New Moon

New moon.

Anyone that has been diving for any length of time knows what that means!  

Current.

Wonderful, life bringing currents sweeping over the reefs creating an amazing energy and   enhancing in an almost indescribable way the colours and movement of the sites we visit.

This does mean that we need to time our dives and choose the spots wisely but on a 10 day trip we have loads of options and made the most of the great conditions.

We started and ended the trip in Vatu-I-Ra which was a favourite amongst many of our divers.  Gomo, Coral corner and Mellow Yellow were exploding with colour and fish life.  If we didn’t know that the diving was so good in the Lomoviti group, we could have easily stayed there the whole 10 days!

There were a couple of serious photographers on board this trip who kept on jumping from one skiff to the other to be able to go back to the site they just dived because they couldn’t imagine anywhere else could be any better.  I love to see that kind of enthusiasm.  Truth is all the sites are good (with so many pristine reefs available to us, why do anything less than the best sites?) but I like the attitude none the less and love to repeat a site when it’s good myself, so I totally understand.

We visited the Cats Meow for a day and although the currents were strong the diving was wonderful.  The cleaning station had 7 Sweetlips lining up waiting for their turn and we found a lovely pair of Citrus Gobys on top, posing rather uncharacteristically, ie. not swimming away at the first approach.  Beautiful little fish.

The Ribbon Eels at Wakaya are still rooming together, it seems.  Hopefully they stick around for a while, although I am half expecting one of them to turn into its yellow (female) terminal phase.  When it does I will be ready with my camera!

Everyone loved Makogai and Gau was great and we even dived Golden Sunset on this cruise.  That site is usually a little too far out of our way but we happened to be in the right place at the right time to make it work this cruise.

We returned to Mount Mutiny for a second go too.  Back by popular demand..


Now, four days to recharge the batteries before the next one!  Bring it on!