Fiji Me 2019Fiji – Our Adventure Starts

Fiji, what a fantastic destination! Getting away from this lousy midwest winter transformed our weary, blurry-eyed travelers as we arrived to our destination, Fiji!  The vision of beautiful turquoise blue aquamarine waters soothed our weary souls.  The swaying palm trees, white sand and island hospitality comforted our dive team in our hour of need.  We swiftly recovered from our journey and put our dive attack plan put in place!

Taveuni, Fiji

Fiji is made up of some 400 islands.  Compared to other destinations, Fiji sits all by itself out in the South Pacific.  Its nearest neighbor, Australia is some three thousand miles away.  Taveuni, known as the garden island, is an incredible place to visit!  Of all the places Toucan Dive has visited, Taveuni is about as close to the Garden Of Eden as you can get! Beautiful jungle setting, mountainous, with wonderful waterfalls with deep pools for refreshment. 

Beautiful white, sandy beaches and amazing sunset vistas welcomed us at each days end!  On another note, the island has a large population of fruit bats.  Over cocktails, the bats would wake up in trees in front of the resort and take flight.  It was a great way to start the evening off!  Also, unbelievably, the international dateline runs right through Taveuni.  You can put one of your feet in “today” and one of your feet in “yesterday”!  It was a great photo opportunity for our group!

Diving Rainbow Reef

Colorful and diverse, Rainbow Reef is an incredibly alive and healthy reef system.  Unlike many other reef systems, Rainbow Reef is a part of the Somosomo Straights.  This body of water pushes nutrients through this coral reef and enriches its occupants.  Known as the soft coral capital of the world, Rainbow reef explodes with color!  Thriving and robust, orange and pink anthias populate these corals along with schools of blue chromis!  More than once, I heard the comment, “Fish so thick, they block out the sun”!  

Unlike the Caribbean, crabs and lobsters were strangely missing.  However, nudibranch, blue ribbon eels, moray eels, and clown fish were the attractions of the day!  Turtles grazed lazily along the shallows.  Of course, pelagics rule!  With such animal life along the reef, predators jump into the feeding frenzy!  Black tip and white tip sharks seen on nearly every dive!  Of course, one of our biggest thrills was swimming along with a 16 ft manta ray!  What an incredible experience!

The Final Analysis

With so many wonderful aspects of our adventure, who wouldn’t want to go back!  Of course, the distance is a factor for some.  Don’t let that stop you from seeing beautiful, tropical Taveuni, Fiji!  It will be well worth it!  Check out the video and photos of our incredible excursion below!