Fiji Scuba Diving

Overview of Fiji

For left coasters, it takes about the same amount of time to get to Fiji as it does to the Caribbean: 10 hours nonstop from L.A. Prices are comparable and air packages can include New Zealand/Australia extensions at little extra cost. Fijians are polite, friendly, modest, and religious, so watch your language, and wear nonrevealing clothes to town. Wetsuits are staples yearround; currents add coolness and in some places they're vigorous, so carry surface signaling devices. In September 2004, American Dan Grenier, the former operator of Crystal Divers, disappeared with another diver while leading divers from Bamboo Reef Resort on Nananu-I-Ra The weather can be stormy June through September; short, heavy showers are possible any afternoon year-round, especially around Beqa Lagoon. The year-round average temperature is 80 or above; nights average 69 degrees in winter.

Fiji Seasonal Dive Planner

Fiji's weather presents a real mixed bag. The choice is often between good visibility and cool water or warm water and calmer seas with less visibility. June through October is the dry season when the water is the clearest, but it's also at its coldest and the winds kick up. Water temperatures can sink into the low 70s during this time of the year, making it necessary to drag out the full wetsuits. November brings a transition period. The water warms up, the winds die down, and the plankton blooms, lowering the visibility. By January and February, the water has warmed back up into the low 80s. The rains pick up and the hurricane season is on (December through March). Counting Tonga and Samoa, the area gets about five cyclones a year. It's a risky time to try to catch good diving weather. Because the winds kick up so much in February and March, some resorts pick these months to close down for repairs. During April and May, the wind, and therefore the seas, become calmer and the water remains warm, but the plankton bloom cuts down on the underwater visibility. Of course, this offers the best odds of seeing large plankton eaters. The best time to go depends on your preferences: warm, calmer, cloudy seas, or clear but cold water.

Featured Links
NAI'A -- Fiji Liveaboard The gold standard for South Pacific diving since 1993, NAI'A discovered Fiji's most famous sites. Dutch-built steel ship, 120 x 30 ft, 18 passengers & 14 crew.	Sea Fiji Travel Exclusive Fiji specialists since 1990. Choose from Taveuni, Beqa, Kadavu, liveaboards, and many other resort locations. We've been diving Fiji since 1986.	Reef & Rainforest, Dive & Adventure Travel A full service dive travel agency located in California. We specialize in exotic destinations (South Pacific, Indian Ocean, Africa, South & Central America).	Moody's Namena Resort World-class diving just minutes away from your land-based bure within the Namena Barrier Reef, a marine reserve.

Fiji Feature Articles and Reader Reports

Attention! You must be an Undercurrent Online Member to access MOST links in this section. However some articles can be accessed by the public -- these links have a button you can click to see the article.

For Undercurrent Online Members and some available for Public
Dive Articles - Land Based Fiji Divers Caught in Pricing Battle at Garden Island Resort, 10/08 Moody's Namena, Fiji, South Pacific, a romantic hideaway with fine diving, 4/06 Available For Public Thumbs Down: Taveuni Island Resort, 4/03 Qamea Beach Resort, (see sidebar, page 3), 6/97 Cousteau Fiji Island Resort, 6/97 Matana Resort, 7/96 Loma Loma, 4/96 Marlin Bay, 2/96 Primer, 5/94	Dive Articles - Liveaboards Nai’a, Fiji, bright diving, weather permitting, good service all the time, 7/08 Nai'a Crew Rescues All Hands After Grounding, 10/06 Available For Public Return to Fiji Aboard the Nai'a, 6/03

Editor's Book Picks for Fiji
Including Beqa Lagoon/Pacific Harbor, Kadavu,
Laucala, Nananu-I Ra, Taveuni and Matangi

The books below are my favorites about diving in this part of the world All books are available at a significant discount from Amazon.com; just follow the links. -- BD

Reef Fish Identification: Tropical Pacific: by Gerald Allen, Rodger Steene, Paul Humann, & Ned DeLoach. At last, here's a comprehensive fish ID guide covering the reefs of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The generous 500-page text, displaying 2,500 underwater photographs of 2,000 species, identifies the myriad fishes that inhabit the warm tropical seas between Thailand and Tahiti. The concise text accompanying each species portrait includes the fish's common, scientific and family names, size, description, visually distinctive features, preferred habitat, typical behavior, depth range, and geographical distribution. This is an essential book for every diver traveling westward. 6x9 inches. Order through us, get Amazon.com's best price and a good hunk of the profit will be donated to the Coral Reef Alliance.

If you're headed south out of San Diego, Fishes of the Tropical Eastern Pacific
by Gerald R. Allen, D. Ross Robertson, is the fish guide you need.

With 324 photo-packed pages covering 680 species of sharks and sailfish, wrasses and razorfish, pipefish and pearlfish, this is the ultimate ID book for the Baja, Costa Rica, the Galapagos, and the Sea of Cortez. Sponsored by the Smithsonian Institute Drs. Gerald Allen and Ross Robertson took years to produce this definitive volume that describes and comments on the remarkable behavior of these critters. Hardbound, $85.

Moon Handbook: Fiji, 8th Ed. by David Stanley. The Moon Handbook series has always been one of my favorite guides for just about anywhere they wrote. If you're serious about travelling in Fiji or just learning about what your options are, you'd be well advised to get a copy. It's only $19.95 now at Amazon. Buy now.

Coral Reef Animals of the Indo-Pacific
by Terrence M. Gosliner, David W. Behrens, Gary C. Williams.

At last -- a just-published, complete guide to help you identify the uncountable variety of weird critters you'll see on any Indo-Pacific dive, complete with full-color photo of 1,100 species. About Coral Reef Animals of the Indo-Pacific, Chris Newbert says, "This invaluable new book makes identification easy and enjoyable." There are scores of flatworms, nudibranchs galore, bumblebee shrimp, painted crayfish, pompom crabs, side-gilled sea slugs, and endless corals. Marine biologists Terry Gosliner, David Behrens, and Gary Williams cover the reefs from the Solomons to Sipadan, from the Maldives to Maui, from Palau to Papua New Guinea. They provide good notes to help you find and identify each critter. Indispensable for any Indo-Pacific trip. Paperback, 8x110, 314 pages, $45.00.

Indo-Pacific Coral Reef Field Guide
by Gerald R. Allen, Roger Steene.

I was trying to pack light for a change. Surely the Solomon Sea would have good identification books aboard. Not so; the only book on the boat belonged to a fellow passenger. It was one that I had not seen before, the Indo-Pacific Coral Reef Field Guide, by two of the best fish guys around, Gerry Allen and Roger Steene. The problem was this fellow passenger kept it in a plastic baggie most of the trip and I had to beg to see it. Great book, good traveling size, and it covers everything from fish, shells, marine plants, mammals, corals, and invertebrates to sea birds and more. Now I've got my own, and it won't do you any good to beg me to borrow it. This is one of two books that I will not travel to the Pacific without. Good for travel to the Red Sea, East Africa, Seychelles, Mauritius, Maldives, Andaman Sea, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Australia, Micronesia, Polynesia, and Hawaii, it has 1,800 color illustrations in a 6x8 1/2 paperback format with 378 pages. $39.95.

You might find some other books of interest in our Editor's Book Picks section.