Beqa, Fiji, Dive Report

[Jim S.]

Went to the Island of Beqa (pronounced benga) just South of the main Island of Viti Levu in the Fiji Islands. It was over last Thanksgiving Week. The dive shop I signed up through booked the whole resort, 47 of us all from the San Francisco East Bay Area. The resort was really great, Marlin Bay Resort, geared specifically for diving. Can be found at http://www.marlinbay.com.

Marlin Bay has 2 good boats and one that smokes the heck out of you. Fortunately, I was on one of the good boats the whole trip. Visibility was about 65 feet but up close there was a bunch of life that made it worth the 11 hour direct flight from Los Angeles.
Food & lodging were top of the line. The bures, small huts, were actually not that small. One king & one queen bed, we had two to a bure, so lots of room, contains shower (with hot water) and a place to hand and store dry close.

Out near the dive prep area was a place to dunk wet suits, separate dunk tank for camera & video gear, lots of fresh water from the mountains above. The deck hands carried all the dive gear but the wet suits and cameras to land from the boats and vice versa each day of diving. A very organized chalk board to show who is diving and on what boat so the gear rarely got mixed up. After a great breakfast, back to the bure to pick up my video camera, out to the pre-dive shop for my wet suit and I was ready to shuttle out to the dive boat.
Deck hands and dive guides were very knowledgeable and the boats were well equipped with radios to base, vests and O2 on board. The O2 was used once (diver panic error, shot to he top), the diver was required to go to the mainland to be checked out by a doctor. Even though we had 4 physicians in our group.

Lots of brilliant colored soft coral, red, white & purple. Giant clams 2.5 feet across. Lion, gobbey, clown & leaf fish were very popular. The hit of the week was to get a good shot of a Blue Ribbon Eel. There were plenty of them but getting up close without spooking them was the trick. I've not seen the brilliant colored anemones that I saw there anytime in the past. Bright white, florescent pink & blues were a lot of fun with a clown fish guarding it's territory.

There's no shopping to speak of, but I'm a diver not a shopper, unless there's dive gear to browse and there wasn't any on Beqa. There are 9 native villages, 2 schools 1st-8th grade (one of which we visited) and a strong English Language taught, no roads or motor vehicles. I loved it that way: phone calls were expensive, no TV, some good entertainment with Kava drinking, night diving (not on the same nights as Kava), firewalking & singing by the Fijians, great food, great beds, great massages (cheap), great service on & off the boats.

I generally had a fantastic time and would definitely go back!

[Natasha]

I love dive reports! Thanks for sharing. I really enjoyed it.
:sunny:

[kyleterry]

Thanks for sharing. I love reading these stories.