Fiji 31st August 2005

We woke up early and headed down to catch the start of breakfast for our first open water dive at 8.30am, however it turned out that the boat we were going to take out had mechanical problems and it was back to the classroom for the morning. So we finished our theory modules other than the final exam in the morning as well as completing our final confined water dives in the pool. We had some lunch, played a round of mini golf and then headed back to the dive shop for, this time, our first open water dive!

For our first dive we went to a site called ‘Golden Patch’. We were in a boat with some other divers and the location was an apparently bare area of ocean about 15 minutes from Beachcomber. It turned out that the mooring line had detached and sunk to the bottom, but the dive instructors knew the area so well that they found it anyway. After doing all our pre-dive and pre-descent safety checks we were on our way! Keli began the dive by somersaulting in and thus nearly losing his dive knife, but we entered via the more traditional backward roll.

Basically, it was awesome! I can’t really begin to properly describe what it’s like down there. You have to see it to understand the feeling of swimming within shoals of fishes, gliding around amongst such vibrantly coloured coral and other sea life in a seemingly weightless environment. Watching intense tropical colours dash past or gently glide along as you slowly drift by. It’s absolutely magical and the photos from my underwater camera do it no justice at all. So whilst I’ve included some of my photos you have to imagine that the colours are much more vibrant and so much more real.

So, excited after our first dive we returned to Beachcomber. The rest of the day was spent relaxing and looking forward to three more dives tomorrow! In the evening Beachcomber had a concert of traditional Fijian dancing and singing called a Meke. Whilst I’m very familiar with this sort of thing since I grew up in Auckland (the biggest population of pacific islanders in the world) it was still great. Another fairly early night as tomorrow was an early start to try and cram in three dives in one morning!