Fiji The Final Stop - Sportdiver.com

Fiji – The final stop

I'm playing darts at the Yacht Club in Savusavu, Fiji. It's filled with expats from around the globe. Around me are ex-doctors, ex-bankers, ex-wanderers, a plumber, my divemaster and a bunch of other escape artists who have found their bliss on this South Pacific isle. They have great stories, all with one familiar narrative thread — after traveling the world, Fiji stopped their feet or stilled their sails long enough to put down roots. I've never met as happy a bunch of souls in all my travels. And why shouldn't they be? As I explore the less populated of Fiji's two main islands, Vanua Levu, I meet probably the friendliest people on Earth, a culture that cherishes its family-centric roots. It's a natural wonderland that captivates at every turn — especially at every fin kick.

When I ask about living in Fiji, I'm told one thing matters: freehold property. Most of Fiji's property remains owned by local villages, and that property is leasehold. With freehold, you own it. You can pass it down to family, generation after generation. And, yes, they tell me, "Even Americans can own property here." I come to learn that only about 7 to 9 percent of all of Fiji's land is freehold, but on an island nation as large as Fiji (an archipelago of 330 islands), that's still plenty.

On my way back to the Jean-Michel Cousteau Fiji Islands Resort where I'm staying, my head spins with the possibility of a life of Gilligan in a tropical Pacific garden. When I head out on the dive boat the next morning, my imagination settles upon every inch of coastline, every small isle, open patches in the rainforest, everything that looks like it might make a dream homesite.

The clincher comes, though, after the giant stride. We've traveled to Namena Island — Namenalala in the local vernacular — about 40 minutes from Savusavu. This private 110-acre island sits in the middle of a 30-mile-long coral barrier reef ring filled with some of Fiji's most pristine dive areas.

We descend through a huge aggregation of swirling barracuda onto Grand Central Station. The site's name must not have come with difficulty. Rush hour pervades the water column and the reefscape. A parade of pelagics — trevally, jacks, dogtooth tuna — fill the area with movement. We spy a large zebra shark napping on the sand under a bright-red, 10-foot sea fan. But our eyes stay mostly in the blue over the drop-off. Gray reefs, a big, king-of-the-world hammerhead and whitetip reef sharks constantly patrol as we dive. Even a lone manta swims by.

Our second dive, Chimneys, a trio of coral bommies makes Grand Central Station seem like the sleepy side of town. Here, the colorful compete with the weird, wild and wacky. Soft corals — small thickets of red, yellow, orange and purple — hide medieval-looking blue ribbon eels, banded pipefish, fat groupers and some of the 1,000 resident invertebrates. Gray and whitetip reef sharks meander throughout. I could stay all day atop the bommies immersed in the clouds of purple anthias, which look like leaves caught in a perpetual wind, and carpets of anemones and their resident namesake fish. And this is just the tip of the Namena adventure wand.

Although the week brings piles of great diving and adventures, my search for a perfect paradise is settled during the first two overwhelming hours spent underwater. During my last night at the Yacht Club, everyone gives advice. For them it boils down to a statement made by a Brit expat named Trevor, who sailed in and stayed. "Mate," he says, "it's about life, then, init? A good, simple, remarkable, 'appy and fulfilling life. Just gotta 'ave your priorities on straight then. Right?"

The words brought a round of cheers. And in that moment, I realize that life could be lived in a tropical dream of blue and green, of sand and breeze, of peace and poetic ease. And that such places exist in the world.

Quick Guide
Decide which part of Fiji you want to travel to, then visit padi.com to find the closest PADI Dive Center (several dozen are scattered throughout Fiji). If Savusavu is it, check out Jean-Michel Cousteau Fiji Islands resort (fijiresort.com). Find more information through Fiji's official tourism site (www.bulafiji.com). Learn about residency, citizenship by investment and business opportunities by visiting Fiji Islands Real Estate (fijiislandsrealestate.com). Expat information can be found at escapeartist.com.

Fiji The Final Stop - Sportdiver.com

Fiji Scuba Diving in Vanua Levu by Adventure Brat

This is Fiji’s second largest Island with several untouched sites for those wishing to venture off from their Fiji diving resort.

There is a lot of great Fiji dive resorts around Savusavu Bay which has great underwater scenery and a diverse fish population.

Experienced divers looking for a good drift dive head toward Nasonisoni Passage. Here you can expect to find a fast drift dive through a narrow current swept channel.

Dreadlocks is a great place to check out tiny underwater critters and can appeal to all skill levels for.

Another heroic Fiji dive spot is Barracuda Point and yes, as the name implies you are likely to spot schools of barracudas around 25 meters.

Fiji Dive Resorts by Adventure Brat

Tagging turtles for a wedding - Fiji Times Online

Monday, March 03, 2008,KESAIA TABUNAKAWAI

On the dusky evening of Thursday December 27, to the whooshing sounds of many pairs of legs wading through knee high waters, two tagged 75kg green turtles were released into the incoming tide of the mangrove lined bay of Ligaulevu Village on Mali. 

With cries of 'go turtle go','la'o vonu la'o' and 'moce' we watched the pair flap their flippers free as the hands pulling them along let go. My gaze followed their underwater path through the ripples on the water surface, and once, their pointed heads bobbed out of the water, for a moment, to take in air before going forward.

The tag and release of turtles was a wedding day wish for Leone Vokai of Ligaulevu Village on Mali and Sally Bailey of Saint Brides Major of Wales. This was a show of the continuing passion the couple have to the protection of biodiversity, and turtles in particular. In my mind, it is a mark of young people taking action in what they believe in.
"Young Fijians are travelling and learning new things, gaining more appreciation of the beautiful environment of our country. Some like Leone are taking action personally and encouraging his community to do the same," observed a cousin of Leone's.

To an uncle, a sister's son's wish, especially for his wedding is a mission to be accomplished. Forty-two-year-old Ifereimi Daumaka, Leone's uncle, went turtle fishing for a day and caught the turtles on the wide reef flats of Cakaulevu, opposite Mali Island.

It is suspected that this time is the first time in the history of Mali Island, that turtles caught did not end up in the pot.

"The turtles were caught the old fashioned way," remarked a proud Ifereimi.

"The fishermen cruise the reef tops looking. Once spotted, the boat follows the turtle until it is alongside it, then the fishermen dive in to catch the turtle," Ifereimi added. As I watched the wedding preparation unfold, it became obvious to me that this was also a celebration of the connectivity between the people of Mali and their biological resource. The wedding garments came from the bark of the masi tree, of which a plantation grew nearby; the salusalus, from the inner bark of the vau tree, and the many aromatic flowers, fruits and leaves that abound on the island; the mirror like sheen on the bare shoulders of members of the wedding party was scented coconut oil; the layers of finely woven mats in the wedding house and in the church were from kuta (a wetland grass) and voivoi (pandanus leaves), large plantations of which surround the village. The black design on the mats were of pandanus leaves soaked and cooked in black mud with branches of a local swamp plant.

The wedding feast, a variety of fish and shellfish (some of which came all the way from Wales, pickled) was a display of the bounty of the sea around Mali. I did wonder how many of the big fishes on the table grew in the safety of the marine protected areas within the Mali qoliqoli. It is over three years since the elders of the iqoliqoli declared nine sections of the iqoliqoli as marine protected areas, where no fishing is allowed. I am certain that the rules of use of the iqoliqoli set in place in 2004 had something to do with the sizes and volume of sea food enjoyed during the wedding celebration.

The people of the district or tikina Mali along with people of tikina Dreketi, Macuata and Sasa share a common traditional fishing ground. This stretches from Nakalou Village by the mouth of the Dreketi River to Korotubu Village near Labasa and over the waters to Kia and Mali islands.

On neighbouring Kia Island, a female turtle came ashore in 2006 to nest on the beach in front of the school in Ligau, after a long time with no nesting turtles recorded for this beach. In 2007 a second female came onto a beach on the other side of the island.

In June 2007, Ligau villagers committed Ligau beach as a monitoring site. Additionally, Mokanivonu, a sunken patch reef near Nakalou Village is a resting and sleeping area for turtles, according to the villagers.

I saw what I think was disbelief on the faces of some of the villagers when they realised the landed turtles under the mango trees were to be let go back into the sea.

This is understandable, with the time it took to catch and the cost of the fuel used in catching the turtles.
This act and the questions arising in the minds of the Mali islanders, provided the opportunity to talk about the fragility of the lifecycle of the turtle.

A number of Ligaulevu villagers are now wiser to the choice made by the couple to tag and release the turtles.
The number on the tag is given to the Ministry of Fisheries where a database of all turtles tagged in Fiji is kept.
Our Ministry of Fisheries work with SPREP ( South Pacific Environment Program) on tagging turtles. Fishermen catching tagged turtles are asked to inform the Ministry of the tag number and where the turtle was seen or caught. Today, very little is known about the movement of 'Fiji turtles' in Fiji waters.

Collecting information on the sightings of turtles will tell us how far turtles travel around Fiji and even in and around the Pacific. We know from satellite tagging and titanium flipper tagging, that turtles from Samoa, the Cook Islands and even Hawaii travel to Fiji to feed in extensive seagrass fields within inshore waters. The seagrass beds in the fishing areas along the Macuata coast in particular is a popular feeding ground for green and hawksbill turtles.
The endangered Pacific Leatherback turtle, known to nest only in the 'Coral Triangle' countries of PNG, Solomon Islands and in West Papua, was reported to nest on Vatulele, a couple of years ago. In the past 2 years, there have been sightings of this giant of a turtle in Kubulau.

These magnificent turtles are moving into Fiji may be because they have strayed from their normal route.
I would like to think they are moving to Fiji waters because the conditions here are getting more conducive to their cycle of life.

The 'Coral Triangle' is the world's epicenter of marine life abundance and diversity.

The richness of coral, fish and other species is so high that the region is sometimes referred to as the "Amazon of the Seas".

This triangular shaped region covers all or part of the seas of six countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Solomon Islands, and Timor-Leste.

Fiji is part of 'WWFs Coral Triangle Initiative' which also includes the neighboring countries of Australia and Fiji, which contains rich coral biodiversity as well, but with somewhat lower numbers known to science.

Sally is a Marine Program manager with the WWF office in the United Kingdom and Leone is a diver. With both their lives rotating around the ocean they believe in protecting the marine life.

Kesaia Tabunakawai, WWF Fiji country manager was a guest at the wedding.


Tagging turtles for a wedding - Fiji Times Online

DDNet Trip Report: Jean Michel Cousteau Resort

DDNet Trip Report

Where: Pacific Fiji When: 07/07/2007 - 07/15/2007 By: otarala

Type: Land based Accomodations: Jean Michel Cousteau Resort Dive operator: L'Aventure Dive Shop Overall photography friendliness: Good Camera tables/prep area: Not applicable Camera rinse tanks: Good Charging facilities: Good Voltage: 220-240 AC

(with thanks to Gilligan whose trip report Ive nicked as a template)

Arrival Point
Nadi, Fiji. Stayed overnight, then took small plane connecting flight in morning to Savusavu on Venua Levu, where a van from the resort picked us up and took us straight to the resort. We flew with Air Pacific with the flights arranged via travel agent. Air Pacific has recently taken over the domstic airline ‘Sun Air’. This means your weight allowance is identical for both the international flight and internal, previously the domestic flight was limited to a 15kg baggage allowance, maiing for surprised upon arrival. So weight limit for all flights was arranged as 20kg+5kg hand luggage. I was able to take my camera, housing and laptop on in my Lowepro bag as hand luggage for the international flight, but had to check it for the small plane flight, where we each got weighed individually.


Hotel
Jean Michele Cousteau offers packages that include room and meals, which we did. Diving is purchased separately at their in-house dive shop ‘L’Aventure’ – it seems to be a separate operation but operates from inside the resort, its 30 feet from the restaurant/pool area. All ‘rooms’ are standalone bures. Rooms have fans, mosquito nets on request, mini fridge and hot water, and were quite beautiful in my view. The child care options are outstanding (ie nannies and club) and the child care staff were excellent. The area has separate pools for toddlers and older children, and a separate pool that’s ‘adults only’ in front of the main eating/socialising area.

The food there is outstanding, particularly for Fiji, where it can often be pretty uninspiring in my experience. Service in general was great, people very friendly.

Diving

Normally they do two dives per day at approximately 8:30 and 10:30am, but are very flexible, I did a few afternoon dives. Night dives are based on request and are just counted as a single dive– I did one as the only participant, would have done another but ran out of time. Business was pretty quiet, it might be a bit more structured at other times of the year, but manpower availability seemed to be the only limit on what was possible. A significant number of dives had me as the only participant, for no extra cost, including two shore dives where I puddled around the snorkelling area at ~5m for a few hours.

Diving can be done as a prearranged package, but they were happy to combine dives into the cheapest package after the amount of dives were totalled up rather than deciding beforehand. They separately charged me $10 a dive for the two shore dives I did, but I might have got lucky there. I am not sure the listed charges on the hotel site are current, I was charged in Fiji dollars rather than US making comparison difficult, but this worked well for me personally as the Australian dollar skyrocketed in the week I was at the resort. It seemed pretty close in practise but Im not sure it would have been without the dollar change.

A rinse/soak tub was provided for me on the boats for my camera. There were also rinse tubs at the shop, but I generally just used the tub in the boat. The dive guides, boat operators, hotel staff and tank/gear crew were all very attentive and efficient. Photographers arent their main trade, but they made me feel extremely welcome, rather than a pain. Their marine biologist 'Johnny' in particular tried very hard to find me interesting subjects, and does photography himself.

All your gear is locked up overnight. Most of the rental gear seemed fine, but the regs looked a bit long in the tooth, and I didn’t like the look of the first stage metal wool, it was awfully green. My own reg had problems (first stage pressure too high, making it slowly freeflow out of occy and primary), and the staff tweaked it free of charge, but weren’t able to completely fix it – they had parts for common makes (Scubapro etc), but not mine. Serves me right for having something a bit unusual (Cressi).

The limit on dive time was generally what people lasted to, I was allowed to noodle around at 5 m several times, once for about 90 minutes – the only limit was if too many other finished divers were waiting above. Nitrox was available but I didn’t use it, so don’t know the price.


Dive Sites

Approximately twenty dive sites are within fifteen minutes or less of the resort, and very easy dives as they were well sheltered by the island/bay, the only site I dived twice was the one I did as a night dive as well. There was little or no pelagic life at most of these sites, although a couple of Manta rays were seen on some of the wall dives, invariably while I was somewhere else, and one very fast turtle. All of these dives were done from a smaller boat, with a basic cover. Most of these dives were fairly vanilla Fiji, most coral OK, with some beautiful soft coral, although some looking pretty bleached/battered. Given we were pretty close to Savusavu, and a lot of fishing goes on, I wasn’t too surprised.

Trips to Namena Island are arranged once or twice a week depending on numbers, there is a one off marine park fee of $25 that is valid for 12 months. The trip takes approximately 60 minutes one way by their large boat ‘L’Aventure, and two dives are done while at the island. There are both wall dives and bommie dives at the site. There is one wall dive in particular that I found fairly spectacular, where you follow the wall with a 300m dropoff until it opens into a large amphitheatre area. At this site, I saw a large Groper, Barracuda schools, Grey reef sharks, batfish, trevally schools, an Oceanic white tip was seen while I was taking a picture of the groper (grr!), the biggest coral trout Ive ever seen (as in I thought it was another groper at first), and abundant other fish life.

The island was only made a marine park 6 years ago. One of the people diving it was someone who used to work as a dive guide in the area 8 years ago, he says the amount of recovery since then has been immense, so presumably it will be even better in future years.

While visibility is fairly high, there was a fairly high amount of large white particles in the water at times, making wide angle photography a bit tricky at times. It was also quite cloudy in the sky during most days we were there, which given this is ‘winter’ isn’t too surprising.

Sightseeing

You can go into Savusavu, but theres not much to do. There are also waterfalls, river kayaking, village visits and a variety of other activities available, arranged via the hotel. Many of them felt pretty expensive for what they offered, and my focus was on the diving, so there were probably other options I never found about.


Miscellaneous:

Marine Life
Overall marine life was very similar to what I saw in the Mamanuca’s. Coral close to the resort was pretty variable, with more damage and bleaching obvious, given we were so close to the mainland and town, hardly surprising. There is a pier to snorkel off that I got to do shore dives off as well. I found some of my favourite pictures there, thanks to having lots of time to noodle around.

Baggage Limits
If you’re not travelling with Air Pacific, you might want to check your baggage limits for any domestic travel. I'm not sure what they do if you’re not doing the entire trip with them – they’ve only recently acquired the domestic airline so things might be a bit up in the air.

Electricity
Fiji is on the 240-volt system.


Overall had a great time, but it was ultimately a 5 star resort with a dive shop in it, not a ‘dive resort’ in my view. Great for going to with family who aren’t divers, but there are other more dive dedicated resorts in Fiji, ie Tavanui etc. Given its that though, it was great in my view, if pricy.



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