Third Day on Nai'a, Three Dives and a village visit May 1, 2017

Our third day on the Nai'a began with our approach to dive sites off the island of Gau (pronounced ngau).  By this time we lucky nine passengers knew we had an incredible crew of 13 doing an exceptional job of making everything run smoothly, too schedule, with great diving and fabulous food.

The Fijian crew have been working together, happily, smoothly, efficiently, for years.  Our two Cruise Directors, Vanessa and Chad, had been with the team for nine months and were clearly closely knit with it.  Chad is from the US east coast, Vanessa is from Scotland.  They were fun, easy going, and very proficient.

                       Passing by the island of Gau as dawn is breaking  to our day's dive sites nearby.

  With our arrival at Gau we had reached our farthest out point for our seven day cruise.

 If you look at the board, Guy Foster and I were diving on the Port boat "Lucky Lefty" generally with Stuart, Helen, Mara and one of the three dive guides: Chad, Vanessa, and Big Mo.  As you can see, first dive at 7 am on Anthias Avenue (after continental breakfast), then "Brekkie" which the English and Scottish folks knew stood for SECOND BREAKFAST (hot, from the menu the day before!), second dive at 10 am on Jungle Jig (aka Jim's Alley), then, glory be, lunch, then the third dive in Nigali Passage at 1 pm or whenever the tide started really coming in...Then a village visit at 4 pm and back to the boat for dinner at 6:30 pm.

                             Dive briefing drawings for Jim's Alley (aka Jungle Jim) and Anthias Avenue.

                                   Dive briefing for Nigali Passage.  It's a high voltage dive when a strong incoming tide is running with lots of big fish action, barracuda, giant grouper, lots of sharks.  Unfortunately, though the dive was carefully planned around the expected tide change, it didn't happen at all that afternoon, it just kept slowly ebbing for hours beyond the "standard" six hour tide chart timing.....So this dive was a let down compared to what it could have been though we did see barracuda and sharks, just not close up and active....

Below are some pictures from these three dives, if you'd like to see more please go to:https://goo.gl/photos/pR2ToczGtoCHFNeS6

                        Guy shooting an anemone with transparent, nearly invisible, anemone shrimp.

 Here's my best shot of the nearly invisible anemone shrimp.  They had me thinking about the "invisible swordsman" from "Three Amigos"!  He's maybe 3/4 inches long.  Not bad given that this was shot with my Tokina 10-17 mm fisheye wide angle lens.

                                      Guy has moved on to shooting anemone fish and their anemone.

                                         Here's my shot of the Orange Fin Anemonefish and their home.

                         Trumpetfish are cool looking ambush predators and I can't resist taking their pictures.

Stuart maneuvering a one square meter grid, dividing into 10 cm squares, for doing marine sampling of coral growth.  He and Helen were counting new corals which are growing in place of shallow corals that were recently killed by a major cyclone that hit the area last year.  Don't worry, the diving is brilliant and recovery is underway. 

                               Pastel Ring Wrasse with beautiful soft coral at Anthias Avenue.

  Orange Spotted Pipefish at Jungle Jig aka Jim's Alley

The all important pickup at the end of a dive.  The skiff drivers do an exceptional job of keeping track of everyone and pickups are quick and easy.

Here we're making our way to the village of Somo Somo on Gau across a mud flat exposed by the incredibly low, endless, low tide.  Guy to the left of the picture, the Nai'a offshore in the distance.  

   I didn't do well with my Apple phone to get pictures in the village.  The welcome and singing were wonderful.

The Kava ceremony is a very important social interaction between visitors and villages.  They kept offering, I kept drinking for five rounds or so....

Second Day on Nai'a, four day dives, one night dive April 30, 2017

After a night time cruise we were at our first dive site, Vatu-i-ra, in the "Bligh Waters" named for the infamous captain of the Bounty whom first charted some of Fiji's waters from the Bounty's long boat.  The dared not land because of known cannibalism in Fiji at that time.  The day would feature five dives, the final one at night, as you can see below.  A wonderful, but busy, schedule.  Continental breakfast, first dive, second breakfast! (hot!), second dive, lunch, third dive, snack, fourth dive, dinner, night dive.  The dive briefings were excellent as were the dives.  The Nai'a has port (Lucky Lefty) and starboard (Mighty Righty) boats.  Guy and I were on Lucky Lefty.  Small dive groups, big dive sites, wonderful!

                  Excellent aluminum hulled inflatable dive skiffs Mighty Righty and Lucky Lefty in tow.

                        Beautiful yellow soft coral at, where else?  Mellow Yellow dive site.

                Guy Foster, in background, maneuvers for a photo.  Soft coral and a pair of Bannerfish.

                                        Looking up at Mellow Yellow.

                   Stuart, a fellow dive passenger and also a former Nai'a Cruise Director admires the view.

                                      Beauty everywhere you look.

                                      Titan Triggerfish

                          Rather than a waterfall a "fishfall" at Maytag!  It went on and on and on!

                             Lionfish make excellent photo subjects, colorful and confident.

Early in the trip and aberrant behavior already observed with diver attempting to school with the fish!

    Switched to my 60 mm Canon macro lens.  Chromodoris lochi nudibranch, about two inches long.

                                     Chatting with Nemo!

                                     Hermit crab with sea anemone on his shell for added protection.

                                      Juvenile scorpionfish

                                      Juvenile moray eel, pointed out for me by Brett, another diver passenger.

To see more pictures from these five dives please go to: https://goo.gl/photos/X5gzPb4C6KPRuZXK9

Nai'a First Day, Check Out Dive 4/29/2017

Guy Foster and I were picked up from Tonoa International in Nadi at 1 pm by a tourist bus and along with a few other fellow divers were driven to Lautoka to board Nai'a, a 120 ft liveaboard, for a week of diving.  I'll be doing a blog entry for each day of diving.  Upon arrival we were surprised but pleased to learn that there were just nine guests vs the maximum of 18 on Nai'a.  So each couple and each individual got their own room, luxury!

After getting our gear loaded on board the boat swiftly got underway and took us to our first "check out dive" in mid afternoon.  Visibility wasn't great but it was still enjoyable and it was a chance for everyone to get their gear checked out and to get a quick introduction to diving from Nai'a's excellent diving skiffs.  Below are a few photos from this dive, for more please go to: https://goo.gl/photos/3a5WyWp5WC8UKeYPA

           Our tourist bus dropped us off at the Nai'a in Lautoka harbor.

Chad and Vanessa were our Cruise Directors as well as two of three dive guides.  Here's Chad getting started with a dive briefing.  The dive briefings were all excellent, enough detail and not too long.

                            Here's my first nudibranch shot of the trip.  Not bad considering I was shooting with my wide angle lens. Scientific name is  Phyllidia ocellata  

Blue Linkia Sea Star

                                                  Second Nudibranch, name TBD

Spotted Sweetlips

The first dive wet our appetites for the diving to come but there was only time for one dive the first afternoon..We had a wonderful dinner in anticipation of the first full day of diving to come with four day dives at continental breakfast, first dive at 7:30, second, hot, breakfast, second dive at 11, lunch, third dive at 1, snack, fourth dive at 4, dinner, and a night dive.

Dives with Sanctuary at Erik's Pinnacle and Monterey Aquarium Intake Pipes 4-15-2017

Guy Foster and I took advantage of acceptable diving conditions to make a couple dives with the Sanctuary dive boat out of Monterey yesterday.  The previous day was quite windy with small craft advisories but the wind had calmed down overnight.  There was a six foot swell running so Sanctuary's Captain Mitch choose discretion as the better part of valor to avoid a rough ride down to Carmel Bay.  We first dived Erik's Pinnacle with visibility of about 15 ft.  We did see a Cabezon and a Ling Cod and, unfortunately, lots of sea urchins and zero giant kelp on the pinnacle and the usually dense kelp canopy covered adjacent Chase Reef.  I was hoping this would be a year of recovery for kelp and doubtless it has been set back by winter storms as well as continued hordes of sea urchins...

Guy just got a new UW camera setup based on a Sony camera, Nauticam housing, a go pro video camera, and dual strobes.  It's good it got a chance to try it out, in two weeks he'll be using it diving with me in Fiji on the Nai'a (http://www.naia.com.fj/).

Lots of sea urchins, no kelp.

I spotted this well camouflaged Cabezon perched on the rock before I startled it, so I was able to give Guy his first chance at photoing a Cabezon.  You see it, right?

I've zoomed in so you can easily see the Cabezon now, right?

You can see the Cabezon's eye just above the black sea urchin, the end of his tail is 1/3 in from the left of the picture, 1/4 up.  He is of course, easier to see when illuminated by my strobe in this picture.

                                         Guy with his first Cabezon photo attempt.

The Cabezon had enough of our strobe flashes.

                                        Ling Cod

Guy maneuvers for a ling cod shot.

Our second dive was on the Monterey Aquarium's intake pipes.  Guy and I enjoyed exploring them and the filter structure at the intake.  On the deeper, 50 ft part of this dive the water visibility was about 25 ft but it was also several degrees colder,  a chilly 48.

                                      Guy works on taking a sea anemone close-up

                                      Guy at the Aquarium's intake pipe.

                   Guy approaches the water filter structure on the end of the Aquarium's intake pipes.

For more pictures from our two dives please go to:  https://goo.gl/photos/a8KkNaTUTsZGp1gU8