This was our second trip to Fiji. The trip report for the first one is available here. We did the same basic itinerary, fly to Fiji, stay at Woidroka Bay, sail on Aggressor, go home. Some of the details are different.
Air Canada, Air Pacific, Woidroka Bay Resort, Fiji Aggressor II, Tanoa International Hotel, .
Going to Fiji wasn't too bad - roughly 20 hours door to door. Coming back was expected to be bad, and it was worse. Crossing the Interational Date Line meant that we got to make two overnight flights on the same day. Unfotunately the first one was 5 hours late. Fortunately we had an 8 hour scheduled layover, so we still caught our 2nd flight.
For the trip back, we took a room at the Tanoa International Hotel for the afternoon. Money well spent in my opinion. We had planned to find a room in LA for our layover, but didn't have to because of the late flight.
Woidroka Bay has some redeeming qualities, but one bad feature that wrecks everything.
The place had changed quite a bit since our last visit. The main buiding was now completely enclosed, there were two more bures, and a larger fleet of boats. The hotel part was basic, but nice.
On our last trip, we were the only guests. On this one there were lots of surfers, but we were the only divers. So, we shared the boat with the surfers. We would go out to the reef, toss out the surfers, do two dives, recover the surfers, and go home. Watching the surfers during the surface interval was quite entertaining.
The diving from Woidroka Bay was quite nice. In terms of what there was to see, it was quite similar to the sites we dove the following week. The seascape was different though. This was reef and walls, Aggressor dives were mainly pinnacles.
So what was the bad part? The owner. He had only recently purchased the place and he was a miser. He was more interested in pinching pennies than he was in ensuring his guests enjoyed themselves. A specific example is that one day he had 3 divers (two tanks each), and 6 surfers going out, and he assigned one of the smaller boats. He eventually relented, but only after considerable complaining from both us and the surfers. So, if you are going to Fiji, stay somewhere else.
The Fiji Aggressor II is the boat formerly known as the Sere-Ni-Wa. It's a full size liveaboard that only takes 10 passengers. The staterooms were spacious with lots of storage space. The salon & dining room were sufficient. The dive was a little small, but not too crowded.
Depending on the current and dive site, we either dove from the back of the big boat, or took a skiff to the start point and drifted to the big boat. Underwater navigation was a bit different than most liveaboards I have dove from. The captain would anchor the boat in the deep sand, with the stern close to the pinnacle we were diving. This meant that at the end of the dive, there was no anchor line to use as a reference point, you had to find the boat. On one dive, the wind shifted and the boat blew about 100 yards away from the group of pinncacles so we had to swim a bit.
For the most part it was pretty good, not spectacular but pretty good. There had been a lot of rain in the weeks leading up to our trip. In fact, it rained every day we were at the resort. Perhaps for this reason, the water was siltier than it was on our earlier trip. The viz was still pretty good though. The water temperature ranged from 77 - 79 F.
One thing that was different than the last trip was the way we did Nagali Pass. On the last trip, we went to the bottom (~90 ft), looked for something to grab, and tried to look up at things swimming by. On this trip we did two shark feeding dives, sort of.
There was a large cranny at about 65 ft. All 10 guests plus the photo/video pro were able to fit, and it was like having a little theatre. Then the divemaster would bring out the fish. On the first dive, the fish hunks were tied to pieces of string. The divemaster would secure one end to the reef, about 5 feet below us, and let the fish go. The theory was that the shark would grab the fish, get to the end of the rope, and start thrashing about. That actually happened a couple of time. Most of the time there would be a frenzy of red bass attacking the fish. Then, at the end, some very brave butterflyfish would clean up.
The second shark dive was similar, the difference was that there was no rope on the fish hunks. The divemaster, who was much braver than I'll ever be, was simply pulling the fish hunks out and letting them go. That wasn't the brave part. The brave part was that there was a huge grouper there, and the dm was trying to ensure that he got some fish. He didn't, too slow. However, I've seen enough feeding frenzies to not trust those red bass at all. In fact. I'd also be leery of the grouper. However, this guy does this every week and he appeared to have the correct number of appendages.
On the second shark dive, a shark was actually able to get the piece of fish and swim away. About a dozen red bass and two or three other sharks started chasing him. It was pretty funny.
For those who have never dove the Indo Pacific area, it is remarkably different than the Caribbean. The fish population is totally different, and the soft corals are much more colourful. I have been there before, so it is getting harder to impress me.
If You Go, You Should Know
American money has value on the Aggressor. All boat fees, which includes the Value Added Tax that everyone pays is discounted 20% if you pay US cash.
The departure tax may or may not be included in the cost of your plane tickets. Ours were.
The Nadi airport does not have a courtesy phone to nearby hotels and rental car agencies like you would find in North American Airports. Instead they have travel agents that can find you a place to stay.
Even with the rain, silt, and long flights, this was still a great trip. Given the chance to do it again or pick Door Number 2, I'd do it again.
| Trip Dates2004-06-05 - 2004-06-20 | Trip Report Index |