Vatu-Ira Channel (S 17° 20.8’ E 178° 31.4’)

15th - 22nd June 2005

We had heard many glowing reports of the reefs on the seamounts in the Vatu Ira Channel. The upwellings here have possibly contributed greatly to the escape of its reefs from the bleaching events that have affected many other parts of Fiji in recent years.

We arrived at Mount Mutiny on a flat calm Sunday morning, luckilysince there is no anchorage possible in these deep waters. The diving was incredible – corals were elbowing each other out of the way to claim a patch on these mounts that rise from way down blue to just below the surface. Turtles, sharks, great barracuda, jacks – although perhaps not as many fish as there could have been? We moved across the bay to explore E6, a neighbouring mount, but found it to be not as idyllic as Mount Mutiny.

Namena

22nd June - 14th July

We returned to Namena, excited to begin our studies and to host the team from Wildlife Conservation Society. However, our plans were slightly taken out of our hands by the Fijian phenomenon of the ‘bugiwaloo’ – the eight day winds that can appear out of nowhere and blow consistently for eight days and eight nights. Our anchor held beautifully through a constant twenty five knot wind for more than a week, with prolonged gusts up to thirty five knots. But we could not dive. Our anchorage and the entire reef system gave no protection from the swells that were rolling in from the south west.

Good weather returned with the arrival of Alex and Didi from Wildlife Conservation Society, James Atherton, a GIS specialist from Western Samoa, Matt Dunlap, a coral biologist from the University of Hawaii and Matt who has been running the Greenforce volunteer programme on Vanua Levu,. We worked hard to gather data underwater on the reef system at Namena and to track the reef outline using a GPS so our data can be correlated with a recent satellite image of the reef. We spent a precious few days together working through the task in hand and reveling in the incredible dive sites around Namena, including several sightings of a school of hammerhead sharks at the North Save-a-Tack Pass.

Having lost time to the bad weather, we were up against a departure deadline to complete our studies. But all went very smoothly and we were able to weigh anchor on time, with a tinge of sadness at leaving behind such a majestic reef system.

Click here for the full results of our study at Namena.

Voyage to Nadi

14th - 18th July

A short but vibrant journey - we dived Thakau Momo, a submerged reef in the Koro Sea. Large swells were breaking on the forereef so we explored the back reef and found it to be a stark contrast to the explosion of life at Namena. Most former corals have turned to skeletons, with coralline algae overgrowing many. But an encounter with an octopus lifted spirits.

A pod of pan-tropical spotted dolphins rode our bow, including a very young dolphin with its mother.

pan-tropical spotted dolphins beside the Heraclitus

The following day, two small pods of sperm whales gathered close to us, a mother and baby breaching several times, then two more surfacing just metres off our portside and holding their position for almost a minute. We were just twenty miles south east of Suva.

lookouts for the sperm whales

Fiji enthralls us – with its rainbowed reefs, its animated seas, its demanding weather systems and its wide ranging cultures.