Nai'a Day 5, Four Dives in Namena Marine Reserve May 3, 2017

Nai'a sailed overnight from Wakaya Island to Namena island and its marine reserve.  We were to spend two full days diving Namena and it was excellent diving.  The first day followed the usual pattern, continental breakfast, first dive for the port skiff that Guy and I were on at inner Two Thumbs out, 2nd (hot!) breakfast, 2nd dive, School House, with some Gray Sharks and a beautiful Napoleon Wrasse, lunch, third dive at The Arch, well named, snack, fourth dive on outer Two Thumbs Up, dinner, and then the crew threw a Kava party, they are good musicians and singers (I will attempt to attach a video or link to one).

 Helen, a marine biologist, and her associate Stuart, conducted a survey of coral on the top of the bommie at Two Thumbs Up.  Coral was damaged on the top of this bommie by Category Five Cyclone Winston two years ago, they are tracking coral re-growth.

                                          Clown Triggerfish

                                          Pair of Bannerfish with red sea fan

                                          Coral Grouper

                                                       Thumbs Up Seascape

                                          Safety stop view of Thumbs Up Bommie

                                

On the School House dive led by Vanessa I separated from the group and had more success with closer visitations from the local Gray Reef sharks, good fun.

    As a bonus, I got this fairly close visit from a large Napoleon (aka Humphead) Wrasse.  Beautiful.

                                Our third dive of the day was at "The Arch"

                                          Guy with the arch!

                                         Irresistible Orangefin Anemonefish

 Clown Blenny, not bad given his two inch length and shooting with my wide angle lens.

                                           Dwarf Hawkfish, about three inches long.

    Garden eels, a whole garden of them, very shy, this took awhile to take, at depth.  Outer Two Thumbs Up.

                                          Long Nosed Hawkfish

                             Big Mo found cleaner shrimp and here is demonstrating how to get a five fathom tooth cleaning, you can see the antenna of one in his mouth, others on just in front of him on the reef.

     Mara starts his turn at a tooth cleaning.  Think Guy got a shot of me getting my teeth cleaned too.

                                                  Beautiful spiny lobster

                                          Guy gets a spiny lobster shot.

                      One of our skiffs, watching bubbles, hovers over Guy.  Pickups were always prompt.

To see more from these dives, please go to: https://goo.gl/photos/JFUoZzXBSpWPaCHQ7

https://goo.gl/photos/JFUoZzXBSpWPaCHQ7

Bula!