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| Image by Ty Sawyer |
Sometime in our distant blue past, a directive must've been handed out insisting that only the most colorful flora and fauna would be allowed to homestead in the waters off Fiji. It has been overrun with color — corridors and hillocks, vertical walls and overhangs. Flitting above pinnacles and coral heads, clouds of orange and purple anthias rise and fall like living raindrops caught in a whirlwind. Basking in the glow of this backdrop you can't miss Fiji's wide world of sharks — gray, hammerhead, whitetip, leopard — as well as mantas and shoals of snappers, bigeye trevally and barracuda.
Between its two main islands — Viti Levu and Vanua Levu — are the rich wonderlands of the Bligh Water (named for Captain Bligh of the infamous HMS Bounty), where the astonishing quantity of soft corals and gorgonians that covers its reefs comes in such a wild variety of shapes that it looks as if Dr. Seuss and Hollywood director Tim Burton let their imaginations duel it out in the sea. Yellow Wall, Rainbow Wall and the popular E-6 are sites that seem to be taken from a Technicolor dream. Some sites have such a variety of life that photographers often run out of film early on in a dive.
"Complete" is probably the best word to describe diving in Fiji. Even the most demanding divers will find pleasure in the rich, warm, transparent waters. — CPR and CM
MUST DO
Visit a traditional village, watch a meke dance and savor kava, a slightly narcotic drink.
MUST DIVE
1 Mount Mutiny
2 Cat's Meow
3 Nigali Passage
4 Re-Run
5 Great White Wall
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