Heartbeat Of The Reef

Friends, acquaintances, and strangers that meet. 

Ten divers from the UK who have not seen each other in a while. 

France, Canada and the US came on board to spend time together as well. 

And dear Benny wanted to visit Fiji!

During this charter, we got to comment with our guests, how the amount of anthias and their movement on our reefs are similar to the motion of the reef’s “heartbeat”. 

Janet shot these beautiful sea fans

A very fishy and active start to the charter.

Such a cute dwarf hawkfish ~ Vernon

As well as a very tea drinking group! 

Gerry is now officially known as “as long as I get my cuppa at the end of the dive, everything is fine.”

Huge hardcoral table ~ Vernon

Maryline was, in no time, quite the expert in finding lemon coral gobies.

Magenta whip corals ~ Vernon

Lots of hunting action from all the fish around the divers and dive sites; including three HUGE dogtooth tuna patrolling the area. 

School of schooling bannerfish ~ Lynn

Beautiful big eyed trevally tornado ~ Lynn

Lynn came into the skiff “That was absolutely beautiful!” albeit a bit of current. Unfortunately fortunately for all of us, currents bring all that life into action. 

More typical soft corals here in our beautiful waters ~ Vernon

Talking about currents… they are behaving w e i r d. Not badly at all… but interestingly. 

And even more Fiji underwater scenery ~ Vernon

Wake up dive, drifting between scad, blue finned trevallies, coachwhip trevallies, big eyed trevallies, brassy trevallies, all sorts of barracuda, big green turtle, grey reef sharks surfing the fish, and a curious hammer head shark coming up to meet us! 

Yellow soft corals and anthias ~ Janet

So much color and fish!

Sea fans, hardcoral, leather coral and a picasso triggerfish ~ Janet

A blue spotted pufferfish took a real liking to Leo, coming directly towards him, only to dive directly into a beautiful windowsill to get cleaned, alongside cardinal fish and pipefish who live there. 

Gorgeous sea fan and golden damselfish ~ Vernon

“A titan triggerfish was just munching on coral, so I could get a brilliant shot.” - Andre

“Pregnant shark, big shark, baby sharks.” - Lynn (Schoolhouse) with three melanistic mantas rays soaring by them. 

From these 3 mantas, we got shots of 2 of them and they were both unmanned and new!

M497, a big melanistic female, was named by the group Tiger Lily (in honor of one of Sue’s alpacas) and M570, unknown gender, named Lynn after one of our main divers that brought people together. 

Both Tiger Lily and Lynn with Chris in the corner basking in their glory ~ Lynn

Meanwhile, both resident leafy scorpionfish have switched their corals (curious); sweetlips all around the reef; hammer heads early in the morning and big eyed trevally tornado. 

Young sharks suspiciously eye divers as if to say “What are you?” followed by rainbow runners. 

More yellow soft coral ~ Janet

“So full of life!” - Janet, after the last dive of the day, full of hunting fish everywhere, alongside an active marbled ray, quite big turtle and so many shrimps busy at work. 

Such a combo of everything ~ Lynn

Even with the downpour of monsoon-like conditions, divers got to enjoy the slow and majestic presence of the big flappy flappies. Django gave a show, which is uncommon for her as she is quite shy. 

Django on the cleaner station ~ Janet

Next up, blue clear waters. Full of fusilier action, barracudas coming around over and over again; spadefish in the deep; chunky hammer head shark; fast moving leafy scorpionfish (a bit suicidal if you ask us) and marbled shrimp pocking their heads out to peer at us. 

Yellow finned anemonefish ~ Lynn

To end the diving day, a nice drift in the blue and on the reef: turtle chilling at the bottom; schools of pinjaloo and surgeons; leopard flounders and peacock razor fish; juvenile ribbon eel; and even anemonefish eggs. Dozens of staring eyes. 

Pink anemonefish and pink anemone! ~ Lynn

And because it was such a cloudy and dark day, all the squirrel and soldier fish were roaming the top of their reef and not hiding inside their crevices. 

Everyone adventured out in raincoats and umbrellas to the village of Makogai. “The rain just added to the adventure!” - Julia

It was, as always, so much fun. We got to say Merry Christmas and Happy New Years to everyone, as we won't see them all again until February. 

Drapey soft corals at Rainbow Wall ~ Janet

Real pretty reefs, both hard coral and soft corals all around. 

Magenta soft coral that looks soooo soft underwater ~ Lynn

The big distant ball of fire made an appearance on the sixth day at the fourth hour; everybody rejoiced. 

Endemic Fiji anemonefish ~ Andre

We had a motto going on this charter with all our night dives (kudos to both Maryline and Leo for doing all of them): go slow, go slower, go slowest. 

The amount of little buggers we all found; from miniature nudibranchs to flying small fire worms and shrimps to decorator crabs. 

Skeleton shrimp (soooo tiny) ~ Maryline

Undescribed nudibranch at night ~ Maryline

Blue eyed hingebeak shrimp ~ Andre

“Fabulous.” - Paul (Cathedral) Our remaining eight divers (others had flight limitations and outright exhaustion) all had such positive things to say about the Cathedral… And it is gorgeous. 

Two beautiful octopus, probably trying to get together ~ Janet

Vinaka vakalevu everyone!