23 August 2020
Taveuni & Diving Somosomo Strait

After 20 plus years John has set foot on Taveuni again. I unsuccessfully tried to get him to write this blog but there is a lot of emotions behind achieving this goal. Fortunately due to the diving and cruiser friendly staff at Paradise Taviuni it exceeded my expectations. We grabbed a mooring off the South tip by Vuna Point/Reef maintained by Paradise Taveuni Dive Resort and quickly booked in for the next day's dive and dinner. They are open upon arrangements with a limited but tasty menu of items grown locally. They were expecting another yacht for dinner which turned out to be Poppy on her boat was Karen our yoga friend from Musket Cove and another friend Chris from Vuda Marina celebrating a major birthday. We had a fun time dining and catching up with them both.

Turned out we were the only two on the dive boat next morning so enjoyed private dives off the Vuna Reef "Orgasm" area and Steve's Corner the volcanic shelf just off the Reef. We saw much improved soft coral and colors compared to what we saw West side of Fiji over the last year. Allan and Tina, our divemasters, said the coral had been decimated by Winston, and though still small, has been coming back quickly due to the constant North to South currents through the strait. I was exhausted after two dives but happy to see my buoyancy and confidence has improved. I still work a lot harder than John does especially trying to manage the GoPro and light. An Oceanis 55 , Steve and Amanda, arrived onto a mooring by the time we had a nap and invited us over to see their well fitted boat.

Saturday Steve joined us diving while Amanda had a massage by Sonny at the resort. We did Rainbow Reef in the middle of the strait; "The Zoo" and "Daqkuniba (Behind the Fence)" both with mega color, a white tip shark, a turtle, nudibranchs, massive clam shells, scorpion fish and eels hiding out everywhere we went. It really helps to have a couple local dive instructors to see the sights. Tina said she has not been in the water for months due to lack of guests so was excited to visit and check if their special spots and friends still existed. Allen and Terrie employ many of the local residents when business is normal and have kept a traditional band on Saturday nights for the everyone to enjoy and use the resort pool and facilities. Kids were diving off the volcanic cliffs or into the newly painted and filled swim pool with groups hanging out on mats and chairs. I had a great time dancing with everyone that would let me and dining at the edge of the cliff.

Sunday was again back out to the middle of the Somosomo Strait to drift dive the "Great White Wall" and then the adjacent "Purple Wall" which ends with a staircase tunnel upward to our lift- out point. I'm exhausted but spent hours going over the goPro footage and am so grateful I get to see this much healthy reef. I've done some snap photos from the video so the kids can see the highlights and plan to cut and paste the best footage to a short summary video.

Today we must head back to Savusavu for our visa extensions. Suva Immigrations has decided we must pay for two applications despite us being married and require more fees to finish processing our yacht special purpose one year extension. At one level we are still hoping that New Zealand will re-open to cruisers before November as America's Cup is still scheduled to happen early 2021; but at this point we must prepare for a back-up plan to stay another cyclone season here in Fiji. Not a hardship at all!