Bula from Fiji

While we were in New Zealand people would ask us where our next stop was and we would reply Fiji, not thinking much of it. The last few days people started responding “are you sure?”. Um...yes that is where my plane is going. Turns out Fiji was getting hit by a major cyclone. Luckily, when we got a chance to check on our resort and flight they were both fine. Our resort is south of the main island, and the storm reeked the most havoc on the north west islands. We headed to Nadi as planned and checked into our cheap overnight hotel, awaiting our 7 AM pick up the next morning. 7 AM came and went, then 7:30 and we were thinking it was just Fiji time. At 8 I asked to use the phone, only to learn that they weren't working due to the cyclone. There also wasn't any internet, and the cell phone towers were all offline. At 8:45 we decided to head back to the airport in hopes of being able to contact Beqa Lagoon and figure out how we were supposed to get there. We got a hold of them by phone once, and then the phones all went dead again. About 30 mins later an airport staff member came and asked if we were Julie and Andrew going to Beqa Lagoon (we said sure, sounds close enough and we were ready to get out of the airport). We ended up having to take a taxi for 2.5 hrs and then luckily found the boat to take us across to Beqa island. With all the destruction in Fiji we were just happy to make it to the resort on the day we had intended.

Photo by Paul

 Once we arrived we were pleasantly surprised at what we found, I mean we saw a turtle swimming before we even got off the boat! Our bure was HUGE with AC and a comfy bed. The beach at the resort lead out onto a beautiful reef. We got settled in, ate a great lunch and got our dive gear rented. That afternoon we snorkeled on the reef. It was a great start to our 7 day stay. For dinner we found our assigned seats and quickly made a tableful of new friends. Paul and Ruth, Del and Lee, and Josh and Ashley welcomed us with open arms and tons of dive stories/pictures. Adam and I laughed that real life diving might just be like the PADI video which is full of crazy friends (if you've ever seen it you understand).

Photo by Paul 

At 8 AM the next day we loaded up onto the dive boats and headed for our first dive trip. We motored over to a giant coral filled wall and spent the next 50 minutes amazed at the fish and other colorful creatures living underwater. We were both glad to get the first dive out of the way, making sure we still remembered most things from out certifications. By 2 PM we were back at the resort where lunch was waiting, then it was a nice relaxing afternoon looking at pictures and reading.....I could get use to this!

Day 2 of diving took us out to our first ship wreck. We were just swimming along and then Adam points over and there is a huge sunken ship next to us! It was a totally different feel than the reefs we had seen to date. In the back of the ship there were 2 lion fish in a little cubby. Once we left the wreck we encountered a huge current and struggled to make any forward progress. We used up all of our air in 30 mins, instead of the normal 60 and were glad to be back safely in the boat. The second dive was alright, less current but the people in our dive group kept running into us and kicking us. We tried yelling, but its tough underwater. That afternoon it poured rain as we relaxed in our room.

Christmas Day we awoke to bright blue sky. The dive boat headed in the opposite direction we had gone and we got 2 new dive sites. There was a mild current all day, but nothing compared to yesterday. The first dive site had another wreck, but this one was deeper, the top being close to 90 feet deep. We didn't stay at the wreck too long, and the coral viewing was a bit rushed, before we knew it we were back on the boat. Dive two was much better with less current and tons of fish and coral. We saw an amazing purple jelly fish and a bright blue eel. We were diving with Ruth and Paul, who are very experienced divers and they were very helpful in pointing out new things. Paul has a huge camera and takes amazing photos. Hopefully we will get some of them before leaving Beqa. After lunch we opted to do a shore dive on the house reef and take our 10 ft waterproof camera to 20 feet to see if we could take some photos of our own. It was a nice relaxing dive filled with fish, and crabs, and coral. Our camera survived like a champ. That night Paul taught me how to edit the photos to make them look about 1000 times better then the originals. White balance may just be my new best friend.

Our 4^th day of diving found us on a different boat from all of our new found “friends”. We joked that we were voted off the island. Having learned from previous days, we quickly made some new friends (Linda and Jim) and created our own diving group. Linda and Jim both have point and shoot cameras and also take amazing photos. They were nice enough to point out tons of different creatures on our 2 dives.

Day 5 of diving brought us to the Golden Arches and Fantasy dive sites. This was some of the best diving of the trip. The sites were filled with huge coral fans, tons of colorful fish and lots of little creatures. We got to experience our first swim-through, a beautiful arch covered in coral fans.

When we booked this resort, it included 5 days of diving over 7 days so we had a choice of adding another day of diving or just lounging. Dive conditions seemed to be improving every day so we opted to dive for a 6^th day in a row. We came to Fiji with 6 dives, we will leave with 19! For our sixth day we dove Side Street and Coral Garden, which were in the same area as Golden Arches and Fantasy. Side Street had an awesome 15 m tunnel swim-through. I was a little freaked out at first because I couldn't see the other side, it kind of looked like a cave, but once I was started it was a blast. The corals and variety of fish here are amazing. Hopefully we are able to steal some pictures from people to share some of what we saw, words just don't do it justice.

From Fiji we are headed to Melbourne, Australia. Paul and Ruth have graciously welcomed us to their home for New Years and some diving, so that will be our first stop! We have had an amazing time in Fiji. I think we could get the hang of this diving thing!!