More of That, Please!

Destination: Bligh Water, Wakaya, Gau, Makogai and Namena

Trip Date: Sep 28th - Oct 8th, 2024 - Comments

Author: Bel&Mike

Welcome Back: Herg, Todd, Doug and Michael

Water Temp: 78-79F/25.5-26C and slowly rising

We cannot think of a better way to have spent our 80th trip on NAI’A than this last trip we just completed. Fantastic group leaders who help us optimize the trip for the guests? Check! Predominantly great weather conditions? Check! Experienced and competent divers who respect and appreciate our reefs? Check! Great sightings such as hammerheads, manta rays and schools upon schools of fish? Check! A little bit of goofy, a dash of crazy and tons of laughter? Check, check, check! Herg and Kerri travel with an interesting bunch, there’s never a dull moment, and we do mean that in a good way. And if that wasn’t enough, we got to see Fiji through the lenses of very capable and talented photographers. Thank you all for and unforgettable trip.

We started this journey diving the Sea Mounts: E6 and Mount Mutiny. Our guests could not believe these stunning sites were nothing but rubble just a little more than 8 years ago. The wind made for some bumpy skiff rides, but the sun was out bringing up the vibrant colors of the reef. We had a hammerhead sighting, some scorpionfish, a few flatworms, reef sharks and a big school of pinjalos and another of barracudas. The reefs, however, were the main attraction. The landscape at the Cathedral, the colorful chyronephthyas at the Rainbow Wall or the cascades of hard corals. Herg just said “More of that, please!”.

Photo by Hergen Spalink: Cathedral

Photo by Hergen Spalink: Hard corals

Photo by Todd Winner: Say aaaaaaaaaaaah

On the second day we moved to Vatu-i-ra Marine Reserve and added a touch of current to spice up the dives. The diving gods aligned the perfect conditions for our first dives at Coral Corner and Mellow Yellow: open soft corals, mild conditions and fish overdose. Dive 2 was a little more challenging to “the boy boat” at Maytag, while “the ladies (and Eric)” enjoyed a chilled dive at Howard’s Diner. We placed a bet that GoMo would be in perfect conditions for dive 3, and what a treat it was! The best of all the worlds: big fish, little fish, hard corals, soft corals and barely a touch of current. Superb. We once again heard the call for “More of that”, and we did our best. We finished the day with Mellow Yellow and Coral Corner again, and more happy divers and stunning images.

Photo by Stewart Galloway: That spot at Mellow Yellow

Photo by Kerri Bingham: Fiji colors

We moved over to Wakaya for our manta encounters, and they didn’t disappoint. Throughout the day we saw 12 individuals, and even the guests not diving the main cleaning station got to see them. Following what we had over the last few trips, we saw more courtship action. This time with Django being courted by three males. Even a couple of our chevron mantas decided to show up, and shy little Snowflake interacted with the divers like he rarely does. Other sightings included a few turtles and hammerheads, as well as reef sharks and nudibranchs. That night, Bel was abducted into the world of marbles, and poor Jamie had to deal with the newbie for the rest of the trip.

Photo by Hergen Spalink: The courtship train with Django, Donky (Don Quixote de la Manta) and Danny Pegleg

Photo by Penny Nelsen: A VERY old coral

We crossed to Gau and had a late start to the day to time our dive with the current at Nigali passage. The current did what it needed to right on schedule, but this time the sharks missed the memo and we only saw a handful of them. We did see a few hundred red snappers at the channel mouth, and we’re pretty sure we saw a little bit of spawning action, so maybe that attracted the sharks and barracudas to a different area. The visibility was stunning and we had sunshine, which allowed us to take in the scenic views of the passage. Michael saw a manta ray and Josh saw 2 spinetail devil rays, playing halfway into the channel. A few sea kraits cruised along. The cabbage patch was gorgeous with the sun, but the current made it a little challenging to capture it. Our 3rd dive at Jim’s and Anthia’s was fishy, but covered in reef snot (despite the incoming current). A lot of that snot turned out to be the casing for tunicate larvae, an event that seems to happen in Gau once a year. We just hope the rest of the snot didn’t have to do with the snappers.

Back to Wakaya we went and again we had beautiful manta ray encounters (Todd and Michael got a private show). We had less individuals this time around, only four for the morning, but we did have lasting encounters. Clarita did a couple of mini-poops for us, followed by a massive dump, which made us all laugh and flood our masks. She had “attempted mating” scars and put on a show for both Righty and Lefty. We also saw turtles, leaf scorpionfish, a big octopus (Marj got her wish), some juvenile new guinea wrasses and a few sharks. We moved to Makogai and had a relaxing dive on the bommies. The best image recorded that day, however, was captured on the surface, when Stewart reversed the backroll entry into the skiff and hung with his ass in the air. Somehow we decided he would be our Chief for the village visit, and he recomposed himself enough to represent us well. The visit was fun, heartwarming and entertaining, and we headed back to NAI’A with a gorgeous sunset view.

Photo by Mike Snow: Picture perfect Nigali

Photo by Todd Winner: M493 got curious and put on a private show for Todd and Michael

Photo by Stewart Galloway: Becky's

Photo by Jamie Walker: Anemones and fish

We moved to Namena Marine Reserve for two days of soft corals, funky critters and a handful of fish. This is one of Fiji’s most abundant areas due to its Marine Protected Area status since 1997. The group enjoyed the soft corals on the South, as well as ribbon eels, leaf scorpionfish, a curious octopus (well done Margot!), mantis shrimps and barracudas, as well as the occasional shark. The North presented us with even more soft corals, more reef sharks, huge humphead wrasses, schooling trevallies and an eagle ray. And that’s not including the hammerhead sightings and everyone’s favorite dive site there: Schoolhouse. “More of that, please!”. Happy to oblige, we dived there as much as we could, as the site was incredible for photographers and “normal divers”. Schools of snappers, triggerfish, trevallies, barracudas, bannerfish… huge tunas and Spanish mackerels, and more hammerheads. Bel let out a couple of clear “holy s&^t” that everyone around her heard, especially Mindy and Joyce. Kerri played fusilier orchestra. A few lucky divers saw a sailfish cruise by. It was so great, even a sea krait tried to join Mighty Righty on the last dive!

We had our Kava party on our first night there, and our tired guests resisted the urge to go to bed to hear the sweet and powerful voices of our crew. Joe stayed up late, making sure the band had an audience. The afterparty was yet another game of marbles, but almost everybody crashed from exhaustion. We readjusted our schedule on the second day there, and some of the photographers got out to the beach to shoot some split shots between dives. At the end of our second day there, we had a flash impromptu wetsuit beach party and headed back to NAI’A enjoying another magnificent sunset.

Photo by Hergen Spalink: Namena from above

Photo by Hergen Spalink: The Arch

Photo by Hergen Spalink: Soft corals, fish and Josh

Photo by Hergen Spalink: Split shots on the beach

Photo by Hergen Spalink: Wetsuit beach party

We spent our last two days back in Bligh Water diving Vatu-i-ra, revisiting our favorite sites. Mighty Righty got to add Charlie’s Garden (with a friendly turtle), Maytag (where Penny got to orchestrate the fusiliers) and Whole Shebang (Carolynn struggled to get down from her “coral high”)to their repertoire, and they loved each site better than the other. We hit Mellow Yellow again twice in perfectly yellow conditions and tried to re-create that perfect GoMo dive again. We hit it a little off one way or the other, but we still enjoyed stunning dives, we just had to work for it a little more. The cherry on top for the day was the juvenile whale shark Kerri, Doug, Josh and Alex saw at the end of their Coral Corner dive. Well played, Vatu-i-ra. Well played.

At the end of all this, we got to enjoy the magnificent images these crazy photographers took of our reefs. What a treat to see our reefs well represented. After that, it was more marbles games as we headed back to Lautoka into another amazing sunset. We have had an incredible time with this group, learned about so many places and heard the craziest stories. It has been a great way to celebrate our 80th trip on NAI’A. All we can say is: more of that, please!