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Fiji: a diver's blue heaven
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George Harrison sagely said, "There is not a place worth going that you can only reach in one flight."
It took three planes to get to the island of Vanua Levu in Fiji where I spent as much time in the water, scuba diving and snorkeling, as possible. Even at night. During a night dive I saw the largest moray eel ever--12 feet of winding, snaking eel crowned with an enormous head and tiny glowing eyes. I certainly didn't reach into his cave!
Jean-Michel Cousteau Fiji Island Resort was a perfect locale for my reason d'etre—diving. And I had been here before decades ago with my family. This is where I did my open water certification. It was a pleasure to return and see the multitude of improvements that Mike Freed, the owner, has done to the resort.
Mike is a perfectionist and has lots of practice in running 5-star-yet-relaxed resorts. Superlative food and wine is a central part of the Cousteau experience. Meals are included in the room rate and dinners are sit down candlelight affairs with 3-course meals.
Who stays at Cousteau? There were quite a few guests from California and Europe. Some were divers, some were not.
Known as the "Soft Coral Capital of the World," Fiji offers the largest variety of fish and coral anywhere in the world. Small reef dwellers and large ocean pelagics (a class of fish that includes barracuda, tuna, sharks) swim among the colorful reefs near the resort.
Grande Central, on Namena Reef, is considered on of the top five dive sites in the world and is famous for schools of pelagic, even whales calving at certain times of year.
As we were suiting up and eyeing the Windex-blue waters, Dede, our dive master, warned, "Don't attempt to go to the bottom, no matter how alluring, It is fathomless."
Sure enough, before I knew it I was at 90 feet. Ghosts of white tip reef sharks undulated past—gray shadows against an ink cobalt blue canvas. We are talking BIG fish! I was eyeball to eyeball with groupers and tombo 
tunas the size of dining room tables. An opal triggerfish, the size of a small child, with huge green eyes rotating in every direction followed us guarding its territory from the neoprene invaders. Forget the sharks cruising by! Dede had shown us bite marks on the arms of his wetsuit from this particularly aggressive triggerfish.
In between dives, we had lunch off of Namena Island and watched thousands of white egrets, herons, boobies and white tailed tropic birds gracefully swoop, wheel and circle over the lush island before landing in their airy roosts on cliffs and trees. One booby awkwardly landed in the water beside me as I was surfacing from a dive. I watched him watching the divers underneath him—he was so curious about these human fish with bubbles coming off their backs.
At the end of our 2nd dive, wrapped in warm towels, a neon sunset on its way to paint the sky, Chris, a lanky Aussie, said, "A rainy day in the tropics is still better than a good day at work." Agreed, mate!
In a future column I will write about my stay on the adventure boat, the Tui Tai, and our visit to the southern islands of Fiji which are dryer and the locale for Tom Hank's Castaway movie.
Details, details . . . .
Jean-Michel Cousteau Fiji Island Resort's 7-night Stay & Dive Package rate is $1,966 per person.
Air Pacific has RT flights from LAX non-stop to Nadi, Fiji for $800 and up.
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