Instant Reader Report
on Ra Divers / Wananavu in
Fiji / Nananu I Ra on
2003/04
by
Peter J Maerz , FL, USA
Report Number 030728233213629

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 Bahamas, Bonaire, Dominica, Guadaloupe, Guanaja, Little Cayman, St. Lucia,
St. Vincent, plus over 100 dives in SE Florida where I live. 

Dive Conditions

None  

No rinse tanks on boats. As a digital photographer, I can't speak for film
processing facilities, if they exist.   

Overall Rating

    This was the second stop in a 3-week Fiji trip. The resort is very
beautiful, with every inch of ground covered with flowering plants, palms
and shrubs. The oceanview "Burre" or cabin I had looked like
something out of Architectural Digest, with high ceilings, spot-lit white
shelving, beautiful hard wood walls and louvered windows and a bathroom
that took up a third of the floor plan with a 15-foot-long vanity and a
shower with plate glass window facing an enclosed garden. An adequate AC
unit over the bed and ceiling fan ameliorated the suffocating heat and
humidity. The views are great from the oceanview burres and the dining
terrace, looking out onto the channel which separates the mainland from
the island of Nananu I Ra and its smaller neighbors. 
    The food here was much better than at the Garden Island Resort on
Taveuni and the pool very unique, with large stones embedded in it and a
rock wall and lush vegetation surrounding it. 
    I had wanted to sign up with the Crystal Divers op after reading raves
in Undercurrent, but, beacasue I was told by Reef and Rainforest that
Crystal told them they were fully booked with "German Tourists",
I was "forced" to dive with Ra Divers. This was disputed by
Crystal's owner/operator when I met him at the resort. Since then, the
truth of who claimed what to whom for what gain has still not clearly come
out, but, of course, this didn't change my situraion at the time.  Sadly, I
took to calling Ra Divers the "Loser Op". Real nice, hard-working
guys, but the equipment is not in great shape and the operation is much
more loosely run than AqueTrek's. Every day a problem prevented us from
leaving anywhere near on time, though they maintained that divers must be
at the dock at 8:30. A dead battery, a shorted wire to the motor that
lifts the outboard up, a fouled fuel filter, a late-signing passenger and
other calamaties within or beyond Ra's control interfered to lesser or
greater degrees with the diving experience. Also, my gear was handled so
roughly that it sustained some pretty serious damage (I watched from shore
one morning when the tank with my gear attached fell over at the hands of
the lead DM. That one took care of a zipper pull on my BC and, as I
discovered after returning home, broke the housing on my second stage---no
WONDER I was sucking so much water on my last dives!).
There were not one but two tropical depressions that made their way over
our resort during the week so conditions were obviously pretty funky. With
that in mind, though, the diving was not nearly as good as in Somosomo
Strait. Nowhere near the amount of fish life, very few sharks (which was a
main attraction for me to this site). But almost every surface blanketed
with finger corals, octo corals and all manner of stuff, a fair amount of
soft corals and some fun swim thru's and overhangs. The diving is all
among large pinnaces or "bommies", stacked one up against the
next, so the views are pretty dramatic (or would be if the vis were
greater than the 30 or 40 feet I experienced). Admitedly, we did not dive
the farther-out Bligh Water sites that the liveaboards and, apparently
Crystal Divers do, but it still was not the same experience as in
Taveuni.

 

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