Pacific Harbour, Fiji

[Scubie Doo]

I just returned from my first true dive trip in Fiji. All my previous dive trips have been coupled with work, I have never had a dive only trip. My dive buddy and I stayed at the Waidroka resort on the South side of Viti Levu. The resort was a smack dab in the middle of a rainforest, tucked away from any cities, stores, or restaurants. I must admit I was a little skeptical since I won the trip in a photo contest. However, the resort and diving completely blew my mind!

During the trip we dove 19 times in 7 days. Each day we dove 3 tanks except for two. One day the seas were getting rough and the second 2-tank day was the famous shark dive at Beqa Lagoon. I planned on recapping each and every dive. However, I will just provide a recap on some of the highlights and let the photos tell the rest of the story :-)

Frigates Wall Dive - Frigates is a world renown surf spot. Surfers were visiting from all over the world to surf this wave. The wave is a huge bowl that is created from a 100'+ wall. Diving the wall was spectacular. We dove the wall a total of 5 times and each time we were treated with sharks, turtles, huge schools of fish, and rays from the deep blue. When we weren't focused on big creatures in the deep blue water the wall had huge sea fans, anemone fish, nudibranchs, and beautiful coral. The wall starts at about 25' of water and goes to about 100'+. At one point I spotted two white-tip sharks and descended to get a closer look (and pictures). I got to within 5' when they thought I was close enough and slowly took off. I knew descending to 96' would consume precious air. However, when I turned back all the other divers on the wall had their cameras out and eyes wide opened at my approach. Personally, I think they wanted to photograph a shark attack :-)

Beqa Shark Dive - Speaking of sharks. I was a little apprehensive about this dive. I am not a huge fan of feeding wild animals. However, I am a huge fan of sharks. So my desire to see sharks overcame my dislike for chumming and feeding sharks. I was a little disappointed with the visibility and the sharks weren't as close as I had hoped. However, about half-way through the dive I decided to turned around and WOW! Sharks were circling behind us about 5-10 feet away. I ignored the rest of the feeding a viewed many sharks circling behind us. During the dive we saw white-tip reefs, black-tip reefs, bull sharks, lemon sharks, reef sharks, and even one oceanic white-tip. What a beautiful experience!

Ponti's Playground - Ponti was our boat captain and a native of Fiji. This man had skills, he dove, captained the boat, sang, prepared kava, and even found a dive site three weeks earlier. We dove his site 3 times and it was the last dive of the trip. Visibility ranged from 80-120' throughout the trip, at Ponti's the viz was always good. During our last dive is was great. I brought both my macro and WA lenses hoping for the "shot-of-the-trip". I spot a beautiful anemone fish darting in and out of the hole in the anemone and thought, "this is the shot I want". I switched to my macro lens and steadied myself. I hit two beautiful shots and I was done! I almost went to the boat. However, someone called me over to see my first blue-spotted ray. I took a couple shots when more commotion. Two little 3' sharks tucked into the reef. Snap-snap-snap and I ended the trip on such a high.

For anyone considering Fiji, do it! The diving was spectacular, the people were beautiful, the culture was amazing. Thanks to Dive News Network for the opportunity! Have fun out there and safe diving!!!!!

Underwater Photos
http://jessemiller.smugmug.com/Travel/F ... 84_nmBFTG8

Top-side Photos
http://jessemiller.smugmug.com/Travel/F ... 87_LZwfvbn

[mpenders]

Beautiful shots, Jesse!

[gutholmj]

Great photos and such a beautiful place.

[Scubie Doo]

Thanks, and it was a great trip. Got to check off one of my desired dive destinations