In keeping with our ordered tour of Fiji, our second stop was to the second largest island: Vanua Levu. Again this week we were joined by a friend (and Andrew’s colleague), Elliot. He was great fun to dive with, especially because he has newly returned to scuba diving and is taking to it quite quickly. 

Previously holding large sugar and coconut plantations, the island is now home to a mix of small farms, mid-sized resorts, and communities of ex-pats (including Tony Robbins, who knew). We visited the area around the town of Savusavu, located on a harbor on the southern coast of the island, roughly halfway east-to-west.

We stayed at a tiny “resort” called Savasi nearby Savusavu, technically on its own island as it is separated from Vanua Levu by a small channel, but connected by a causeway.

The resort bought a gorgeous old ship called Serenity, docked it in the channel and converted the interior to hotel rooms. Apparently some guests still complained about the minor rocking of the boat so now it sits firmly on land alongside the channel. While it holds 4 rooms, the three of us (Andew, Vera, Elliot) had the boat to ourselves that week. Our room was formerly the bridge, which to our amusement still had most of its navigational and steering equipment. 

For most of our sabbatical we are staying at one dive-focused lodging and do all our diving with the operator on-site. But on Vanua Levu we dove with 3 different operators, trying to experience the best that each had to offer. This was doable but logistically a bit challenging. The biggest problem was that we tried to do 3-4 dives a day on an island that really only expects you to do 2 dives a day. While it seemed clear to us that we could fit the dives in with plenty of time and plan things like bringing a packed lunch to eat on the boat, we did seem to confuse the locals and we wouldn’t necessarily recommend this approach to other travelers.

Andrew and Elliot on the deck of our digs at Savasi

Our first day was in Natewa Bay, about 45 minutes drive northwest of us.

This was fortuitous planning, while the nearby Savusavu bay had unpleasant choppy conditions, the much more protected Natewa Bay was perfectly diveable. It was still rainy and a bit rough going, so getting underwater was much more comfortable than being on the small dive boat.

, run by an expat couple, Matthew and Sara, and their local boat captain, good friend, and housemate Seva.

Matthew and Sara had come to Fiji with plans to take over an existing dive operator after spending nearly a year working out details with the seller. But when they finally arrived, the plans started to unravel, until finally it was clear that everything they had been told was lies. Eventually they were able to find their own footing and start a small operation on their own, and they are the only dive operator on Natewa Bay.

Natewa Bay is beautiful above water, even with the rain, fog and wind we experienced. But below water it is spectacular. We only had time for 2 dives but we would happily spend a week or more here!

We saw a huge field of zooanthids, several types of nudibranchs, a resident hawksbill turtle, beautiful hard corals, many-spotted sweetlips (aka harlequin), etc etc etc. To Elliot’s delight many coral heads sported christmas tree worms in a dozen colors!

The next two mornings we dove with Savasi’s onsite operator, Koro Sun. Don’t confuse the dive operator with the nearby Koro Sun Resort - the dive shop started at that resort but split off and took the name with it!

, was fantastic. He zipped around his favorite dive sites, demystifying treasured creatures with his trusty etch-a-sketch style dive slate. We started on a sea mount dripping in golden soft coral, but soon were swimming from bommie to sandy patch to bommie as he showed off nudibranches, clear shrimps, a bed of garden eels, leaf scorpionfish, banded pipefish, on and on - like a kid showing off their room to a new friend for the first time. 

Most exciting to us was seeing our first 

! The ribbon eel was black sporting a bright yellow stripe - the typical juvenile coloring. We didn’t get a good photo, but stay tuned for our next Fiji stop for an adult ribbon eel photo. 

Goldbelly cardinalfish shows off its eye-stripes

Since Koro Sun doesn’t dive in the afternoons, we also booked some dives at a nearby resort. Occupying the tip of the pretty Lesiaceva Point near Savusavu, this medium-sized dive resort is often called “Cousteau”. The official name, however, is “Jean-Michel Cousteau Resort Fiji”. Started by the son of the famous father of modern scuba, Jacques Cousteau, it originally went by “Cousteau Fiji Islands Resort”. Apparently Jacques wasn’t happy with commercializing the family name, and there was a long legal battle yielding a requirement that “Jean-Michael” appear as prominently in the name as “Cousteau”. 

We enjoyed several dives off their larger dive boat, which was quite roomy with only 3-6 divers! Despite being able to hold ~60 people, while we were in town the resort only had 4 guests. One fun thing about the resort was that the staff all knew the Savasi folks well - we dove with the sister of the lively singer at Savasi while their father was captaining the boat! It was definitely a more rushed and cookie-cutter operation than Koro Sun, so we wouldn’t strongly recommend them. 

The real jewel, and the motivator for our entire stay on Vanua Levu, was the Namena Marine Reserve. About 20 miles from Savusavu, only operators with big enough boats make the trip, and only under good weather conditions. Finally on our last day of diving, the seas cooperated, and we had 2 dives plus a snorkel at Namena with our boat from Cousteau.

These dives were fantastic. Our favorite, Grand Central Station, is named for the crowds and crowds of fishes. Most of the dive is a on a large flat plateau around 90 ft with a sharp dropoff. There we saw a huge schools of 1000 mackerel being herded by ~8 shark and a few tuna, then not one or two but four giant groupers (~6 ft long). There were also shoals of barracuda, unicorn fish, grunts, etc etc etc. The dive ended on a shallow coral garden teeming with palette surgeonfish, aka dory! Another fish we had never seen in the wild.

Due to strong currents we didn’t take any photos on that first dive, but we did see some beautiful sealife on the second dive, called Chimneys. The dive site has two tall skinny seamounts. You drop on top of the first one, make your way down by swimming in a spiral around the first one, then head over to the second and work your way up. Each is covered in a rainbow of hard and soft corals, and large schools of unicorn fish and fusiliers keep you company. 

Longnose Hawkfish matching its sea fan environment

Savusavu, Fiji