Diving in Fiji Island

​We took our semi-annual diving trip with the Alan and Jill Winters, and this time we even brought Jacob along.  Fiji was an absolutely beautiful island, with waterfalls and foliage abounding.  The beauty was worth the extended travel distance.

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October 14-15 Monday and Tuesday– We flew from Salt Lake to LAX and then on to Fiji.  We went cheap with Spirit Airlines, so we only had backpacks to pack in, with no carry-on.  We made it fit.  The 10-hr flight from LA to Fiji left at midnight, and I got decent sleep with my new large forward-leaning inflatable pillow.  We jumped a full day on the flight, having crossed the international date line, so our Tuesday actually didn’t happen.
 
October 16 Wednesday – We arrived early in the morning, got the rental car, and drove out for the 3.5 hour drive from the Nadi airport to Pacific Harbour, on the south side of the island.  We booked a zip line and rappelling trip along way, then we made our way to the Airbnb and napped and bought groceries and made dinner, and got some much needed sleep.
 
October 17 Thursday – After a disappointing morning  where we learned that diving had been cancelled for the day due to poor weather, we searched online and found a river tubing tour just down the road.   It was a very fun trip, well-rounded from a cultural, scenery, adventure standpoint.  We rested back at the Airbnb.
 
October 18 Friday – We spent the morning puttering around the Airbnb, getting some computer work done, and playing a card game or two. We made our way to the dive shop in the afternoon for a pair of reef dives, full of soft coral and hard coral.  The underwater current was quite strong, and it felt like we were swimming against a gale wind.  The location was not good for a full-on drift drive, so we had to navigate around obstacles to to get back “upwater” to continue to see cool things.  We had dinner that evening with the missionaries.
 
October 19 Saturday - We awoke in the morning excited for the Shark Dive!  We ate breakfast, checked out of the Airbnb, and hopped on the boat.  The dive was spectacular, with shark feedings and viewings at three different levels. The 2nd dive was cancelled due to poor conditions.  We drove over to spend a lazy afternoon at the new resort hotel on the beach.
 
October 20 Sunday – We went to church at a beautiful local building, with a smallish ward in English.  We met the Suva, Fiji temple recorder who was quite nice and informative about the island.  We spent the day at the Sand dune national park, with a fabulous hike to the sand dunes, and along the beach.
 
October 21 Monday – We drove to Koroyanitu National park, driving along a dirt road for miles to the entry village of Abaca (with one parking space).   Then we returned to the airport for our overnight flight home.
 
Highlights:

1. Shark Diving - This was definitely a bucket-list dive. We had bull sharks, lemon sharks, black-tipped reef sharks, nurse sharks, all swimming within feet or inches of where we were perched on the reef.  After we descended situated ourselves behind a manmade coral rock wall, one of the guides swam to the large metal box hanging from the boat, and proceeded to open it to drop out a fish head.  The congregating sharks darted into snatch the floating head and chased each other around to try to snatch it away.  We had guides behind us dressed in chain mail with long metal probes to poke the noses of the sharks who came too close to us.  The 1st deeper dive had the largest sharks.  After the disposal of about 10 fish heads, we swam high up in the water column to another coral wall, and this time the sharks were smaller, and the guide was pulling out fish chunks and holding them in his hand for the sharks to take.  It was all-in-all quite a sight to see.
2. River Tubing Trip on Navua River - This turned out to be a welcome gem of an activity.  We rode in Temburong-style long outboards on a 45-minute journey upriver to a village only accessible by boat.  We had a short village info tour, then boated to an offshoot stream to walk up to, where we swam in the waterfall pool.  The downpour was powerful and mighty.  We had lunch along the river bank, swam across the river to another waterfall pool, jumped into the river, and got into our tubes for a float downriver.  We had a couple of fun rapids to run, and finished back in the boats for the final length. 
3. Zip Line activity - After we booked the tour from the car, we switched up our google maps directions and following Google maps, we turned off along an obscure dirt path.  The road was unpaved and narrow and seemed little-travelled and  we continued on along until a very steep section.  I was beginning to doubt myself and I called to question and assure ourselves that we were on the right road.  It turns out Google sent us to the logging road and the company was very concerned with the condition of the road. (An earlier turn would have sent a paved road, albeit a little longer) With a little bit of slipping and sliding, we made it, and the zips were awesome back and forth across the green mountain valley.  We rappelled into a cave where cannibalism occurred.  Afterwards we had a delicious lunch.
4. Koroyanitu Waterfall hike - We hiked to a gorgeous waterfall through the rainforest jungle and returned to a well-prepared typical Fijian Lovo luncheon, sitting on the ground, eating local vegetables, etc. The scenery was fabulous, and it was such a treat to each a meal cooked and served by the local tour guide.  If and when we return, we want to do the other waterfall that we glimpsed on our hike.