Absolutely Bloody, Bloody Marvellous

What an outstanding week we’ve just had! Our last trip was filled with return guests (Sue, Dee, Tui&Colleen. Love having you back, ladies!), celebrations (80th birthday - Tui, 50th dive - Mattayya, honeymoon! – Claudia&Stefan), amazing sightings (manta rays, hammerheads, sailfish, eagle rays, pygmy seahorses) and a lot of fun on board. We started training our replacements, Clau and Chris, which means our time in Fiji is almost finished. Each dive takes a new meaning and each trip becomes more special. Thank you for the amazing group who made this last one so remarkable.

Our checkout dive was without “muppetries” and our first night cruising was long, but gentle. We spent our first day diving the Sea Mounts in great weather. As usual, our guests were overwhelmed by the stunning hard coral gardens, the atmosphere of the cathedral and the brightness of the chyronephthyas at the Rainbow Wall. We saw dozens of nesting oceanic triggerfish, schooling blackfin barracudas, several nudibranchs, a few scorpionfish, a variety of special wrasses (the kind you learn the name), moray eels, pinkeye gobies and a party of little tunas hunting. As a special treat, we also saw a couple of hammerheads at Mount Mutiny. A great start to a great trip.

Photo by Dot: Semicircle angelfish

Photo by Dot: Twospine angelfish

Photo by Claudia: Giant clam

We moved to Vatu-i-ra, where we had to carefully watch the currents throughout the day. You see, the second semester of 2024 has brought 5 consecutive months of “Super Moons”. Incredible to look at, they cause some underwater ruckus. We started the day at Charlie’s Garden with the absurdly colorful hard coral gardens and cascading fusiliers. Then we had a mild dive at Mellow and Maytag, easy dives with all the benefits of current areas. These dives were fishy, vibrant, everything you expect of Bligh. The following dive required some legwork and for the last dive we moved to Vatu-i-ra Island when we saw the whirlpools wanting to form by the ship. Not to worry, our guests were surprised by just how absolutely gorgeous our dive was. We could barely find any rubble as the entire dive was covered in hard corals. We saw a few spawning corals, more scorpionfish, nudis, flatworms, a leaf scorpionfish and heaps of small reef fish and schooling snappers.

The crossing to Wakaya was a mild one, and the island treated us very nicely indeed. Both skiffs spent a full dive with mantas at the cleaning station. We saw a total of 7 throughout the day, including some of our favorites (Shirley and Riley) and some we named during our time here (Snowflake and Molita). We also saw a few sharks, orangebarred garden eels and turtles. On the way to Makogai, we were greeted goodbye by spinner dolphins. In Makogai, our dives were relaxing and overloaded with small critters and active reef tops. Our village visit was great fun, our guide Bill being such a rich source of knowledge. Ryan represented us well as our Chief and we all enjoyed as the kids had fun presenting their traditional dances to us.

Photo by Mike: Wakaya

Photo by Bel: Molita

Photo by Bel: Molita and Johnny

Photo by Dot: Flabelina

Photo by Mike: Village visit

Photo by Mike: Meke presentations

We landed in Namena the following morning for two full days of marine park quality dives. Grand Central Station had extra abundance and diversity this trip, with all schooling fish attending the party. Bigeye scads and barracudas wandered from one side to the other, the bigeye trevallies schooled close to the surface, we could barely see through the redtooth triggers. There were plenty of grey reef sharks and a few massive tunas and Spanish mackerels. A total of three hammerheads made an appearance during the two dives. Kansas was a riot, Mighty Righty had such a blast with Mike there, and the pygmy seahorses. But Schoolhouse took the win, once again, for best dive. Again, aaaaaaaaall the schools were there. Pinjalos, black and midnight snappers, trevallies, triggers (including oceanics), eagle rays, reef sharks, barracudas, humphead wrasses, a hammerhead and a very special sighting of a sailfish.

The South passage dives were no less remarkable. Barracudas and sweetlips hung close to the bommies getting cleaned, and Jo and Ross even saw a shark getting his teeth inspected by cleaner wrasses. A giant grouper (7ft+) went by Thumbs and left some guests mesmerized. We challenged the photographers with smaller bits and bobs like a variety of nudibranchs, morrison’s dragonets, ribbon eels, whitecap shrimpgobies and golden mantis shrimps. We finally got Tui to say her line, this time amplified to “Absolutely bloody, bloody marvelous!!”. The night dive did not produce an octopus, but our guests were happy with their banded sea krait. And our kava party had us all crying from laughter, some of us gasping for air.

Photo by Dee: Morrison's dragonet

Photo by Dee: Coral grouper

Photo by Dot: Giant moray eel

Photo by Mike: Claudia talks to us about sharks!

The crossing to Vuya and UndeNAI’Able was smooth, but the wind did pick up throughout the day. The dives, however, were magnificent. Cat’s soft corals, Humann’s hard corals, the topography and UndeNAI’Able. They are the perfect background for the spectacular dance the anthias and fusiliers perform for us. The current bounced between extremely mild to absolutely wild, but we had a blast! We saw a couple of turtles, a few Spanish mackerels and several nudis (with a German accent). It was the perfect last day for this glorious journey with our friends. We hope to see you in the future, wherever that may be.

Photo by Dot: Hawk anthias

Photo by Dee: Lance blenny

Photo by Claudia: Juvenile Lionfish

Photo by Dee: Dotted fairy wrasse

Our happy bunch!