Author: kevin

I had an unsettling encounter with a White Tip Reef shark while Ocean Swimming in the lagoon at Matuku Island recently on our Fiji trip.

We had been dropped off in deep water by the zodiacs for our swim, I knew there was shallow reef very nearby so I swam over to it, and got into trouble from the zodiac driver but that’s another story.

I started happily swimming up and down alongside the reef, on my third ‘length’ I saw a white tip, about 1.5m long, swim rapidly up along the reef from behind me, it came quickly with very rapid movements as if it was angrily looking for something, like breakfast mebbe, it swam ahead of me on my right then circles around me and again came up behind on my right, but this time it swam rapidly towards me! Yikes! I hadn’t felt uncomfortable until this point but now I was suddenly a bit uneasy. I stopped swimming and ‘stood up’ in the water looking directly at Mr White Tip. This seemed to make it change it’s mind and it turned on a dime and swam off - phew. I think I really was on the menu.

We saw another similar white tip later on in the morning while diving and it also appeared agitated. I wonder if it was a full moon?

We’ve had another amazing trip to Fiji and have again been blown away by the generosity of the people and beauty of the islands. I was a bit concerned that we would be less enthralled on this trip as familiarity starts to expose the cracks in the glossy veneer. But the veneer has proved to be thick and resilient to attack as we have come away feeling in love wit have ended our trip feeling no less in love with Fiji.

Highlights of the trip included unexpectedly seeing old friends again. People like Illy, Tori, Nici, Alison. Abbey and Illy rekindled their friendship which was great to see. We think Illy somehow managed to wangle his way onto the crew when he saw Abbey was here as he initially said that he was working on the old Reef Endeavour which is currently anchored off Nadi.

The new ship, the Caledonian Sky, is new to Captain Cook Fiji and is a significant improvement in terms of comfort, but some how seems to lack some of the character of the Reef Endeavour.

Apparently this was the first time this itinerary was being tried and consequently the first time a cruise ship was visiting some of the islands. The kids in the villages were all so excited to have us mostly white faced visitors. They were all exuberantly singing and smiling, at one village they gave us an incredible sendoff as we were boarding the zodiacs in the dark to head back to the ships.

Abbey and Elley seemed to have had a good time, although Ab’s experience has been tainted a bit by possible gluten contamination in her food which made her feel a bit rotten a lot of the time. We thought the kitchen was on top of gluten containing food until we saw a couscous based meal on the menu being noted as ‘gluten free’, a common misconception about couscous By then we were already a few days into the trip.

Diving

The diving was mostly excellent, with only one location serving up two lesser quality dives, but which were still better than, say, Mudjimba island.

Dive details

In all I did six and Fran did five dives. she skipped the wreck dive as she wasn’t feeling too good. This was a pity as this was one of the best, but not as good as the shark dive!

Shark dive at Beqa Island

The experience that I will never forget as long as I live was the shark dive at Beqa Island. We were required to wear a full wetsuit which most of the divers on board didn’t have. We were taken to the dive resort at Beqa island to be fitted with a wetsuit, I was happy to use a thin skinsuit instead of a wetsuit as the water was so warm.

After suiting up, we boarded the resort boat for a 20 min ride into a strong wind a quite rough water to get to the dive site called ‘Cathedrals’.

The dive briefing we received at the resort was repeated before we jumped in the water for the descent to the feeding site. The descent was achieved by pulling ourselves along a series of fixed lines. This was surprisingly challenging at times due to the strong current that was running. The observation ‘arena’ was positioned in front of a steep slope of a bommie, one of the Cathedrals. A small wall about 750mm high and made of large loose coral had been built in front of the feeding area.

We all descended to the arena and lined up along the wall, and waited. The dive guides brought a big container down containing the shark canapés. And then things started to get exciting. The sharks must hang around nearby as there was suddenly a riot of activity in front of us. All kinds of fish were swimming around, along with a number of sharks. Most seemed to be biggish Lemon sharks and Grey Nurse, but there were also a few big and way more intimidating Bull Sharks. The guides were completely surrounded by fish and of course sharks. They would occasionally manhandle a shark by the tail to get it out of the way, I was reminded of a person man handling a much lives big pet dog.

The feeding itself was incredible, after checking that the sharks had moved away a bit, a guide would take a fish head or some other body part, and swim up about 5m above and release the head. All hell then broke loose with the sharks, and fish getting stuck in to it in a seething feeding frenzy that sloshed around in front of us and even came very close just in front of me on the wall. There were guides behind us with shepherd’s crook type poles that they used to violently push the melee away when it got too close. The release happened about five times and each time was a magnificent spectacle of nature at its most uncompromisingly brutal. I was reminded of a rolling maul in a game of test rugby.

Our new friend Jane is a highly experienced diver and underwater photographer. She was positioned in front of the wall and to the side. The melee rolled right up to her a few times, she impressively held her ground and kept shooting. She must have gotten some incredible shots which we look forward to seeing.

It was interesting to me that none of the sharks appeared to get injured but I’m guessing some of the fish that were foolish enough to get close would have been scoffed up.

The actual event only lasted 20 mins or so before we were directed to ascend back up the lines and conduct our safety stop. it wasn’t possible to swim around the top of the bommie while doing our safety stop as the current was very strong and you had to hold on to the safety line to avoid being swept away.

Weather

We arrives at Nadi Airport in the midst of a heavy tropical downpour. This set to theme for the next few days with a particularly heavy downpour accompanying us for the entire bus transfer from Denerau to Lautoka. This caused the trip to take significantly longer thanks to the traffic congestion it caused.

The heavy rain did cause us some anxiety, if it continued like this then the trip’s enjoyment would be diminished a bit. As it happened the rain mostly stayed away but it was consistently very windy which made some of the zodiac trips very wet.

Most of the trip was rain free but still very windy and cloudy. The abscence of rain was a blessing and we were happy to put up with the wind. I think if it had been sunnier then it may well have been unbearably hot.

Of course, the clouds and wind seemed to clear and the final morning presented glorious sunshine as we docked at Lautoka. Oh well, at least it didn’t rain all the time.

Fire walkers

One of the unique experiences was witnessing the fire walkers in XXXX Island. A pit full of hot rocks is prepared by burning logs amongst the rocks, presumably over a period of a number of hours. A group of men in traditional grass skirts appear after we had gathered around the pit, they start removing the burning logs using long branches with flexible straps that they loop and twist around the logs. This allowed them to pull the logs out to the cheers of their companions and village kids who have also gathered to watch.

Once the logs were removed, they then all went behind a screen made of coconut palm fronds. After a few minutes the screwn was pushed over and they all came marching up to the rock pit. It was startling to also see the ships captain Peter amongst them, barefoot and dressed in a grass skirt. Apparently he had been invited to take part and had accepted. I don’t think he had expected this.

The men then take turns in walking slowly over the rocks. They do it in a fashion that resembles people carefully picking their way over jumbled rocks at the beach, except for the fact that these rocks are hotter than a really hot thing.

Captain Peter successfully completed his walk accompanied by two of the men. He may even have sone it twice, well done Pete!

The whole thing only lasted 20 minutes after which we got to take photos and ask a few questions. None of the islanders seemed to suffer any ill effects and apparently Peter was ok, although he dis have some blisters but we’re told these were massaged out straight away and he was walking around as if nothing had happened when we got back to the boat. We also later found out that Alison had no idea that he was going to do this. I wonder if his wife knew? She was standing next to us so I guess she probably did.

The Ship

The Caledonian Sky is a beautiful small ship, bigger than the Reef Endeavour but with fewer cabins.

The cabins themselves were spacious and comfortable each with an ensuite that included a bath! We were in a ‘Standard’ suite with a large square porthole but the cabins above us had their own balcony which would have been fab when the weather was good.

The food was excellent but, as I mentioned above, we think Ab may have been fed gluten. The labelling of the food on the buffet was a bit hit and miss which meant you weren’t always sure what you were getting if it wasn’t immediately recognisable.

The facilities on board were great, the Caledonian lounge aft was the main meeting point where you could get coffee, tea and other refreshments at any time of day. The bar was also there with drinks available from 10am.

The lounge on level six was at the front of the boat and included an out door area. It was too windy to spend much time there for moat of the trip but we did sit there late on the final night to enjoy the stars and lights on the shore.

Breakfast was generally served on level 5 in a dining area at the aft of the ship with a la carte evening meals being served on level 2, also aft.

The crew is amazingly friendly and capable. It was great to renew old acquaintances and make new friends amongst the crew. Fijian people are genuinely the most friendly and warm people.

We got walk straight in access to Kia arena to see a legends doubles match between Baghdatis/Phillipousis v Haas/Stepanek. We got awesome seats one row back from the baseline.

Impressions of Melbourne:

It has a great foodie scene, and probably cultural scene too. The sporting events are clearly excellent. But , I get Joburg vibes

It has a great foodie scene, and probably cultural scene too. The sporting events are clearly excellent. But , I get Joburg vibes, well 80’s Joburg vibes anyways. There isn’t much going for it otherwise, the river is a bit of a muddy stream, no mountains, no ocean, and its fucking cold here right now in the middle of January.

I had great hopes for the St Kilda waterfront, but the water was dirty, and I got UK Brighton vibes from the whole area. I thought I might go for a swim, possibly even a Schiemann, but the water was uninviting due to the murkiness and pollution. There was also a sign outside the SLSC recommending that the water quality was that poor that swimming was not recommended.

Kiting or foiling would probably be good on Port Philip Bay though, so it does have that going for it. I popped into kite republic for a browse but it was so small, and there were three staff members crammed in one corner which gave me a "being watched" feeling. They were though they seemed lovely. Thankfully Elley called me which gave me an excuse to gracefully step outside

Frev went on the inaugural Sunreef 'Survey Dive' on 17th December 2023 just off Mudjimba Island. The weather was very hot and humid and a light NE breeze was blowing with a small short period swell.

The max depth we got to was around 8m, so Kev was able to stay down for the full 45m of each dive. We both dived on nitrox which I really like to do.

Kev had his Olympus Tough camera in its fancy housing and got some nice shots which you can see below.

The survey dive itself was a bit challenging as there was some surge which made it tricky to stay in the same place. We had to swim along a line placed by the dive master and observe the corals every meter. We compared the lightest and darkest colours to a colour chart that we were given and recorded them on a slate. These are then entered into the CoralWatch.org website as a record that can be viewed over time for signs of deterioration in the health of the reef.