Diving Palau part 2

Second day of diving Palau

Sandy Beaches & Ulong Channel

"Highlights": Nesting Triggerfish who chased us ;-), one huge Coral patch and giant calms and

on out way back, over the surface, a sunbathing banded sea snake in some of the rocks.

Bullsharks

Bula!

I was too fascinated and flashed by the impressions I got during my Shark dives and
during my stay in Fiji, that I waited till the last dive for this post.

As I already mentioned before, the location is nice. It is a very good
mixture between backpacking and "luxury" Beach Resort. We are staying in
a dormitory for 20 people (peak was like 10+-). The Fijian are all very
friendly end helpful with everything. If you have any kind of need, tell
them and they will try to help you. Also compared to Tongan people, they are
very interested in you and obviously, not only in your money.
As the people from Niue and French Polynesia, the Fijian can also cook ;)
The food is very good and because of all the Indian people living there,
it has a nice mixture.

But now let's get to the most interesting part ... Bullsharks ;)
First I heard about a "special" shark dive site in Fiji, about 6-7 years ago.
I was watching Youtube/Vimeo Video's about this place all the time
and had this on my bucketlist since that time. Mike from Beqa Adventure Divers
is also hosting a very popular shark blog, which for
me is one of my daily newspapers in the morning. I've been reading his
blog now for 3 years and learned a lot about sharks, conservation and
some other marine related stuff.
Anyway, we booked flights to Fiji and a short time later, Mike did
another "lottery" on his blog. The 1.000.000 viewer will get 7 days of
shark diving for free and long story short... Yieha!!!
Sadly our stay on Fiji wasn't so long, but five shark dives is still a
good number and every dive was different and worth it, at least for me ;)

The dive site is not a normal dive site, it's a Shark Reef Marine Reserve (read more).

They established it in april 2004 as the first of it's kind in Fiji and the first
I heard about. It's a dedicated, protected sanctuary for sharks, owned by some
local villages. Everyone who is diving there, has to pay a 'Shark
Reef Marine Reserve Levy' of FJD $20, which is going directly to the village.
The fisherman stopped fishing there and help to protect the reef and as compensation
they get the Levy. Good idea and in my opinion the only thing you can do
to protect and keep places like this in the future. There are a couple of places
I know, where this should work too, if you are doing it right.

Worth to mention...
The whole team of Beqa Adventure Divers is doing a great job. Beginning
with the check-in and the normal dive boat stuff, like putting all the
equipment on board, preparing the tanks for you, even if you are using
you own gear (sure if you want to do it your self, just say something)
doing a very good safety instruction for the boat (never had this before)
and for sure a deep explanation about the dive site and how the dive will
be done. And ending with taking well care off your expensive photo/video
gear you are taking with you.

Check-in, equipment check, wait, boarding, safety and take off and enjoy!

5 days of diving and over 1000 pictures and still sorting
them out, but so far a couple of good shots

Vinaka vaka levu to all of Beqa Adventure Divers.
The dive is perfectly organized and absolutely safe. They are looking all the
time after you and your safety. If there will be any chance that something
can happen, then only because an idiot is not following the rules.
All in all the best SCUBA!-diving experience I had so far!

Hunga

Probably the best Place in Vava'u

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Went out for some bluewater spearfishing. Over 12 MahiMahi and a couple of bigger Wahoo's.

Sadly my travel mates forbid me spearing more than we can eat... damn!

Makes absolutely sense, but for sure I had found some others in the next village who've been happy about some Wahoo ;)

Isn't this a good place for fresh Mahi Mahi sashimi? ;)

Niue

Oh I love the silence... apart from the the roosters and dogs. ;)
But you get used to them after a while. Rarotonga was the same, not so bad as
on Niue but enough to get prepared for it.
The Locals are extremely friendly and helpful with anything. Reminds me of Fakarava.
You feel that making money with you is not the main target. Its more like
sharing a nice piece of earth with you doing everything that you will never forget this
place.

The freediving is fantastic. First day in the water (only the habour) and we already saw
the endemism living sea krait (Katuali), eagle ray, whitetip reefsharks parrot fish (mhhh jummy)

and good growing and colorful corals all over the reef. The reef is "stuffed" with fish. 

No schools of big fish, but the ground is moving all the time.
Visibility (can be up to 80m!) is at the moment not the best, but with 40-50m not
bad at all ;) And what's best compared to Rarotonga, easy entry and depth 30m+ are
only 5min swim away.
We already had some tough training days, with over 60 dives under 20m+ in one session
Also the bottom time increased already ;)

The island itself is bigger as we thought. Maybe we will take the offer Mamatha (nice
"old" lady) made us, renting her spare car for a couple of days. 70-80% of the island
is green and I mean really green. Not only a couple of palms and ferns and bushes as
we expected (take a look on maps.google), more like a small rainforest/jungle.