Making the most of a stormy situation

Making the most of a stormy situation.

It was a wet and windy one this trip.  Given our usual weather, our passengers on this trip were a little unlucky.  Although a bit of wind and rain every now and then is to be expected, I for one had so far never experienced a whole trip of blustery weather.

It was certainly not all bad though.  The dives were still very productive with loads of critters, big and small, making themselves known.

We started the trip in Vatu-I-Ra and right off the bat had an octopus on Coral Corner, a turtle on Mellow Yellow and a couple of leaf scorpionfish on Maytag.  The dusk dive on Charlie’s Garden turned up some cool stuff like nudis and swimming flatworms.

Because of the encroaching weather, we planned to head south right away to avoid the worst of it and had a lovely couple of days in the Lomai Viti Group.

The brown pygmy seahorses are still around on Anthias Avenue and as always, Nigali Passage was a favourite.  The Leopard shark was there again as well as all the Grey reefs, plus a large Napoleon wrasse inside the lagoon and a fat sea snake in the passage.

On the way back up through Wakaya the Mantas showed up.  Just a quickie this time but always nice to see them.  Then the village visit in Makogai with the Sevu Sevu ceremony and the Meke show under the stars.

From there we headed up to Namena marine park.  By this stage the weather had gotten quite bad and we had to hide behind the island for the time we were there, making the skiff rides a little longer and bumpier than usual but the diving still impressed with another octopus at North Save-a-Tack and a wonderfully colourful dive on Mushrooms despite the heavy surge on top.

The wind was still blowing hard on the last day but the sun was popping out for our last few dives at Golden Sunset and Nukurauvula.

So in the end, the best was made of the stormy situation and a good time was had by all.  Hopefully when we see you guys next time the wind will be gentler and it will be a little dryer but are glad you all enjoyed yourselves despite the weather.