Home / 2. Trip Reports / Trip Report : Fiji Baby!
Trip Report by Anna
Way back last year we thought let’s go to FIJI.
(I can pinpoint the decision down to the time we were on the jetty at Lake Pupuke in a hail storm, getting ready to return to the water after a surface interval spent shivering inside the car with the heaters on full, ruffling the wooly beanies firmly pulled down over goose pimpled heads.) GOOD decision.
We were a select few, but all in need of a tropical dive holiday.
Now let’s just stop here and look at these points separately.
Tropical – palm trees, white sandy beaches, crystal blue water, cocktails, sunshine, WARMTH, islands, TICK
Dive – fish in abundance, hard corals, soft corals, sharks, wrecks, reefs, colour, photo opportunity, guided/unguided, drift, TICK
Holiday – relax, read books, siesta, duty free, socializing, sundowners, suntan/burn/block, getting away from it all, TICK
Put these all into one package and you have Volivoli Beach Resort and Dive holiday.
The guys at Volivoli are a really nice kiwi family whose son trained as a dive instructor in the cool waters of the South Island.
After working in Kaikoura for a bit he ran away to Fiji on his OE and never left. The family followed and set up the resort which is what they do and do well.
Volivoli is lovely and really well put together.
(They even have and Iron and Ironing board in the 4 star accom!!! Not that I knew what to do with them!?)
The diving was superb.
The outer reefs are lush and teeming with the full spectrum of colourful reef fish. The soft coral is absolutely stunning. Have no doubt as to why Fiji is known as the soft coral capital of the world!!
I’ll let the pictures do the talking on this.
/ Photograph by Andrew Simpson
We saw reef sharks every day and even had a dive with a Turtle.
The inner reefs were a little less clear but we had some fantastic macro dives. Popcorn shrimp beautiful gorgonian fans, anemones with resident clown fish, tropical scorpion fish and leaf fish.
We also spent some time with the biggest eel that I have ever seen!!!
Honestly you could have fit Andrew’s head in its mouth with room to spare, and Andrew’s got a big head!
We all certainly made the most of being on holiday.
Lots of off gassing in the bar and in the sun out side the Bure with the duty free (tip- read the label on the mixers before buying as Gin and Soda is a completely different drink to Gin and Tonic, especially the first gulp!!)
After a leisurely dip in the pool to cool off after a heavy reading session (substitute siesta for reading), we would have a social evening dining and sharing tall tales in the lounge.
All in all this was a tropical dive holiday.
So much so that we are going to go back this September/October.
