Diving in Fiji

[SRB]

Morning all!

Im trying to plan a possible winter trip from UK to Fiji this winter and want to do some diving there. I have just passed my PADI Advanced Open course. I'm looking for places to dive and companies to dive with. Not bothered about big deep dives but more relaxed shallower dives to gain experience and see more smaller things to photograph. Happy with liveaboard but would prefer landbased. Any advice on friendly and professional companies would be appreciated.
Thanks, Simon

 

[Dive Wananavu]

Bula Simon,

Congratulations on your upcoming trip to Fiji!
No matter where you end up in Fiji, you can't go wrong visiting this island paradise.

Some of the best coral diving in Fiji is found in the Bligh Waters.
I'll try not to sound too much like an ad - so I'll let our reviews speak for themselves.
Please check us out on Trip Advisor, where we've been rated as the #7 resort in all of Fiji (that's a LOT of resorts, and most of the others don't cater to divers the way we do, or have the quality of diving found in the Bligh).

Here's some direct links to help you find us:
Wananavu Beach Resort
on Trip Advisor

and the Dive Operation:
Dive Wananavu
on Trip Advisor

We do run different specials based on time of the year, so feel free to send an email for the time frame you're looking into:
dive@wananavu.com

Vinaka!

- The Dive Wananavu Staff

 

[diverguytasmania]

Hi Simon,

great choice to want to dive Fiji - I have over 12 visits there, diving every time. Fiji has a lot of locations to dive but internal travel is expensive. There are cheaper ferries but they are slow and most of us don't have weeks to travel around, so flights are the way to go. If you are keeping costs down, the main island has several options some better than others. Shore diving along the Coral Coast is just ok, go to Beqa lagoon for better diving and good shark dives. The Mananuca islands are pretty average diving unless you go out toward Waya Island. The Yasawas are nice but very expensive and diving is better elsewhere. The best main island diving is out toward Rakiraki, just google some resorts out there but the weather can be tricky, pretty blowy out that side so if you get seasick you may not be happy. If you can afford an outer island Tavenui is great and the Somosomo strait has fantastic diving. My favourite place is Kadavu island and specifically Ono Island, not because the diving is all time greatest but because the place is off the tourist trail, has good sheltered diving with some great outside bluewater stuff if you want that, plus manta rays. Difficult to get to though. All time great stuff is the Somosomo strait, so my recommendation is try to get to Tavenui.
All the best, Vaughan

 

[bk041]

We just spent a week at Voli Voli on Viti Levu, diving with Ra Divers. We too had just finished our Advanced Open Water, and also spent a week a year ago with Ra Divers. We loved diving with them both trips. We've now done about 40 dives, so are relatively new to diving. The guys at Ra Divers are very attuned to the experience level of the divers on the boat and staff accordingly. We've been diving when they've had brand new divers and really experienced tech divers, and they are very good at making sure everyone gets the experience they're after. The diving at the Bligh Waters is amazing - the coral and fish are just dazzling. I've always felt safe with Ra Divers, whether on deeper dives or shallower, more local dives. They are great guys and we would love to dive with them again.

 

[Hintermann]

SRB, when you say a "winter trip", do you mean UK winter or Fijian winter? The latter is in June-August and while theoretically the best time to dive, the climate in that part of the world is changing and the information you get on the web is often inaccurate. I went in July 2013 when it was supposed to be calm and sunny but it was mostly cloudy with choppy seas. Check with the outfit you book with before going.

I went on Island Dancer liveaboard and the boat and crew were very good. Captain Joji bent over backwards to get the best out of difficult conditions and made the trip at least a moderate success.

One thing going from the UK - the flights. Avoid the awful LA connections or the Cathay Pacific ripoff through Hong Kong. The most economical and convenient way to fly from Europe to Fiji is on Korean Air via Seoul. Only the Seoul stop and if your layover is less than 24 hours, they will book the luggage through and get you an overnight hotel at their cost. But most importantly, if you book through their office directly, they offer a 10kg additional check-in baggage allowance on top of the 23kg in place for economy passengers.

 

[jake11]

We have been to Wananavu 2x and it is a great location to dive!

 

[LiquidDivingAdventure]

Wananavu and Matava are my favorites. If you want high end budget, Matangi. Voli Voli is popular and can be combined with the Siren liveaboard. The Nai'a is an amazing liveaboard in Fiji.

 

[Zod066]

Hi Simon,

Shore diving along the Coral Coast is just ok, go to Beqa lagoon for better diving and good shark dives.

Bula Vaughan. Your reference to shore diving could be viewed as misconceiving. We only do one shore dive, and that is the DSD 1st dive. All of our other dives sites (20+) are within a 15 minute boat ride and are along and through the surrounding reef walls. From multiple swim-thru's to drifting with Grey Reef, White Tip, Black Tip and the occassional Bull Sharks to many, many turtles (very rare we don't see turtles on ANY dive), to schooling Barracuda, it's fair to say that the Coral Coast diving is far from just OK, especially when you compare the prices for both diving and accomodation.

Here's some links for the just OK diving

Diveaway Fiji
on Trip Advisor

Diveaway Fiji
on Facebook

Diveaway Fiji website

Diveaway Fiji
on YouTube

There is also a wide variety of accomodation to choose from covering all budgets.

Vinaka,
Gary.

 

[Teddy Ngo]

i just got back from Fiji, we stayed on the main island. We stayed at Shangri-La and friends stayed at Intercontinental. Both use the same dive company Reef Safari. Around this part of the island are shallow reefs that you asked about, the boat ride to these reefs are a 10 min ride. They are so close that I was able to wake up, grab the free breakfast, go dive, and come back in time to still get a 2nd breakfast within their 7-11am window. Below is a video of the reefs around this area.

[video=youtube;iyqlbXSGZAw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyqlbXSGZAw[/video]