Campervanning around Oz
Trip Start
Unknown
1
17
19
Trip End
Ongoing
Arrawarra,
Australia
Sunday, June 22, 2008
we flew to Taveuni also known as the Garden Island. We travelled in a small 15-seater plane and had spectacular views over the reefs. When we landed we were driven to a boating dock and we're later greeted by Apax to take us to the Dolphin Bay Divers Retreat. It was definitely the best boat journey we'd been on in Fiji. Dolphin Bay Divers is actually on the bigger island of Savusavu but is most easily accessed from Tavueni. It's in a prime location as it's close to well-renowned diving sites such as the Great White Wall. When we arrived we were greeted by Neva, a pretty Fijian lady of Polynesian descent. They didn't have any bures available for the first 2 nights so we stayed in one of the house tents When we signed in we met Viola, the co-owner of the retreat and then a group of guests having their lunch. We quickly got to know them. Jo and Derek, an Irish couple who had just got married there; Maegan, a 20-something Australia-loving American studying for her open-water course; Dave and Kat, an outdoorsy American couple and Simon from South London who was travelling for a year and currently doing his Divemaster course. We later met Elizabeth who had arrived earlier that day. Later on we met Roland, co-owner of the retreat. He normally leads the dive trips but he'd been involved in an accident with the generator and so had to wait for his leg to heal, much to his and Viola's frustration. In the evening, Corrina (Swedish with a Kiwi accent) a friend of Viola's arrived.
It was beautiful on this secluded beach. We eventually met all 8 cats. My favourite being Kerry cat, a cute little feral cat. There were 2 dogs - Boxer and Sox. Everyone was told not to stroke Sox because he was unrpredictable and would bite. Throughout the week I started feeling sorry for him and started stroking him. Boxer is a sweet dog who felt it his duty to protect me from the 4 year-old girl and her dogs living next door. The food there was fantastic. The only thing we didn't like about it was Viola's constant moaning. She would complain bout Fijians being lazy but the girls seem to work really hard from dawn til dusk.
Our first dive was to Jerry's Jellies. There were 5 of us - myself, Jim, Elizabeth, Derek and Simon as our guide. Elizabeth had done 1000 dives already and was a qualified Divemaster. Derek spent years in the army as a search and rescue diver. We descended and swam around when my mask started filling up with water, not a problem, I'll just let it out but it kept on happening. I got used to this occurrence and was happily looking at fish when whoosh, Jim and I were separated from the group and now in a strong current. All of a sudden Derek appears out of nowhere and pins us down the ground. Simon and Elizabeth appear and now Derek has taken hold of me and Elizabeth has taken hold of Jim. We follow Simon's direction and are now away from the current and at Rainbow's Passage. By this time my mask is completely filled up so I have to keep letting out the water. We swim around for a bit and then surface and head to the next dive site - The Cabbage Patch, a nice, easy dive. We were so glad to have Derek and Elizabeth there as we'd never experienced strong currents like that before. We spent the next few days diving, after changing my mask, diving was so much better. Other sites we dived at were The Ledge, Coral Gardens (we like to call it Coral Graveyard), Mike's Corner, Fish Factory and the infamous Great White Wall (advanced-divers only). It was touch-and-go as to whether or not we would get to dive the Great White Wall so we were happy that we did. It all depends on the current, if the timing is wrong then you could end up all the way in New Zealand. We had the perfect conditions. It was such an interesting dive, at first going through a coral tunnel to reach the Great White Wall, a sheer vertical drop which goes beyond 60 metres. The wall was covered with white coral and looked like a Christmas tree. When we were heading back up a couple of tunnels, there was a beautiful white-tip reef shark basking by the purple corals. Definitely, a fantastic dive.
Derek said to us that we would end up extending our stay as everyone else had done so and he was right, we ended up staying for 4 more nights. The food was a major factor in keeping us there.
We had a few more days left when we got back to the mainland of Fiji and we were toying with the idea of going to one of the Yasawaya islands but it would work out pretty expensive due to the boat transfers. Instead we stayed at Stoney Creek Lodge (recommended by Maegan), north of Nadi airport. It was perfect for us. A tranquil setting with beautiful, sunny views.
