*

 

[chavala]

Wananavu!

But the OP wants 3-tanks at $130. Good luck with that!