 After a long bus trip we were met by two small boats and transported across to Naigani Island, just off the coast of Viti Levu. We spent most of the second week there. 4 people each had a newer, two bedroom, two bath "bure", and we had the island mostly to ourselves.
The diving there was very good, mostly because we had an excellent divemaster named Tooman, and we were able to use the island's shuttle boat- that went 35 knots! A few of us also went on the smaller longboat with an old captain named Rambo. He didn't like to dive, but knew how to set up rigs and gave dive briefs of "Go down, swim around slowly, see lots of things, come back in an hour...". The sites near Naigani Island varied from coral "bombies" (pinnacles, with lots of holes and coral on top), to huge walls. One we dove is 50 miles long and about 15 0' deep - we'd do drift dives of over a mile long starting at 90' deep and work our way up.
My favorite dive was a bommie called "The Nursery" that had so many fish fry in the holes that they looked like marmalade. And in the back of the holes you'd see Big Momma or Poppa Sweet Lips or Grouper lurking about. Contrasted with the bright yellow, purple and orange soft coral and deep blue ocean it was indescribable.
We went to a beautiful, palm shaded, tropical beaches and could gather fresh papayas and bananas during dive breaks...yes, we did find our tropical paradise after all! (contined on page 4)
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