Diving Beqa Island with Kulu Bay Resort
There were only 7 bures on Kulu Bay Resort which had more honeymooners then divers. No fancy 5-star dive center or camera room, no nitrox compressor but more often then not, Eilin and I were the only divers on the boat. Of course, we quickly got accustomed to the luxury of having the whole boat to ourselves and the personal service and attention from Abe (dive master) and the boatman :> Coconut cookies with hot coffee in-between dives was also a habit that we quickly picked up :>
Things did not start off as planned for me as my inflator hose broke off from the BCD attachment prior to dive 1. On the bright side, at least it happened when I am on land. Abe provided a Diverite BCD which I had no problem getting use to.
On the first dive, Eilin and I found ourselves having a conservation on the surface cos both of us could not sink !
We had to increase our weights from the usual 8lbs to 12lbs. New wetsuits ?
I fitted my camera setup with the Stix floats and they work great, no more aching right shoulder after holding the camera for an hour underwater.
The Diving
Fiji is known as the soft coral capital of the world, and it was be easy to see why.
I have to admit that with all the years of diving, while I do appreciate the beauty of corals, I have never given much thoughts to photographing them. For many dives, I would swim up to a giant seafan, stare at it for a long time but my mind is blank on how to compose a shot.
Good thing is that this place is no lack of soft and hard coral for you to keep on trying !!!
As it rained out the full 5 days that we were there, visibility was not exact at its best, but I am sure you can image the beauty of the place when there is full 50m vis.
Each time in the water, you get this feeling that you are exploring a reef which is so pristine, so untouched and so much of that "I am the first person in the world to explore this reef" feeling.
The golden arches were so pristine and majestic.
Wreck at the 7 sisters.
Kulu Bay Resort partnered with Aqua-Trek for the shark dive. Aqua-Trek is one of the 2 dive operators where who has been hand feeding the sharks for the last 20 year. Since this is one of the key reason that we came to Fiji, we decided to maximize the opportunity and do 2 days of Shark Dive. Expensive but definitely worth that once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Silver-tips, White-Tips, Black-Tip, Lemon Shark, Bull Shark, Nurse Sharks, Grey Reef. Only the tiger shark did not turn up for the party.
Remonas are about 1m long and were there in the hundreds ? Maybe thousands? Emperor Grouper (also known as Queensland Grouper about 1.5m) were there for the free handouts.
The number of fishes swirling around was totally chaotic. After 2 mins of trying to take still pictures, I gave up trying to get a clear shot and decided shoot videos instead.
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Note: This is a deco dive, we clocked a 13mins deco on the 2nd dive each day. So it is best to do this dive with a dive computer and make sure you know how to read your computer to do a proper deco stop.