6th Day: the Fiji I Envisioned

Today's diving encapsulated the Fiji diving I had been dreaming of. Small fish of every color imaginable danced over the reef, obscuring the reef beneath them. Wherever I looked there were soft corals and sea fans hanging off every available square inch on the bommie.

Today, there were only 5 people on the boat, which was a gift in itself. The large Russian group and the San Diegan group were leaving. We were going to have the dive sites all to ourselves. Maybe with the group being so small, the diving improved. Maybe it was the quality of the dives themselves. Maybe it was because Mark and I were beginning to feel comfortable with our gear. Or maybe it was because we were finally learning to appreciate the Fijian sea life. It was probably a combination of all four.

One of the divers we were privileged to dive with today is an 80 year old diver named, Gordon. Gordon is as smart as a tack and regaled us with stories of his youth surfing in Hawaii. He proudly tells us he will dive until he dies. I would love to dive until I die, like Gordon!

Dive #177: Fantasy
This is the must-do reef dive in Beqa Lagoon. If you ever travel to Beqa Lagoon, make sure you don't miss this dive. No other dive captures the color and sheer volume of fish that the word Fiji conjures. This reef is particularly famous for it's unusual patch of blood red anemones and large population resident anemone fish.

Mina: 66', 0:54 min.
Mark: 64', 0:49 min.

Dive #178: Gee's Rock
This is one of the top 5 dives we did in Beqa Lagoon, primarily for the cool things we saw and did:
(1) I saw my first mantid shrimp (a very colorful lobster sized shrimp).



(2) I had my teeth cleaned by a cleaner shrimp for the first time.
(3) And in a stunning scene that I couldn't have planned better, I was able to capture Mark, a Spade fish, a pair of pyramid butterfly fish, and a pair of bannerfish in one photograph.

Mina: 68', 1:01 min.
Mark: 61', 0:59 min.

-- Post From My iPhone