We Are Color, Fiji Is Color

Welcome back Suzy, Jay, Andy, Tony, Simon, Bill and Barbara!

“And to everyone here tonight, you are Nai’a family. Welcome home.” - Big Mo

And this is a big part of why we are blessed with guests who keep on returning. 

Some of these new comers were the cause of this charter's flamboyancy.

And then Rich added his own flare by attacking divers with his shark glove! 

“I read about it (Cat’s Meow); it lived up to the hype!” - Rich

Between him, Liz, and myself, we shared our own personal underwater signs for grouper… they were all very different. Yet, surface communication is the key for underwater talks!

Edwin took this gorgeous shot from a tunnel in the shallows of Mount Mutiny 

Liz is completely enamored with anemonefish. She even has an anemone book back home! (We really should get one.)

Orange-finned anemonefish smiling at Edwin

And there were fish and fish and fish.. “Sorry, are we going to see fish?” - Jay. No Jay, you have not been listening. Barely ANY fish! 

Blooming yellow, pink, and purple soft corals. 

Green, blue, and yellow hard corals.

Rose tip anemones, ball anemones, and spaghetti anemones. 

Nudis and a whole black coral “tree” filled with Loki whip gobies, common ghost gobies, and creamback dwarf gobies. 

I want to say Loki whip coral goby ~ Edwin

Diagnosed cream back dwarf goby ~ Suzy

Stonycoral ghost goby by Suzy

White reef sharks, oceanic triggerfish, turtles, scorpionfish, stonefish, leopard blennies, dragonets, shrimp gobies, blue dragons, file clam, and golden damselfish eggs.

Turtle, sharks and even an octopus sighting by Tony; he made friends with him. 

“That was quite a dive! I could wake up to this every day.”- Edwin (Hard coral wall)

Common octopus who spent 10 minutes teasing us up and down, changing his colors and making Sheila shriek in delight ~ Jay

What is going on on these whip corals? Six whip coral shrimps found on a single whip!

Look up! Swordfish hunting a school of mackerel near the surface!

School of barracuda ~ Edwin

“I went to the safety stop level, grabbed the rope, and watched the mayhem unfold.”- Andy (Kansas with current: divers hoping from pygmy sea horse to pipefish to moray eel to white tip.. Andy is over currents at this point so he enjoyed 20 minutes on the Kansas sinularia field, living his best life) 

Pretty Dory ~ Bill

Orangutan crab at Tetons! One more addition to the creature hunt!

This really must be a record high of turtles and octopus seen in one charter!

Morrison's dragonet ~ Bill

“Sweetlips all around!” - Jay (Schoolhouse) 

Thanks to Jay’s colorful speedos, all the fish were there! *

*Due to this, we HAD to lend Suzy a purple tutu, to match up to her husband’s flare. 

And what does Jay do… he steals the tutu!

“Even the sharks were taking pictures!” - Edwin

Wart sea slugs ~ Edwin (Simon did love finding these, he is moving up in the underwater world) 

Absolutely gorgeous wart sea slug hiding in a completely covered yellow soft coral cave ~ Edwin 

“At the end we had everything; baby sharks, barracudas and all the fish… it was an aquarium!” - Chris

Longnose hawkfish ~ Suzy 

We could ask for more… but that would be greedy.

Turtle chilling at the start. 

Among the big eyed trevally grey reef sharks and pick handle barracudas looming on top of us. 

Great (GREAT) hammer head shark appeared out of the blue, came right under us to disappear into the school of big eyed trevally.  S t u n n i n g !

Octopus who Sheila found twice, but declined her invitation to play. 

Porcelain crab alongside coral banded shrimp and other smaller anemone shrimp on an anemone. 

Shy napoleon wrasse. 

Our two resident leafy scorpionfish, posing for everyone. 

Two juvenile regal angelfish and a pygmy sharpnose wrasse inside a big cave. 

Two sitting gray coral crouchers and yellow-spotted scorpionfish in the pocilloras at the safety stop level. 

This dive sounds like a grocery list. 

A sort of soft sponge crab in the night ~ Edwin

Hinge beak shrimps ~ Edwin

Simon almost had a fight with his buddy Edwin, as someone was hitting him repeatedly on the fin. It was not Edwin, but a very mad golden damselfish who felt his home infiltrated by a fin and boot. 

I was later informed I had a curled up sea snake under me as I was trying to find a flame hawkfish… Thank God I didn’t see it!

“He (Bill) takes the photos, so when I (Barbara) see something I want him to take a photo of, I whack him with my stick. So he has to be in whacking distance at all times.” - That is a true buddy system

“While you guys were searching for worms (we found some!), I was chilling with the fish upstairs.” - Andy and his preferred way of diving: on top of bommies, chilling like a villain. 

This stonefish is SO ugly he is cute... yet he looks like a smashed pancake with a face ~ Jay

Treasure hunting and an adventurous expedition that paid off (Simon had his doubts at first). We got to enjoy a pair of decorated dartfish, reticulated butterfly fish (only seen at Gau for now) and a wonderfully big and interactive octopus. 

Raggy scorpionfish posing for a picture ~ Edwin

Had a few mantas, our big males Johnny and Geo. 

Mickey Manta made an appearance. 

Shirley and Nai’a Blue came over on the second day to clean. 

Leafy scorpionfish on the cleaner station. 

Cleaner shrimp action. 

Juvenile leopard wrasse (sooo cute)

So many scorpionfish. 

More octopus. 

Nudibranch (Spanish dancer) eggs. 

Not so timid sharpnose pygmy wrasse. 

Baby anemonefish moving around much like a juvenile sweetlips!

All because Edwin triple tutu’d… 

Semi was the nudi finder plus a crab spider. 

Splendid garden eels; yellow nose shrimpgobies; enormous puffer chilling on the sand; more sharks; more hammers!

To add to these ray days... eagle ray!

Brand new chocolaty leafy scorpionfish on the outside of Cathedral ~ Edwin

The village visit at Makogai was as lovely as ever. We even had a special extra as the villagers wanted to personally thank both Suzy and Jay for their past generosity when they donated them a generator. 

Coral lemon gobies, purple and pink soft corals mimicking cotton candy and a big hammer head in the shallows, just whacking distance from Tony’s backside, right in front of a bewildered Andy. 

Cuuuuute boxfish ~ Edwin

Marbled complex shrimp ~ Edwin was obsessed with these on every night dive

Honeycomb toby ~ Edwin

And of course, only amazed faces and words for our dive sites in Vatu-i-Ra. 

“I think that was my favorite dive yet” - Simon (The Whole Shebang) 

Some sort of night crawler (crab) ~ Edwin

Steinitz's shrimpgoby ~ Edwin

And what a way to finish off our trip!

Nai’a pipefish found while chasing a little sharpnose; brown banded pipefish found while we were inundated by fish, both groups, at Maytag, all going mad! Red snappers, unicorn fish, all types of fusiliers, tuna and Spanish mackerel. 

Sharpnose pygmy wrasse ~ Bill

A great close up of a magenta dottyback ~ Bill

Vinaka vakalevu everyone!

We know we shall see many of you, hopefully soon!

Happy bubbles!