Bula! Or, as my Indian family in Fiji says... Nameste! Upon making the decision to book our trip (which was about a month and a half before we left), our biggest concern was airfare. Because of last year's coup and the upcoming election in August, there was a huge demand for seats from LAX to Nadi for earlier in the summer. Although the average price of a ticket between LAX and Nadi was $1500, we were able to hook up with Kamal Singh, owner of Pathfinder Travel in Fremont, California (510-490-7599). Kamal specializes in booking South Pacific airfare and buys tickets with Air New Zealand and Air Pacific in bulk. He had a special going on for the summer -- $599 roundtrip from LAX to Nadi, Fiji via Air New Zealand!

Our plans for this trip were to arrive in Fiji on Monday, June 18th. The first week would be spent with immediate family still living in Fiji in the Suva area. At the end of the week, I would depart for Nadi and the Fiji Aggressor.

Friday, June 18th - Sunday, June 20th: Getting to Fiji from Minneapolis is a long haul! First we had to fly from Minneapolis / St. Paul to LAX, where we would connect with a long flight that would place us across both the equator and the international date line into the Fiji Islands. Shashi and I departed Minneapolis on a Sun Country flight to LA leaving at 8:30 p.m. CST on Friday, June 15th and arrived in LA at 11:30 p.m. PCT.

Our flight to Fiji on Air New Zealand would not be leaving until 8:45 p.m. on Saturday, June 19th. I managed to book us a free hotel room at the Sheraton Four Points hotel near LAX using Starwood Club Points. The hotel was convenient and comfortable. Our flight to Fiji left about 45 minutes behind schedule and arrived in Nadi, Fiji at 4:00 a.m. on Monday, June 18th. This is the interesting part about traveling to Fiji -- you lose a day. In my case, I did not get to have a father's day. But I did get one hell of a nice present -- two weeks in Fiji with family and scuba divers (in that order)!!!

Monday, June 21st - Thursday, June 24th: I spent a really fun and relaxing week in the Suva area with my family.

Friday, June 25th: I arranged a discounted cab ride (with the help of my brother-in-law Arun) from Suva to Nadi. I got a pretty good rate too -- $120 Fijian (less than $60 US). I booked myself into the Sheraton Royal Denarau for the day. I felt pretty guilty with the room I was provided -- my own bungalow overlooking the ocean, with my own hammock no-less! I rented a jet ski for half an hour for $90 Fijian (less than $45 US), and had a great time doing 360's in the harbor!

Saturday, June 26th: I spent a very lazy morning at the Sheraton Royal hotel and spoiled myself rotten! I arranged for a late check-out at 1 p.m. (2 hours later than the normal check-out time). I decided to take a cab to the marina. The fair was about $1 US. Upon arriving at the Marina, I immediately ran into Solo (the engineer from my trip last year). He kindly offered to watch the bulk of my luggage until the shuttle carrying the other passengers arrived. I walked casually down the dock and saw, moored on the left hand side in the same dock as before, the Fiji Aggressor. What a wonderful ship --- I was totally excited! I did remember to remove my shoes and socks before climbing aboard.

My impressions of the boat remained the same. Everything about this boat is impressive. The cabins are large with plenty of room for your stuff, private bathrooms, comfortable beds, individual air-conditioner controls, and a generous sized window. The salon where the meals were served and the entertainment center is located is very roomy, and comfortable. My only complaint was the tendency for the salon to get a little warm and humid -- but this is easily overlooked when you are wearing shorts, t-shirt and constantly sipping cool drinks! Unfortunately, the hot tub was not working. I was really* looking forward to enjoying a cold Fiji Gold beer in the hot tub after the last dive of the day. Darn!

All dive equipment is stored in compartments under your tank location on the aft deck. You hook up you gear once, it is loaded on the jet powered skiff by the crew and you never touched it again. Air or Nitrox are refilled without removing anything other than your first stage. There are two camera tables, two camera rinse tanks, two miscellaneous rinse tanks for masks, wetsuits. A shower is located on both sides of the dive area with plenty of hot water, shampoo, and fresh towels for an after dive clean-up.

After stowing my gear and getting my room organized, Belinda, the ship's onboard manager and one of the divemasters, introduced the crew (the ships other onboard manager Rob was on vacation during our week): Russ and Joe (the other dive masters), Tala (the captain of the ship), Peni (the first mate), Solo and Vlai (the engineers), Jese and Nicky (the stewards), and Luke (the chef). I had met Tala and Solo last year during my trip last year. Belinda then followed with a briefing about how the boat worked. After the briefing dinner was served and we all crashed while the Aggressor departed Denarau for the crossing which would bring us to Mokagai Passage the next morning and our first dives in the South Pacific. The entire staff presented themselves very well and went out of there way to get all of us settled in.

Sunday, June 27th - Makogai Island: The first dive of the trip took us to Coral Gardens, a drive dive around several boomies. We saw red anemones, a reef shark, and a white tip shark. I broke in a new BC on this dive, and lost my right weight sleeve -- which Belinda kindly helped me replace. The next dive took us to Dominoes -- where we saw may clams and sea fans. I decided to skip the next dive to Elaine's Boomies and catch up on some sleep. The dusk/night dive was to Rocky Bay. I saw a very pregnant puffer fish as well as a huge snapper sleeping inside a reef. While doing my safety stop at 15 feet, I overlooked a scorpion fish resting within two inches of the my hands -- yikes!

Monday, June 28th - Wakaya Island: We had a fairly smooth passage to Wakaya Island in the morning. Our first dive was Wakaya Wall, our objective being the infamous blue ribbon eels. We were not disappointed! I also saw 2 leaf scorpion fish at about 40 feet.

As usual, I was the first to exit the dive site. Within about one minute of getting out of the water, Joe (who was assisting on the skiff) spotted two huge pacific manta rays swimming at the surface, near a cleaning station. The rest of our dive party surfaced almost on the bottom of them and didn't see them. We took a group vote, and decided on an impromptu snorkeling expedition with the rays. We all donned snorkels and slipped quietly in the water. Within about three minutes of entering the water, both rays swam majestically by us! What a thrill!!!

Our next dive took us to Golden Rock, where I saw an upside down lion fish as well as many other beautiful soft corals and tropical reef life. When I reached about 15 feet, I was rewarded with a full view of one of the Pacific Manta Rays shooting past the cleaning station -- way cool! The third dive took us back to Wakaya Wall. I went down to 109 feet, and spotted a large, scalloped hammerhead shark patrolling the reef from the blue at about 120 feet! Wow! This was turning into a dynamite dive day! Although I did not see them, several people in our group also saw two gray reef sharks in the process of being cleaned. Our fourth night dive took us to Gem Stone. We saw many flashlight fish as well as this neat form of glow-in-the dark plankton which you could swish around you and create your own little sparkle storm around you.

Tuesday, June 29th - Gau (pronounced "Now") Island: Our first dive took us to the colorful Jim's Alley -- named after underwater photographer Jim Church. We saw a very long coral sea snake at this site. I was a bit apprehensive during the dive, until I learned topside from Russ that sea snakes cannot open their mouths wide enough to bite a major part of your body. Your only risk is really being bitten in between your fingers. We also saw a surgeon fish, unicorn fish, and many anemone fish. I really enjoyed this site, and was the last person in our group to surface (which is a first for me)!

Our next two dives took us to Nigali passage. This is a very advanced dive and a total adrenaline rush. There is a 110 feet opening in the barrier reef surrounding Gau, which can only be dived an hour and a half before and after the current changes.

The current was still outbound from the Island on our first dive. Being a novice diver, this dive was challenging to say the least. We descended quickly to 90 feet, and were promptly greeting by gray reef sharks, white tip sharks, and silver jacks.

As we carefully inched our way along the bottom, against the current, the show was spectacular. Unfortunately, I was chomping down air pretty fast. Belinda was nice enough to escort me safely through the channel and past the barrier reef for the skiff to pick us up safely. On the second visit to the passage, the current was just turning inbound into the lagoon. We saw more gray reef sharks, a white tip shark, barracuda, and many silver jacks. On this day, we made our "village visit" to the Island of Gau. This was in lieu of the night dive. We brought food to the Island, which the Fijians cooked for us Lovo style (buried in the ground over hot coals).

While our supper cooked, we joined the men in the "pub" for a bowl (or two) of kava. I opted for a "high tide" or full bowl. Then we went to the local church for a brief prayer followed by an official Fijian Meke dance. We were each presented with a flower Lai (they take about two hours each to make). I got into the act and helped out on percussion using a large bamboo pipe which I pounded vertically into the mat to make a nice bass sound. We then "dug up" our supper and took the skiff back to our floating hotel where we enjoyed our supper. It was a wonderful end to a wonderful day of diving!

Wednesday, June 30th - Namena Island: Our first dive took us to North Save-a-Tack. We descended to 100 feet and saw many unique yellow and orange soft corals. We also saw a small school of barracuda, a black and white grouper, many silver jacks, and lion fish at about 22 feet.

I also had an up-close and personal encounter with a coral sea snake! I was taking some pictures of some soft coral located above my position, when I felt Ulista's hand urgently pulling on my shoulder. I turned to her and she quickly guided my attention to the coral sea snake which was between my ankles! Yikes! I also saw several lion fish, which I also managed to photograph fairly close-up.

Thursday, July 1st - Wakaya Island / Makogai Island: Last year we lucked out and were able to visit the infamous E-6 site. Due to uncooperative weather (E-6 has no protection from a surrounding island or a-toll) we were not able to visit E-6 this year. Belinda and staff decided to take us back to Wakaya and Makogai during our last full day of diving in Fiji. Our first stop was Wakaya Island, and the first dive was Wakaya Passage. Upon descent, we immediately came into contact with a white tip shark. The currents were a bit strong, but allowed us to also see a 7 foot scalloped hammerhead shark in the channel. Way cool! Our next dive was to the Western Edge. I found this site a bit disappointing, since most of the soft corals were dead or in a very bad way. I asked Belinda about this after our return, and she indicated this was largely due to El Nino. On the upside, we ran into the Manta Rays again upon resurfacing -- with one small difference. Instead of two Mantas there were four! We decided for another impromptu snorkeling adventure which proved as enjoyable as the one on Monday. During lunch, we moved our vessel to Makogai Island. The third dive of the day was to Elaine's Boomies (the site I missed on Sunday afternoon). We saw many cool soft corals and tropical fish. Some people in our group even got a free manicure courtesy of some cleaner shrimp. Our last dive of the day was a night dive to Peni's Place (named after our beloved First Mate. At this site we saw many coral groupers (who are very shy - probably since they know they are good eating) along with many wonderful soft corals and night time invertebrates.

Friday, July 2nd: Unfortunately, since I was leaving for home in the evening, I was not able to do the Friday dive. The group did not do the usual Friday dive at Charibois on Lie Rock (home to several hammerheads). I was told the dive site that was visited was very nice, however. I spent the morning completing my dive logs and breaking down my equipment. We arrived back at our port in the Denarau marina around 1:30 p.m. Belinda and Russ had arranged for a private bus to take us roundtrip from the marina to downtown Nadi for shopping and sight seeing (about a 12 minute drive each way). This was a very nice courtesy. I like to do all my souvenir shopping at the end of every trip so I don't have to lug a lot of stuff around. I managed to find a shop with good quality Fiji Tourist shirts for about $3 US!

That evening, we had a cocktail party and slide show which kicked off around 6 p.m. As an added bonus, the Fiji Aggressor crew led us in a sing along! Very fun! This was followed by a great slide show by Russ. This trip was a wonderful success. I will never forget swimming with the pacific manta rays of Wakaya Island! I have many, many other fond memories of this trip to Fiji which will last me for a lifetime.

Thanks for the trip report P.D. I was thinking of doing some diving in Fiji on my way to Oz for a family reunion next year. I appreciate the detail, and hope to get some Fiji dives in.