Recommendations in Fiji for beginners

[Jacob Mueller]

Hello ScubaBoard! I am planning a 40th birthday trip for my wife to Fiji in Sept/Oct 2020. We will be getting our open water certs here in Colorado in the next few months, so we will obviously be complete beginners! I plan to split the trip between two locations, one which is more diving focused and another which is beach/relaxation focused in the Yasawas (though having the option to dive there would be welcome).

I see that there are many great diving locations throughout Fiji. However, I can't tell which locations really require Advanced Open Water in order to be worth vising, or which locations are just not suitable for divers with only a handful of dives under our belts.

Can someone recommend a location for beginners in Fiji? Since we are set on the Yasawas for one half of the trip and we don't have a long timeline (likely 9-12 days total including travel), time getting from one resort to the next will be a concern.

Is there plenty to keep us beginners busy in the Yasawas? Or will we miss out on the great coral and sea life that Fiji is known for? Is Beqa Lagoon worth visiting if we are not that interested in the shark dive? Or what about Volivoli, are those dive areas suitable for us? Can anyone compare the diving in these areas for me? Although Taveuni sounds wonderful, I'm not sure it is worth the extra travel time and expense with our limited days.

Any insight you can provide will be much appreciated!

 

[runsongas]

the yasawas are a good spot for beginners as the boats mostly stay nearby the islands and the sites arent too deep. the bligh waters can be a bit to handle for new OWs. if you can get in some more diving beyond certification and ideally some drift experience in say Cozumel, it would be helpful. then volivoli/wananavu would be a good option or even better a resort on savusavu (lose a day from the flight though). yasawas had patchier reefs, but some spots were still fairly good. not as many sharks, a couple turtles and eagle rays, and a manta or two if lucky.

 

[Jacob Mueller]

Thanks runsongas! Especially that note about Bligh, I will put that on my list for when we come back some day. I think maybe just staying in the Mamanucas/Yasawas is a good plan for us. I am tempted to head over to Taveuni, partially for the diving but I think we would also enjoy other things about that area, trying to decide if it is worth the extra flight (both time and cost).

Do you (or anyone else) have info on whether the dives there are suitable for beginners? Or what about Beqa lagoon? I could get there without the extra flight, but unsure if it will be significantly better than the northern islands (again, not interested in the shark dive).

 

[runsongas]

the shark feed dive is the real highlight for that area of viti levu in my opinion. the rest of the diving is fair to good, but not standout for fiji. the south coast has some good kitesurfing though if you are into that.

 

[GreggS]

Keep in mind that Sept\Oct. is springtime in Fiji. My wife and I were at Beqa Lagoon Resort in September and it was overcast most of the time with periods of rain. The air temps were in the upper 70's to low 80's and the water temps were in the mid to upper 70s. Not too bad but we wore 3mm wetsuits and were comfortable.

Most of the dives there are newbie friendly although some dives do exceed 60 feet to some degree. You can easily dive all the dives on air although nitrox is available for an additional fee. You can always call the resort and talk to them about your concerns. They try to be as accommodating as possible. And I highly recommend the shark dive. My wife was very hesitant to do it but finally decided she would. She now says she would have regretted not doing it.

 

[Hoag]

If you are open to a Live Aboard, I was on the Nai'a several years ago and recommend it whole heartedly. The diving was off of Zodiacs so when you needed to surface, you and your buddy did, and the zodiac comes over & picks you up. The big advantage of a LOB other than the number of dives available is that if the weather or the conditions are not ideal, you can move to where they are better.

No matter what you decide, have an amazing trip.

 

[Shasta_man]

I'd suggest the best combo at your experience level would be Taveuni and Mamanucca/Yasawas. I do liveaboards almost exclusively because of the experience and diving you get and have done the Nai`a and would recommend it in a heartbeat, but there could be some more advanced diving conditions. In a few places, just getting on the skiff was a bit challenging because you are essentially out in open ocean between the two large Fijian Islands. Could you probably handle it? Yes you probably could but you wouldn't want to have a bad experience on your first trip and once you're on the boat, there's no getting off. If you go on a lot of boats in the ocean and are very comfortable and pretty adventurous to go jumping in the ocean , then maybe it's for you but you have to decide that. Realize also that liveaboards are per person while hotels are per couple. So you double the cost to do the boat. I have done the Taveuni and Mamanucca trip by renting a private home on the beach for the former then flying back and chartering a sailboat trip for the latter. The former part of the trip could have been better because it rain like hell for six out of nine days but there are more resorts and opportunities there now and you would get the Fiji people and Land Experience that you don't get on the boat. The second part of the trip on the sailboat was fantastic and was relatively inexpensive. We chartered a sailboat which included the skipper, a first mate and a cook. Then we sailed through the islands and stopped at a couple of resorts and used their diving shops to go diving. Amazing experience as well. You don't have to do the sailboat , Resorts would be nice . The people in Fiji are fantastic so that's a big part of the experience you want. though I have not been there, I would not recommend benga Lagoon mostly because of the travel time, like 3 hours across the island on a bus each way and my thoughts from reading reviews are the shark feed is fantastic but the rest of the diving wasn't spectacular. Given that you have not even been certified yet so, I don't know that you want to go on a dive where you see a 14 foot tiger shark. Again, would you survive, certainly, could it be amazing, certainly, maybe the tiger shark doesn't show up, maybe, are the other sharks really cool, certainly, but just not sure it would be certain to be better and successful then what I suggest.

 

[Jacob Mueller]

Thanks so much for the replies!

I am leaning more toward splitting time between the Yasawas and Taveuni. Those are the two areas that I really want to see, and I suppose I can justify all of the in-country travel (though perhaps just barely) for a 9 night trip. At this point I am pretty excited about Taveuni so if I were to compromise on cost and time I might switch out the Yasawas for a closer resort in the Mamanucas.

My one concern with Taveuni at this point is our lack of experience diving with current. I understand that many (or maybe most) of the dives there are drift dives. I have emailed a few dive operators and they all say they take beginners, no problem. From my research it looks like these folks have all been diving this area for years, and of course they do it every day. But is there anything else I need to be aware of or watch out for as a beginner to be safe in the current? Would it be better to schedule the trip to avoid the stronger tides, or is current not directly related to tide? (Unfortunately I would like to be in the Yasawas when the tides are less extreme, and I can't control the moon.)

 

[Allison Finch]

Agree that the Bligh Waters is push. But, check out Volivoli resort. Wonderful place, good people and really nice diving.