Our dive club decided to escape a Wellington Winter and head to sunnier climes in Fiji. A week at Safari Lodge on Nananu-i-Ra Island was just what we needed.
Over the week we completed 13 dives in the Bligh Strait and Vatu -i Ra Passage. Our divers experienced their first tropical dives, first boat and deep dives, their first night dive and got to explore a wide variety of sites. We dived along some incredible channels and swim throughs lined with soft corals in a range of colours and sea fans. The reefs were covered in fishlife with schools of fusilers, surgeon fish, barracuda, bannerfish and trevally off in the deep. We also saw white tip reef sharks, spotted eagle rays, a massive sting ray, tuna and a turtle – who came back and visited us on our last day.
Outside of the diving there was plenty of time to relax in your burre, read a book in the hammocks, walk around the island or even try windsurfing!
We were also given a Project AWARE presentation by Chris, the local Instructor, which covered a variety of underwater environments, their importance in our ecosystems and how they are affected by humans in terms of pollution, overfishing and other practices. This led to an interesting discussion with some local examples given by Warren who runs Safari Lodge.
The week ended way too soon and it was time to return home but not before planning another trip in May 2016 – if you would like to join us next year we would love to share the experience with you so email and we can send some information out to you.