Fantastic shark dive!!
Trip Start
Unknown
1
16
19
Trip End
Ongoing
Suva,
Viti Levu,
Fiji
Friday, May 30, 2008
After the cold of Patagonia, it was so exciting to land into Fiji. We spent a few nights on Mana Island. We had a simple bure (bungalow) on the beach. There were plenty of opportunities to dive but I thought I'd save my money for the shark dive in Beqa lagoon. We were told by the manager of our place that their dive master doesn't use gloves when they feed their sharks in Mana. That dive wouldn't be later in the week but we were planning on heading east before than. The snorkelling on Mana was great, cheap too. The first day we arrived, the visibility was amazingly clear. We hadn't realised the snorkelling was so good until after we'd done some kayaking. Kayaking there was difficult, the wind was blowing me round in circles and the tide was low. We thought we were kayaking over dead coral but it turned out there's lots of fish around there. Crap!! We had a go at fishing but had no success in catching any fish. Gutted! Meals were included with the accomodation cos there aren't any shops on the island. The food wasn't enough though so we had to leave the island .
After a scary boat ride back to the mainland we headed to Pacific Harbour which is near to Beqa Lagoon. We stayed at Uprising but didn't have a good impression cos the receptionists were unfriendly so we decided to stay at Tsulu the day after. It was very isolated in both places and we couldn't get on the shark dive til later in the week. It had filled up quickly. After fearing we would be bored for the next few days we got used to it. I signed up for a dive yesterday which was definitely worth doing. There were just so many fish and a couple of reef sharks. It was nice to be in the water again. 6 other people on the dive had been on a conservation camp for 6 weeks so they could name all the fish. Very useful to have them onboard. Unfortunately my BCD wasn't onboard, well I reckon it was but one of the other girls had claimed it as hers so I had to take the Divemaster's instead and he went down with just the tank and regulator. Apparently it's happened before.
Jim and I later joined Tukai (Divemaster) and his colleagues to drink some kava at their staff house. It's some plant made into a drink that makes you sleepy and relaxed.
Today we did 2 shark dives. It was great!! We saw nurse, silvertip, lemon and bull sharks. I was a bit disappointed we hadn't seen the tiger shark but it was still a fantastic dive. We all stroked the nurse sharks. They seemed greedy trying to eat all the food. The dive instructors would push them away. They we're like greedy dogs. As we were surfacing there was a silvertip swimming around beneath me. Great dive!! Definitely recommend it.
Heading to Tavueni tomorrow for apparently more great dives. Can't wait!!
