Where's Grayleen?

Aileen’s had her heart set on learning how to scuba dive since we set out on this trip. And, having ended up rather by accident in one of the very best dive locations in the entire world – “The cheapest flight to New Zealand connects through an airport called NAN, where do you think that is? Ohhh, Fiji!” – we decided we’d better give it a go.

After four certification dives in the same spot, it was with great excitement that we were told that we’d be heading out for our first real dive to the famous rainbow reef to dive “Annie’s Bommies” under serious current – a drift dive! What’s a drift dive, you ask? In short, its a dive with strong current where the boat drops you into the water at the upstream end of the reef and picks you up wherever you may end up. The current brings rich nutrients to the reef and every creature is out and about feeding. We’re told that when there is no current, it is a completely different and much less colorful place.

Look at the colors of that there Bommie! (photo by Ed Erwin, fellow guest at our resort)

And drift we did! After jumping off the boat we rapidly descended and were soon up against the reef. Following the lead of our dive master, we reached out and each grabbed one of the tiny bits of rock not covered by glorious bright corals and encrusted life and held on with three fingers for dear life. The current buffeted us around much like we were leaning into a strong, gusty wind. Confident we could brace ourselves against the current, our dive master signaled for us to push off of the wall and away we went.

We were hurled past a huge cliff face of beautiful life and around a corner to the bommies themselves. A bommie is a wide circular tower of coral, looking almost like a crazy bulbous Christmas tree growing from the ocean floor. The scene flowing by was surreal and almost alien with billowing soft coral feeding on plankton and fish everywhere. We alternated between cruising the current and clinging to bits of rock in the bommies in order to see some animal or another right up close. As we flew by, we saw a giant moray eel, gorgeous anemones with their protector fish, cleaner shrimp, a beautiful black lion fish, and much, much more. It was a roller coaster ride inside of the word’s best aquarium.

Just protectin' my anemone, it's what I do (photo by Ed Erwin, fellow guest at our resort)

Low on air, we kicked away from the reef and slowly ascended up to fifteen feet for our safety stop. As we waited our three minutes, still drifting along, the dive master inflated an orange balloon-like thing which shot to the surface to tell the boat where to pick us up. Back on the surface and up on the boat, the two of us had huge grins we just couldn’t wipe off of our faces. Incredible.

More Fiji photos here.