Charlie's Diving Blog: Nai'a Sept 14-24. Day 1, 2,3

Guy and I were picked up from the Ratsun Hotel at 1:30 by the bus picking up the group from a few other hotels for the ride to board Nai'a at 3 pm. Here's some surface photos from our first day on Nai'a: Calm seas for our cruise out.

A few of the crew relaxing on the dive deck with our two skiffs, "Mighty Righty" and "Lefty Left" under tow, below:

As dawn was breaking, on our first day of diving, Sunday September 15, we approached our day's destination, Vaitura Island, below:

Below is an outline of our first day's schedule, it gives you an idea of how busy each day is, and then, sometimes there were night dives.

Every dive is preceded with a detailed dive briefing by our dive master/hosts Mike and Bell. The briefing includes a hand drawn map of the dive site, here's Vatuira Island, below:

Below: Here's a shot Guy took with his drone of Nai'a and the island

The Vatuira Marine Reserve Island is a calm, beautiful hardcoral dive that acts as our check out dive to get us all familiar with getting our gear ready, diving briefs, and boarding and after the dive, disembarking, the skiffs. This dive had beautiful healthy hard coral that I was very happy to see again after ten years. We saw Sea Turtles, a White Tipped Reef Shark, and lots of beautiful hard coral. This was my 783rd post retirement dive. Below: A Lemon Damsel gets the attention of a cleaner wrasse while a Soldier Fish waits its turn.

Below: Beautiful Hardcorals abound

Dive 2, Howard's Diner, my 784th post retirement dive. Below: Beautiful Sea Fan

Below: I always watch for cleaning stations, here's another Lemon Damselfish getting picked over by a cleaner wrasse

Below: Beautiful Soft Coral

Below: Clown Triggerfish

Below: Many Spotted Sweetlips

Below: Big Star Pufferfish

Dive 3: Mellow Yellow, my 785th post retirement dive. Below: The first of two large Brown Marbled Grouper I saw on the trip. I love seeing large fish so I had to share it even though its not a great picture.

Fiji is famous for its beautiful corals with clouds of beautiful fish, below:

There were beautiful anemones with anemone fish on every dive, I think. But I can't resist trying to get a better picture where the anemone fish and the viewer are "having a conversation" as Tom Campbell puts it. Here's a Tomato Anemonefish:

Instead of a fourth afternoon dive we did a walk on the protected bird sanctuary Vatuira Island, below:

I skipped the night dive, Guy did it. Night dives aren't my favorite and I was holding out for a couple night dives that were supposed to be better. Maybe my 71 years are slowing me down? Monday, September 16 Our first dive was at E6 The Bay, my 786th post retirement dive. It's a beautiful site with endless beautiful hardcoral and clouds of fish. Early in the dive I was paying attention to a Slingjaw Wrasse which was busy hunting and I was able to drift closely to these usually shy fish. I was thrilled to get a good shot of it and then even more astonished to be able to get a shot of it thrusting out its jaw. Think about the infamous "Alien" with its ability to project an inner jaw, this wrasse can do the same thing! Below:

Look at its sling jaw!

Below: Guy prowling the reef.

Mike leads us off the site into the blue to do our 3 minute safety stop and get picked up.

Dive 787 Cathedral - flat calm, tried to shoot coral surface reflection pictures After second breakfast we dived a site called Cathedral, post retirement #787. The ocean was flat calm so we soon were drawn by the calm reflective surface and the sunshine to go shallow on the site and shoot pictures of the reef and its reflection on the surface. Below:

Dive 788 Mount Mutiny Rainbow Wall was our third dive of the day, soon after lunch. Below: Beautiful soft coral is why the site is called the Rainbow Wall, here's a sample as the rest of the group descends the wall: