DDNet Trip Report
| Where: Beqa Lagoon Fiji When: 06/03/2006 - 06/11/2006 By: Waterboy | Type: Land based Accomodations: Beqa Lagoon Resort Dive operator: Beqa Lagoon Resort Overall photography friendliness: Good Camera tables/prep area: Not applicable Camera rinse tanks: Average Charging facilities: Not applicable Voltage: 220-240 AC |
After spending time on the bottom, long safety stops were the practice of the group. We spent 30-45 minutes on top of the bommies doing our safety stops and taking pictures. This made for some hour and a half to hour and 45 minute dives. There was as much to see on the top of the boomies as there was at depth. After diving in Hawaii day in and day out the change in critters is exciting. The are so many different critters and corals to see that it revs up the engines for getting out in the morning to go again.
One of the nice things about the trip was the resorts flexability in allowing us to do a house reef dive on our way in from the last dive site. They would bring extra tanks along in the morning and let us dive our way to shore. This caused them to have to serve lunch up to 2 hours late to those of us who took advantage of this perk. Our group extended lunch time already by making 45 minute dives last twice as long as scheduled. No one at the resort did anything but accomodate us in our dive style. For die hard divers this is really great.
There was unlimited shore diving at any time of the day. I did a couple of twilight dives without a light, while others did night dives from the shore. Only one organized night dive off the boat was offered, but if there where 5 or 6 people that wanted to go out, I bet the resort would have arranged it. They were that good at working with the divers.
The two boats that were used for diving were very spacious. Our group had lots of cameras and one thing that could have been better would be more fresh water tank space. There were a couple of rigs with huge domes and strobe arms and they took up a lot of space. It need not be a big deal if one rinses his camera and then wraps it in a wet towel in the cabin between and after dives.
The high light of the diving and of my personal diving experiences was the shark feed. I had done this dive as a single dive last year and they have extended it to a two dive experience (the 1st to 100 feet and the 2nd to 45 feet). It did not get real exciting until a 12 to 14 foot Tiger came calling on the 2nd dive. He spent 20-25 minutes swimming about the group, checking us out. It caused most of us to have to make a forced stop for 8-10 minutes, while he continued to buzz around the site. What a magnificant animal he was and the confidence, no arrogance, he demonstrated was like I have never seen in an animal. He was the king of this domain and he demonstrated that. All present agreed that this was one of their most memorable dive experiences and a number of these divers have 5,000 plus dives.
I have been to Beqa Lagoon twice and would return again. The price of the trip from Honolulu was $2800 all inclusive. The food was great and the diving extremely good. I do have a few pictures that I will try to post sometime in the future when I have time to photoshop them and learn how to do the posting on DDN. (If you like just gray stripes I have one of those)! Beqa Lagoon and it's people will always be a special for me. I plan on returning again next year if possible.
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