Horny, Horny Mantas

Another week, another fabulous adventure. Our guests from 7 different countries (many French speakers) enjoyed the best diving Fiji has to offer. We saw plenty of sharks, nudibranchs, pygmy seahorses, leaf scorpionfish, schools upon schools of snappers, trevallies and triggerfish. But the mantas kind of begged to be the center of attention once again. It is now four trips in a row that we see their mating courtship. Horny mantas.

Strong winds at the beginning of the trip meant we had to shelter on our first day. We went once again to Nukurauvula and dived Coral Garden, Redemption, Nuku Point and FAN-tastic. The dives were very nice and pleasant, certainly much better than they expected for “backup dive sites”. The corals were very nice, and the fans at FAN-tastic were definitely impressive. We saw a few white tip sharks, some cute scorpionfish, nudibranchs and a spawning sea cucumber. All by himself… perhaps a teenager. A resident pod of spinner dolphins put on a little show above the water, but they were too busy feeding to interact with us. On the night dive we saw a huge turtle, two seahorses and a halimeda ghost pipefish.

Photo by Catherine: This is her "I love Fiji" photo!

Photo by Catherine: Halimeda ghost pipefish

Photo by Catherine: Seahorse

We moved to Vatu-i-ra next, where the surge was low but the currents were robust. Mellow Yellow was the favorite dive site all around, yet again. The current there was just perfect, the soft corals were splendid and the overwhelming amount of fish on the reef top gave our divers the best end for a perfect dive. Around the whole marine park they enjoyed the stunning reefs and sightings such as leaf scorpionfish, Spanish mackerels, african pompanos, giant trevallies and all the anthias and fusiliers they could ever ask for. Maytag on dive four was a perfect aquarium, and the few divers who ventured there surfaced saying: Magnifique!

The crossing to Wakaya was a bit rough, but everyone got out of bed early for mantas. They were not the only great sighting, as we also saw a couple of hammerheads, a leopard shark, more leaf scorpionfish, white tip and grey reef sharks, a hairy ghost pipefish and a few turtles, one of which was very mellow and interactive. Throughout the day we saw 14 mantas, and the mantacam registered a 15th. Several times we had 3 to 5 mantas simultaneously, with lasting encounters especially with Distinguished and M467. Shirley was a show-off as usual, spending dives 1 and 2 almost 100% at the cleaning station. She had poor Danny PegLeg courting her, and made him swim to every diver around, following her lead. After that remarkable day, we headed to our village visit where honeymooner Steph represented us as our chief. We toured the village, played with puppies and watched the kids have fun dancing their mekes for us. Another perfect day in paradise.

Photo by Michel: Colors

Photo by Debbie: Pipefish

Photo by Daniel: Rainbow

Photo by Michel: M467 and Shirley hanging out at the cleaning station

Photo by Yap: Shirley being courted by Danny PegLeg, one of the mantas we names in 2022

Mantacam closeup of Mantanomi, another manta we named in 2022

Photo by Catherine: Hairy ghost pipefish

Photo by Mike: Makogai kids

We headed to Namena for two days at the marine reserve. Grand Central Station was especially sharky on the first day, and we also had several massive dogtooth tunas and Spanish mackerels. At schoolhouse, aside from the usual schools of snappers, pinjalos, redtooth triggerfish, bigeye trevallies, bannerfish and barracudas, we also had rainbow runners and oceanic triggerfish. A sneaky hammerhead and a chilled turtle put the cherry on the cake. Kansas had a spotted stingray, three pygmy seahorses (it took Mo 3 dives to finally find the little buggers) and a pair of mating octopuses. North save-a-tack was unbelievable!

Photo by Michel: Barracudas at Schoolhouse

Photo by Yap: Grey reef shark at Grand Central Station

Photo by Yap: Huge spanish mackerel

Photo by Michel: Kansas

Photo by Michel: Kansas

Photo by Yap: Kansas

But the south wasn’t far behind. We saw several nudis there, a few reef sharks, two ribbon eels, a leaf scorpionfish, orangutan crabs, golden mantis shrimps and a magnificent eagle ray. The colorful soft corals and active anthias always give us the best safety stops there, and the lunar and blue&yellow fusiliers were especially friendly. Our kava party, on our first night there, was wonderful and enlightening: apparently farm animals don’t sound quite right in European countries. Fun was had by all, but we all crashed very early in order to not miss any dives!

The crossing to Vuya was smoother and our day there was fabulous. Cat’s Meow and Humann Nature have a very good reason for being two of the most iconic dive sites in Fiji. You cannot easily find better soft corals (Cat’s) or hard corals (Humann). A very high turtle at HN posed for our divers cameras, a french maestro conducted an orchestra of fish at Cat’s Meow and a big tuna made a final appearance before sending our divers to shallow beautiful reefs as they ascended from their last dive of this trip. We journeyed home in good weather, sad to bid goodbye/verabschiedung/ tạm biệt/au revoir to our new friends.

Photo by Catherine: Ribbon eel

Photo by Yap: Spotted eagle ray

Our multicultural group!