Day # 5 in Paradise

8/21/12

Day #5 in paradise

We arose early this morning (6am) and headed out to a nearby island to swim with the manta rays that come in with the tide to feed.  These rays are getting rarer and rarer due to fishing for Chinese medicine in china.  It is predicted that they may become extinct if fishing keeps up at the current pace.   I hope that never happens because they are the most majestic and amazing creatures.  The two that we swam with had a wing span well over 6 feet.  They look like some type of forgotten dinosaur.   It was an unbelievable experience!

Alex on the dive boat headed out early early in the morning. 

Pretty sore line... Don't we all wish we owned that little hut. 

so pretty 

On the boat headed to try and find some Manta Rays

We found them... they have a wing span of 6-9 feet... so amazing.  I took some videos, I'll try and get them up soon. 

They look so prehistoric. 

This one swam right up into my face.

After the Manta Rays we hung out on a remote beach and swam around in the beautiful water. 

The Fijian island were made by volcano's and here is proof, lava rock in the beach. 

Just pretty. 

After swimming with the rays we played on the beach of a nearby small island for "morning tea" and then went diving.  The dives were amazing as always but this part of the reef we were at was exceptional!  There was so much of everything and it is all so huge!  Again I feel like we are diving in an aquarium!  Not to much to say about the rest of the day... it involved lounging and eating and more sleeping.  Great day!

pretty coral

Giant Clam

One of my favorite clown fish pictures

Pretty Coral, can you find the baby star fish?

Alex sleeping during our surface interval time. 

There were just so many fish everywhere.  I wish you could see their color in the pictures, it was amazing!

And we're swimming... look at all that coral. 

So amazing!

If you look closely, you will see Alex deep in the swim through. 

More pretty coral. 

I don't know what this is called but I called it dripping coral.  

so much color

There's Alex down in a canyon again.  

Below are lots of pictures of pretty coral.  The deeper shots look more greenish blue but there really was a lot of color.  

Some how the in my last post I forgot to mention that one of our dives was a wreck dive.  Below are a few pictures from that dive. 

Alex looking in side the ship

Alex helping our dive master with a rope... not sure what they were doing. 

cool fish

Star fish... can you tell I like these?  They were actually really colorful.

Alex with his star fish. 

Lettuce coral. 

Giant very mean looking sea cucumber

Christmas tree worms

Dilbert's Sister

We had a "little" puppy meeting tonight.  I tried hard to get a good picture of Dilbert and his sister Dusky but neither would cooperate very well.   Below is the best I could get. 

Left - Dusky, Right - Dilbert

I was getting ready the other day and I thought I had Dilbert tied down but when I finished drying my hair he had disappeared.  I quickly went to look for him fearing that I would find him eating something but instead I found him snuggling in my clothes in my closet.  

Day #4 in Paradise

8/20/12

Day #4 in paradise

Today was a fantastic day!  It's winter here so it was only 80 degrees and cloudy off and on.  Our first dive was a bit boring from a fish perspective but exciting on others.   We saw some fun clown fish but that's about it.   It appears that I had a leak in my regulator and towards the end of the dive  I looked at my gauge and  It was nearly at zero.   Ugh!  I swam to Alex and grabbed his safety buddy regulator.  Thank god for these.  Our guide came and took my weight belt and Alex and I did our safety stop together and then headed up to the boat.  Just as we reached the surface we ran out of air in his tank too!  It was a close call on both accounts.  I was a bit shaken but we both made it up safely so I guess "all is well".  I do have to admit though, this is my second equipment malfunction while here and I will be saving to buy my own regulator and BCD before our next diving trip. 

Baby Star  - about 2-3 feet in diameter.  

The baby star in above pictures will turn in to one of these. 

Thorny Crown Anemone - these eat coral and our divemaster took it back and buried it in the sand. 

Lettuce Coral

pretty

Huge clump of coral

This was the brightest green

Nudibranch!!  I love these little things - they are really just slugs but they are so colorful!  They are really tiny and hard to take a good picture of so I apologize for the blur. 

The black in the picture is our divemaster's arm - he was "protecting" his hand from the clown fish and the anemone.  Too bad they ended up biting a chunk out of his little finger. 

"Leave my Anemone alone!"

Huge Lettuce Coral - see the diver in the back for perspective. 

I noticed this spider in between dives... about 4 inches in size... did I mention that things were huge in Fiji?

Our second dive was amazing!  We swam through all sorts of caves and the coral and the fish were fantastic.  We played with numerous clown fish and anemone.  The clown fish are so fun, they get so peeved when you swim near their "home" and try and attack you by swimming straight at you. I'm use to clown fish that are 1-2 inches long but they are 6 inches + here and their teeth are seriously sharp.

This Anemone fish came and kept trying to bite my camera lens, that's why he is blurry. 

Anemone on the left open, and Anemone closed on the right.  The outside is safe to touch when it is closed and it is so silky soft. 

Nudibranch

Beautiful Coral

3 foot long sea cucumber climbing up a wall of coral - I think these things are just weird and cool.  

swim through

Me. 

Soft coral... looks like it has lights in it. 

"Peace Dude" - Alex during 3 minutes safety stop, notice boat above his head. 

After a second great dive we rested for a few hours in hammocks and then we went out in a sea kayak.   Leave it to us to find  a way to turn this simple activity into an adventure.  The boats are suppose to be unsinkable and unflippable.   Alex tried to paddle the kayak Fijian style - Standing up and fell into the ocean several times in the first 10 minutes.  Then I paddled along for awhile after Alex sat down pouting, when.... our unsinkable kayak started to sink and then our unflippable boat flipped over dumping us both in the ocean directly onto the coral reef that we were floating over.   We felt terrible about crashing on to the coral and breaking some so we hovered above the coral and swam pushing the sinking boat into shore.  After wiping away the blood from the cuts that the coral gave us,  Alex then found the hole in the boat that made us sink.   We flipped the boat over to drain it and that's when the skies opened and it started down pouring.  We just laughed at the situation.   The fresh rain actually felt good.    Fearing the boat sinking again with both of us in it Alex paddled it home while I walked on the beach collecting shells.   It really was another great day!

Alex pulls our sunken kayak onto the beach to drain it. 

"Really Rain, seriously?"  Not like we weren't already wet...

Having a great time with the situation and getting a good laugh out of it. 

Day #3 in Paradise

8/19/12

Day #3 in paradise

Today was yet another great day!  Alex got up at sun rise and went for a swim while I slept in.  The winds were up so we had to stay at the local reef again for our dives.  The coral again was spectacular and we saw several anomie with clown fish!!!  They are my favorite fish but man are they protective of their "homes".    After another restful afternoon on the beach we had a great dinner with fellow travelers.  Overall another great day!

Huge Lion Fish - about two feet

pretty blue fish

Nemo's friend - I can't remember his name.  

Our dive master played around with this rock for a long time.  I couldn't figure out why he was wasting so much time "playing with a rock" until.. 

Out came and Octopus!  It was awesome!

Pretty fish

A cave we swam through

clown fish

I think this is a type of puffer fish but we called them "puppy fish" for obvious reasons.  They were about a foot long. 

pretty coral

alex floating along

more pretty coral

This is a coral snake that if it bites you will kill you in about 30 minutes.  I almost stepped on it.  They kept telling me that no one ever got bit by them but I was still didn't want to step on it. 

This is one of my favorite fish.. it is about 2 feet long and just really neat looking.   

Day # 2 in paradise

8/18/12

Day #2 in paradise

We had a wonderfully sound night sleep and woke to the sound of parrots and other birds chirping in the yard and the jungle behind our Bure.   From our bed we can look out onto the garden and out over the ocean.   After a delicious breakfast of eggs and hot out of the oven Bear Scones we got all of our scuba gear together and headed out for two dives.  We stayed close today for "check" dives as Alex hasn't gone diving in nearly 4 years.  We were only 5 minutes out from the resort and the dives were great even though they weren't on the main reef.  

The amount of marine life here is profound.  There are so many more fish than I have seen before and they are 3-5 times larger than I've ever seen before.  The colors are amazing and the hard corals are huge and gorgeous.  I feel like I'm swimming in a post card.  On the second dive we saw two different kinds of octopus, two huge scorpion fish and dove through a cave.  Amazing to say the least!  I sprung a leak in my gauge and  started loosing air fast about half way through the dive.... got to use all my diving skills when I ran out of air,  but given that we had already been down for over an hour it was all right  to surface.

School of yellow jacks

Giant school of something silver

These coral shelves were 3-4 feet wide... huge!

It was all just so beautiful!

We encountered about 8-10 dolphin feeding on the way back to our resort. 

Did I mention that EVERYTHING in Fiji is HUGE?  This spider was about 4 inches long, no exaggeration.  They kept reassuring me that it didn't bite and wasn't poisonous.