Small Bite out of Bligh

SURFACING AFTER ANOTHER DIVE in Bligh Water, we couldn’t imagine how anyone could fail to fall in love with the colourful reefs of this region of Fiji.

However, the man for whom this body of water was named certainly had no love for the area, and in fact Lieutenant William Bligh feared having to sail through there at all – and not because he was worried about hitting those colourful reefs.

The year was 1789, and Bligh had just been thrown off his own ship by most of his crew in the infamous mutiny on the Bounty.

The mutineers were not completely heartless, because they deposited Bligh and 18 men still loyal to him, in a 7m launch with a few supplies. They didn’t really expect any of Bligh’s men to survive in the small boat, however, because they would have to pass through the dreaded islands of Fiji.

At the time the Fijians were reported to be savage cannibals, so the islands were avoided by European sailors. But with Bligh deciding that the quickest route to safety would be to sail to Timor, he and his men had to make the first European voyage through the islands of Fiji to have a chance of getting there.

In a remarkable feat of seamanship, Bligh and his men not only safely made it through those islands without being eaten, or hitting a colourful reef, but also made it safely to Timor, a voyage of more than 3500 nautical miles!

Today the islands of Fiji have a different reputation, one of friendly welcomes, and attract sun-seeking tourists. While Bligh might have moved discreetly fast through the area that now bears his name, scuba-divers linger as long as possible to explore some of the richest and prettiest coral reefs in the South Pacific.

Over the years we have visited Fiji many times, but have always headed to Beqa Lagoon, lured by the area’s incredible shark dives. But a recent invitation by Tourism Fiji to dive Bligh Water with a group of travel agents and travel writers was too good to miss.

The only problem was the limited time we had to explore this area; a mere three days to get a taste of Bligh Water.

After overnighting in Nadi, we left the city in the morning for the three-hour drive to the small town of Rakiraki, on the northern tip of the main island of Viti Levu. While it’s possible to explore Bligh Water from a liveaboard, with the 38m motorsailer Nai’a exploring this region on seven- to 10-day trips, most divers use the land-based operations at Rakiraki. During our short stay we had the chance to stay and dive with the two best-known dive resorts in the area, Volivoli Beach Resort and Wananavu Beach Resort.

ARRIVING AT VOLIVOLI at lunch-Time, we quickly checked into our hillside bure before devouring a very filling meal in the large restaurant complex beside the pool.

This resort is owned by the Darling family and was rebuilt after suffering extensive damage from Cyclone Winston in 2016. Set on a peninsula, each comfortable bure or villa commands ocean views of Bligh Water.

We made our way to the dive-shop operated by Ra Divers, had our gear organised and boarded a dive-boat to visit Golden Dreams.

Ra Divers has more than 50 sites to visit in Bligh Water, and fortunately very few of them suffered damage from Cyclone Winston. Located on Sailstone Reef, the closest reef to the resort, Golden Dreams is a series of large coral heads rising from 25m to 6m. To avoid the current, typical in this area, we jumped in behind the reef.

At first the coral was very average, as was the visibility at less than 10m after recent heavy rains. We followed our guide through a series of channels, the current getting stronger in each one. With a macro lens on the camera we spent most of our time head-down looking for subjects, finding nudibranchs, gobies and commensal shrimps.

When we finally looked up, we realised that we had entered a garden of paradise, as all around us were incredible corals sprouting from the walls of the coral-heads. Spinning around, we could see gorgonians, spiky soft corals, sponges, ascidians, whip corals and black coral trees – a kaleidoscope of colour that was dazzling.

Adding extra colour to these coral gardens were dense schools of basslets, damsels, fusiliers and other reef fish.

We almost wished for a wide-angle lens, but when the guide pointed out a group of ghost pipefish we knew we had made the right lens choice for this dive. We had never seen a ghost pipefish in Fiji before, and there were six of them in one small area, a mix of robust and ornate species.

Later Nick Darling, the owner of Volivoli, informed us that they see a good variety of macro critters and even had a resident frogfish on the house reef.

He also showed us pictures of the rare and undescribed hairy ghost pipefish, which he said was often seen in the area, and we felt pangs of envy.

The next day the weather was perfect to head further offshore and dive Vatu-i-Ra Reef in the passage. It took more than an hour to reach this remote reef, but it was worth it when we saw the calm blue water.

We geared up quickly, eager to explore Mellow Yellow. In the water we found visibility of more than 20m and before us a tower of coral. We quickly found many beautiful soft corals that just got better and better as we headed towards the current side of the pinnacle.

ENTERING A GUTTER that split the pinnacle in two, we found it to be lined with soft corals in a multitude of pastel shades. But the best were on the outer side of the pinnacle, the side swept by currents and covered in gorgonians and radiant yellow soft corals.

With so many colourful corals, and also swarms of basslets, photography was simply a matter of pointing the camera and hitting the shutter. You couldn’t miss.

While the corals kept us captivated, we did notice a good variety of reef fish, pelagic fish and reef sharks when we looked around, but didn’t bother chasing any of these creatures for a photo.

The wonderful corals continued on top of the pinnacle, with its healthy coverage of hard corals and massed damsels and basslets.

The next dive at Chile was just as good, a collection of coral-heads also covered in exquisite corals. The walls were covered in delicate yellow fern corals, a variety we had never seen in such abundance. These two dives left us gobsmacked; only rarely had we seen so many beautiful corals concentrated in such a small area.

After lunch it was time to pack and swap our accommodation – fortunately not too far, because Wananavu Beach Resort lies only in the next bay.

This resort has traditional-style bures set throughout a pretty garden beach-side setting. We dropped the bags in our room and headed to the dive-centre for a late afternoon dive at Amazing Maze.

THE DIVE SITE WAS ON Sailstone Reef, in visibility of about 15m. Thinking it might have been worse at this inshore site we had opted for a macro lens once more, which allowed us to photograph the gobies, anemonefish, nudibranchs, lionfish and other small critters, but this was really a wide-angle site, with its maze of coral-heads swathed in gorgonians and soft corals.

We played follow-my-leader at this location, and were very happy that we did as it would have been only too easy to get lost in this maze of caves, swim-throughs, gutters and ledges.

The next morning we got to sample some very different dive-sites at Midway Reef. The visibility wasn’t the best on the dive at Rob’s Rock, only 12m or so, but the fish-life easily made up for this.

We found another collection of fine coral heads rising from 25m, but even better than the corals was the fish life, and we encountered grey reef sharks, whitetip reef sharks, Maori wrasse, sweetlips, mackerel and schools of trevally, snapper, fusiliers and barracuda.

We also found the top of one head engulfed by a cloud of baitfish. We sat among them, watching them swirl around us and dart into the corals when bombarded by a passing gang of trevally.

Our final dive was at Wheatfields, a towering coral head that left us wanting more. This wonderful dive-site had it all – the magnificent corals, sharks, schooling fish and critters. We circumnavigated the large pinnacle that rises from 30m, but spent most of our time on a small side pinnacle washed by the current.