Trip Dates 2004-06-05 - 2004-06-20

Summary

This was our second trip to Fiji. The trip report for the first one is
available at www.pathcom.com/~bracuk/Trips/Fiji.htm. We did the same
basic itinerary, fly to Fiji, stay at Woidroka Bay, sail on Aggressor,
go home. Some of the details are different.

The Providers

Air Canada  www.aircanada.ca
Air Pacific www.airpacific.com
Woidroka Bay Resort  www.dive-surf-fiji.com.fj
Fiji Aggressor II  www.aggressor.com
Tanoa International Hotel  www.tanoahotels.com

The Travel

Going to Fiji wasn't too bad - roughly 20 hours door to door. Coming
back was expected to be bad, and it was worse. Crossing the
Interational Date Line meant that we got to make two overnight flights
on the same day. Unfotunately the first one was 5 hours late.
Fortunately we had an 8 hour scheduled layover, so we still caught our
2nd flight.

For the trip back, we took a room at the Tanoa International Hotel for
the afternoon. Money well spent in my opinion. We had planned to find
a room in LA for our layover, but didn't have to because of the late
flight.

Woidroka Bay Resort

Woidroka Bay has some redeeming qualities, but one bad feature that
wrecks everything.

The place had changed quite a bit since our last visit. The main
buiding was now completely enclosed, there were two more bures, and a
larger fleet of boats. The hotel part was basic, but nice.

On our last trip, we were the only guests. On this one there were lots
of surfers, but we were the only divers. So, we shared the boat with
the surfers. We would go out to the reef, toss out the surfers, do two
dives, recover the surfers, and go home. Watching the surfers during
the surface interval was quite entertaining.

The diving from Woidroka Bay was quite nice. In terms of what there
was to see, it was quite similar to the sites we dove the following
week. The seascape was different though. This was reef and walls,
Aggressor dives were mainly pinnacles.

So what was the bad part? The owner. He had only recently purchased
the place and he was a miser. He was more interested in pinching
pennies than he was in ensuring his guests enjoyed themselves. A
specific example is that one day he had 3 divers (two tanks each), and
6 surfers going out, and he assigned one of the smaller boats. He
eventually relented, but only after considerable complaining from both
us and the surfers. So, if you are going to Fiji, stay somewhere else.

Fiji Aggressor II

The Fiji Aggressor II is the boat formerly known as the Sere-Ni-Wa.
It's a full size liveaboard that only takes 10 passengers. The
staterooms were spacious with lots of storage space. The salon &
dining room were sufficient. The dive was a little small, but not too
crowded.

Depending on the current and dive site, we either dove from the back
of the big boat, or took a skiff to the start point and drifted to the
big boat. Underwater navigation was a bit different than most
liveaboards I have dove from. The captain would anchor the boat in the
deep sand, with the stern close to the pinnacle we were diving. This
meant that at the end of the dive, there was no anchor line to use as
a reference point, you had to find the boat. On one dive, the wind
shifted and the boat blew about 100 yards away from the group of
pinncacles so we had to swim a bit.

The Diving

For the most part it was pretty good, not spectacular but pretty good.
There had been a lot of rain in the weeks leading up to our trip. In
fact, it rained every day we were at the resort. Perhaps for this
reason, the water was siltier than it was on our earlier trip. The viz
was still pretty good though. The water temperature ranged from 77 -
79 F.

For those who have never dove the Indo Pacific area, it is remarkably
different than the Caribbean. The fish population is totally
different, and the soft corals are much more colourful. I have been
there before, so it is getting harder to impress me.

If You Go, You Should Know

American money has value on the Aggressor. All boat fees, which
includes the Value Added Tax that everyone pays is discounted 20% if
you pay US cash.

The departure tax may or may not be included in the cost of your plane
tickets. Ours were.

The Nadi airport does not have a courtesy phone to nearby hotels and
rental car agencies like you would find in North American Airports.
Instead they have travel agents that can find you a place to stay.

The Final Words

Even with the rain, silt, and long flights, this was still a great
trip. Given the chance to do it again or pick Door Number 2, I'd do it
again.

Epilogue - photos can be viewed at
http://www.pathcom.com/~bracuk/underwater/index.htm.  The ones marked
new are from this trip.