fiji adventure
There’s adventure lurking under the limpid surface of Fiji’s Beqa Lagoon – and it has fins, as Merran White discovers.
In loose formation, our dive group fins across the seabed to the designated arena. I strive to maintain a slow, even pattern of breaths, keen to conserve air. Anxiety underwater is never good: you burn through that precious mix of oxygen and nitrogen, hyperventilating like nobody’s business.
Staying Zen is not easy, though, despite the balmy water and the meditative white noise of air whooshing in and bubbling out through the regulator. We’re here to share dinnertime at the aptly named Bistro with the ocean’s most ruthless predators and, despite the dive outfit’s stellar safety reputation, there’s always the chance we’ll end up as shark-bait.
Twenty metres below the surface of Beqa Lagoon, off Viti Levu’s Pacific Harbour, we are about to have a very close shark encounter. Perhaps we should’ve stayed on shore. It would have been too easy to spend the week in our comfort zone, lazing about a lagoon pool at some ritzy Coral Coast resort. But we hadn’t flown here for suntans: we’d come to dive the renowned Rainbow Reef, the anemone-studded walls and soft-coral gardens off Taveuni; and to swim with sharks in world-famous Beqa Lagoon.
Our holiday starts at Nadi, where getting to Suva is easy: an air-conditioned minibus deposits us handily at the bus station next to the capital’s colourful covered handcrafts-cum-flea market. We grab the chance to do a spot of gift-shopping – carved kava bowls with little feet; tapa (bark) cloth; woodcarvings and woven baskets; shell and silver jewellery – and stock up with bottled water and local fruit: bananas, pineapple, star fruit and a smelly, possibly ill-advised durian from the nearby fresh-produce stalls. There’s little that can disguise that pungent durian aroma so we carve it up and eat it before setting out for a wander around the CBD.
Fiji’s capital city is more like a country town, its streets lined with colonial-style buildings overhung with columned verandahs; its gardens bright with bougainvillea and hibiscus, sweet with frangipani. The vibe is laidback but don’t let that lull you: downtown Suva is littered with bars and gaming dens, pawnshops and prostitutes, and there’s a disturbingly high incidence of drunkenness and assault – not to mention the occasional coup. After dark, a woman alone might want to think twice about visiting some of the rowdier watering holes. Fortunately, we’re not here for the nightlife.
We stay another day, drunks notwithstanding, and check out the Fiji Museum with its oddball collection of artefacts from Fiji’s former headhunting days. We visit the terrific Government Handcrafts Centre away on the corner of Carnavon Street and Victoria Parade and meander through the lush, well-manicured Thurston Gardens, surprisingly sparsely populated bar the native fauna.
Mementoes procured and highlights ticked off, we board a public bus bound for Rakiraki, to the north, along with a dozen or so bright-shirted, be-thonged Fijians and several sari-clad Indian women hauling shopping bags and trailed by doe-eyed offspring. It’s a vehicle straight out of the sixties, with hard seats and open windows, its rear-view mirror decked out like a Hindi wedding tent. As we roar out of Suva, Bollywood hits blare from tinny speakers.
Before long, rain starts spitting through the rolled-up-canvas-clad openings. Passengers, undeterred, break out packages of food – banana-leaf-wrapped fish and taro, aromatic curries, roti and dahl – as we careen through a brooding tropical landscape dotted with petrol stations and roadside stalls, sugarcane fields, spindly coconut palms and the occasional wayward livestock.
At Rakiraki, we down ginger tablets and board the fast daily ferry to Savusavu. Sprawled on the southern coast of Vanua Levu, Viti Levu’s less developed northerly neighbour, this tourist hub offers adventures aplenty. If time had permitted, we could have hiked through nearby mountains; joined a game-fishing charter; kayaked around the coast; snorkelled among bright-hued fish; chilled out at the spiffy Cousteau Fiji Resort. But, itching to dive the famed Rainbow Reef, we’re headed for Taveuni, the closest island to it, a choppy hop across the Somosomo Strait.
Densely clad in vegetation and bisected by a 1,000-plus-metre-high volcanic ridge, Fiji’s ‘garden isle’ lures visitors with several waterfalls, rainforests criss-crossed with well-marked nature trails, an impressive array of birdlife and proximity to dozens of top-notch dive sites.
Around 42 kilometres long and an average 11 clicks wide, Taveuni has rudimentary infrastructure and limited local transport. From the ferry, a minibus trundles us to our island destination: budget-friendly Bibi’s Hideaway, a bunch of thatched-roof huts tucked into tropical gardens at the northern end of the island and our base for the duration. We’re here for two days’ diving, squeezing in a day of leisurely hiking between.
The island’s rugged east coast is scored with steep cliffs and largely inaccessible, much of it protected by Bouma National Heritage Park. From where we’re staying on the north-west coast, it’s a cinch to reach the park’s Tavoro Falls, a trio of pretty cascades. The first is an easy five-minute walk from the main road – and thanks to an indentation behind it, you can leap right through the waterfall into a limpid swimming hole below. A shortish, steep hike through tangled rainforest and trees festooned with orchids brings us to the second fall. Getting to the third involves a rope-assisted wade across-river and another half-hour’s hike up the valley but is well worth the effort (bring a cossie).
At the end of the road, 20 minutes from Bouma Falls, Lavena village marks the start of the five-kilometre Lavena Coastal Walk, which skirts the forest, then hugs the coast. We traipse past beaches, coves and cascades, wobbling across swing bridges to forge rivers en route. Birds are everywhere: we see parrots and think we hear a Peale’s barking pigeon, but fail to spot the native orange dove.
Taveuni’s west coast is the closest point to the Rainbow Reef and its Great White Wall, rated by U.S. Divers magazine as among the top 10 dive locations in the world. As the dive boat buffets wind-whipped waves in the Somosomo Strait, we’re gearing up, keen to get underwater. A strongish current necessitates some energetic finning and by the time we surface from our second dive, we’re exhausted but amply rewarded for our efforts.
At Annie’s Bommie and The Zoo we’re immersed in a kaleidoscope of multi-hued hard and soft corals and teeming tropical fish; at the breathtaking 65-metre-plus sheer drop-off that is the Great White Wall, we swim slowly, marvelling at the mass of white, lavender-fringed soft corals, while on the ocean side, turtles, barracuda, eagle and manta rays cruise past.
We even spot the odd shark. But this is nothing, we’ve heard, compared with the underwater action at what’s billed as the number one shark dive in the world, back on Viti Levu’s Coral Coast in Beqa Lagoon.
Back in Suva, we hire a minibus and make a beeline for Pacific Harbour, on Viti Levu’s Coral Coast. Our destination: Club Oceanus, where PADI-accredited dive outfit Aqua-Trek is our dive operator. Luckily, we sleep soundly, because dawn’s hardly broken before we’re 20 metres below the surface of Beqa Lagoon.
I banish catastrophic thoughts, focus on breathing, and adjust my buoyancy so as not to stir up sand and obscure everyone’s vision. Fellow divers hover, bristling with high-end equipment and state-of-the-art underwater cameras, waiting to take their assigned positions on the sea bed as per the dive master’s hand signals. I get a dress-circle spot beside the ‘arena’, behind a rope offering what seems like scant protection.
Others pile in till we’ve formed ourselves into a huge human huddle, with everyone’s limbs safely tucked in. The aim, presumably, is to look like a lumpy, neoprene-clad rock rather than anything edible, though we’re assured the sharks won’t be interested in having us for dinner and Aqua-Trek’s safety record is immaculate.
Once we’re in position, cameras poised, two dive guides swim down and lift the lid on a large garbage bin that’s been lowered to the sea bed. Within seconds, more and more sharks stream in. They thrash around, swishing tails and snapping jaws at the proffered offal.
A big bull shark worries a fish-head a mere few metres from our group. She’s a good three metres long with a swollen belly and a mouthful of fearsome teeth.
Perhaps too awesome: the shark has lost her grip on a large fish-head which, instead of sinking, bounces in slow-mo through the watery space between the trashcan and our human huddle. The shark darts at razor-sharp speed towards us, cold fishy eye fixated on its quarry. We wanted an adrenalin rush: we got it.
Photography courtesy Aqua-Trek and Fiji Tourism.
travel facts
getting there
getting around
where to stay
- Bibi’s Hideaway, phone + 02 8005 1232 or visit www.beautifulfiji.com/bibi-hideaway
- Fiji Beach Resort & Spa Managed by Hilton, phone +679 675 6800 or visit
www.fijibeachresortbyhilton.com
- InterContinental Fiji Golf Resort & Spa, phone 1800 221 335 or +679 673 3300 or visit www.ichotelsgroup.com
- Likuliku Lagoon Resort Fiji, phone +679 672 0978 or visit www.likulikulagoon.com
- Laucala Island, phone 1300 766 566 or visit http://laucala.com.com
- Lomani Island Resort, phone 679 666 8212 or visit www.lomaniisland.com
- Malolo Island Resort, phone +679 672- 0978 or visit www.maloloisland.com
- Jean-Michel Cousteau Fiji Islands Resort, phone 1300 306 171 or visit
www.fijiresort.com
- Outrigger on the Lagoon Fiji, phone +679 650 0044 or visit www.outriggerfiji.com Pearl South Pacific Resort, phone +679 345 0022 or visit
www.thepearlsouthpacific.com
- Royal Davui Island Resort, phone 02 9388 4488 or visit www.royaldavui.com
- Sheraton Fiji Resort, phone +679 675 0777 or visit www.sheraton.com
- Taveuni Palms Resort, phone +679 888 0032 or visit www.taveunipalms.com
- Turtle Island, phone 1300 887 287 or 03 9823 8300 or visit www.turtlefiji.com
- Yasawa Island Resort & Spa, phone +679 6722 266 or visit www.yasawa.com
what to do
- Eco-conscious, PADI-accredited dive outfit Aqua-Trek runs pleasure and instructional dives including its renowned Ultimate Shark Dive at sites in Beqa Lagoon and off Taveuni. Phone +679 345 0324 or visit www.aquatrek.com
further information
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