Coral Diving

Sunday and it's another beautiful day in Fiji. There are no shark dives on Sundays (the sharks are in church), so today we go on a coral dive.


Our boat

 The dive shop had trouble with one of the compressors the day before (they fill the tanks), and their second compressor has burned out because it was running for over 9 hours. They only have enough full tanks for one dive. While we are gone they take the empty tanks and drive to Suva (40 km away) to fill them. So, instead of swapping the tanks over on the boat we returned back to shore to pick up the second lots of tanks. It was actually a nice break to sit and chat to the Fijian boat crew.  

Shark diving is like going to the movies - you watch. Coral diving is like going to the art gallery - its all about the exploration. There was some really spectacular coral at these sites, with the most spectacular colours.

The two locations we went to were quite different, each with it's own little secrets and surprises. The first had two big coral heads and a ship wreck. Ship wrecks are a little spooky in their silent graves, covered by sea silt, slowly being taken over by another world. The ship is at 30 metres, but most of the interesting fish are higher up - hiding in the coral. We see the usual suspects there: Dory (Blue Tang), Scar (Moorish Idol - I love these), and even some Nemos! Hey, did you know that Clown Fish are actually quite aggressive? One of the dive folks was attacked by one. Ok, they're really small and they can't hurt you, but still...agro!

During our second dive, there were some really cool swim throughs (like coral tunnels). Inside fish of all kinds hang out (why can't humans get along like that?). I looked up during one of them and saw fish just sitting belly first, against the "ceiling". So, we would consider that upside down. Do they? Although they mostly swim "upright", I have seen fish swim any which way - do they have an up?

By the time our dives are done we are FAMISHED - it's about 1:00. Some of us decide to go into the village for some lunch. We were going to wait for the rest of the group (they were on another boat and went to different dive sites than us), but they were taking too long so off we went. Can I just say, it's really difficult to find anything vegetarian. I had mac n' cheese. Everyone else had ribs or buffalo wings. We spent the time coming up with likely scenarios for the missing boat - all from Surviour to Lord of the Flies.

When we got back to the resort it was 4 - I had an appointment at the spa at 5:30 for a massage...I know it's been very difficult to be here. My room mate was finally back - they had had quite the adventure it turned out. During the tank swap out they asked to be left on a small island. They waited there for over 2 hours - no shade and the "beach" was coral, that stuff will cut your feet to ribbons. Then after their second dive their boat broke down. They all came back with some nasty sunburns.

That night at dinner (after my glorious massage), we were given 2 tables  - Sadly, I had the misfortune of sitting at the extrovert table - next to this loud....oh, but that's a different story...

Oh yeah - I did catch the sunrise :)