YOU Are My Favorite Fish

Bula!

Welcome on board known friends and new ones!

Such a lovely mix of people; friends getting together on diving trips, couples celebrating their wedding anniversaries; celebrating dives; and celebrating birthdays! 

What do YOU do to disconnect?

 “I book diving trips while I have coffee, in company of my dogs..." - Erika

And here we are!

Gorgeous sunset ~ Matt Warner

Ioannis videoed a white ray while everyone else was swimming through sea fan passages. 

Turtle for the other divers. 

Orange finned anemonefish on her carpet anemone and tons of eggs! ~ RaeAnn Hurst

All this on the “check out” dive… very very nice!

Fire dartfish ~ Erika Helms, such lovely and fun fish

“That is so beautiful.” - RaeAnn coming into the skiff, back in Fiji waters, after almost a whole year. 

Erika was mesmerized with little fire dartfish. I mean… they have purple glitter under their eyes and the most beautiful tail design. 

Decorated dartfish ~ Erika Helms

Two tone dartfish ~ Mike Chiado

Lindsey caught one of our white pygmy seahorses floating, “swimming”, if you can call it that, for a whole minute, not finding the appropriate landing hydroid to wrap its little tail around. 

White Pontoh's pygmy sea horse ~ Mike Chiado

Two more turtles, one for each group, big and small. 

Lemon coral goby ~ Erika Helms

So many lionfish out hunting on the last day dive; testament on how dark it is getting around five in the evening. 

Big scorpionfish lounging. 

Massive starry pufferfish “hiding” inside a crevice. 

Female leopard blenny ~ Erika Helms

Pocillopora coral filled with lemon coral gobies. 

Leopard blennies; pink, yellow, dark form, and light form. 

And anthias, anthias, and more anthias. 

Anthias everywhere ~ Mike Chiado

Square spot anthias male ~ Mike Chiado

Big cuttlefish on the night dive was a highlight, and “It was dark.” - Jim. Thanks Jim. 

RaeAnn does not need breakfast in the mornings, as the first dive of the day are her “breakfast of champions!”. 

School of big eyed barracuda ~ Erika Helms

“What fish was that? The Tahitian squirrelfish? Yes, after the oriental sweetlips! And the big scrawled filefish!

Oh, I missed that, I was looking at the grey reef sharks that passed by! And there were so many zebra dartfish!

Yes, a whole colony of them! And that last goby in the hardcoral? A flame hawkfish! Oh yes!

He was way too skittish to photograph but I saw him!” - all conversations after a crazy busy dive. 

Flame hawkfish ~ RaeAnn Hurst

Counted 25 sharks! It is mating time! 

Ghost goby  ~ Mike Chiado

Schoolhouse and Kansas kept on giving; and a lengthy dive at Dory’s Home was absolutely stunning! 

Many spotted sweetlips; diagonal lined sweetlips; and oriental sweetlips ~ Kevin Kurst

Guests are quite the troopers; “riding the skiffs bronco style”, as the winds picked up after two dead still days. 

An incredible shot from Yannis from Simi, waiting for divers to resurface

Unfortunate for all of us, no manta action… a beautiful eagle ray did pass around divers; glimpse of a hammer head shark in the distance; “floating in the midst of fusiliers” - Marc. 

Maybe it was the lack of mantas that made the wrasses at the cleaner station pay extra attention to us. Matt did a hell of a job trying to keep up; as did the ladies in a game of look and learn. 

Lemon peel angelfish ~ Mike Chiado

Mike was on the hunt again after witnessing the rare yet gorgeous black butterflyfish. 

We all know photographers: there is a level of stubbornness in all of them to get that image just right. 

And we enjoy those photos, i m m e n s e l y. 

Long nose hawkfish ~ Erika Helms

RaeAnn was the only diver to witness a nice sized peacock mantis shrimp, racing along the top of the reef. Not even her squeals got the divers attention, but the mantis sure did pay attention to her. 

Arc eye hawkfish ~ Mikr Chiado

Quite the sharky bleachers; if we couldn't tell sharks were mating before, it was clear now! All the scars, bites, and all of them cruising so close to each other, circling, and really not caring about US at all. 

Three-spot angelfish ~ Marcy Hixson

Unexpected manta feeding on the last day dive! “We saw two mantas!” - Ioannis, coming back to the boat, happy with his manta video. 

Yellow masked surgeonfish ~ Marcy Hixson

“I want to say that the golden damselfish like me personally… but I have seen that they use my torch light to eat stuff… I choose to believe the first option.” - Marc

Beautiful calm coral corners; tawny nurse shark, grey and white tip sharks. 

Big eyed trevally ~ RaeAnn Hurst

Rose tip anemones with their Fiji tomato anemonefish on both Coral and Mellow; so beautifully dark red! 

The poor bicolor rabbitfish has been confused for an angelfish by some, for a wrasse by others, and even been told “you don’t look like a rabbitfish”... people can be so cruel. 

Bicolor rabbitfish ~ Marcy Hixson

It was a little bit of a bitter sweet ending… the weather did take a turn for the worst, so Kevin didn't have his calm seas and sunny day he wished for his birthday… 

“At least we are the best at something. The best of the worst weather.” - Mike and his positivity, early in the morning. 

Blue dragon ~ Yannis Bourodimos

The divers that remained diving on the last day, cold, dark, and windy, did enjoy fish that we don't tend to find on other reefs: beautiful goby, banded goby, juvenile pacific sailfin tang, and sooooo many pajama cardinalfish. 

The trio photographed after done diving ~ Yannis Bourodimos

"I have no regrets."- Erika

Vinaka vakalevu everyone!

Your attitude was the sunshine that we lacked!