medas2005 - Bluewater Dive Travel

medas2005

medas2005

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Reviews (22)

Diving in Raja Ampat

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For any serious diver, Raja Ampat should be the destination on the top of their list. No other spot in the world offers the variety of pristine coral reefs and reef fish that Raja offers. While liveaboards are the preferred way to see the region, several very nice and elegant dive resorts have popped up.

While not a part of the region per se, Triton Bay to the Southeast ranks as one of the most exotic dive areas of the world. Unfortunately, my attempt to make it there was foiled by sea pirates who try to extract money and gasoline from divers. While I understand the situation is better, it is still a risky spot to go (not for your life, but for your diving). Several people on my boat had been there and confirmed that it was very good, but visibility is limited and currents can be tricky. I still want to go there someday. One other note, Triton Bays boats leave from Kaimana instead of Sorong. A year before we were there a plane crashed on landing, so it is not without some risks.

The first area of south Raja Ampat of diving note is Daram Islands. Like the entire area, the seas are warm and the area is filled with schools of fish and clouds of antheas. It is very remote and rarely dived except by liveaboard, so it is outstanding.

Onward to the dive sites around Misool. This is the pinnacle of this area and therefore the pinnacle of the world's coral diving. The currents can be very strong here however. My teenage daughter got caught in a washing machine whirlpool current and had to be rescued by a divemaster. She is a good diver and was not in danger, but it scared me. One could easily spend a week here which is why the MIsool Eco Resort has been so successful. We stopped by there and had lunch and the place is heaven on earth. Even my non-diving wife would be blown away by the place I am sure. My favorite island was Boo and the Windows site is pictured on most picture books of the area. You get the idea.

We dove the Blue Mangroves which was great. A diver was bitten there once by a crocodile a few years earlier so our Indonesian guides refused to go into the water. We had one diver hang out as a lookout and we had a great time. My aforementioned daughter did stay in the boat here however.

The diving in the north part of Raja Ampat is not quite as good (by a small amount) as the diving in the Misool area. The center of this area is Cape Kri which is a point out into the Dampier Straight with very very good diving. You can easily spend a day here. About a 30 minute boat ride away is Manta Sandy which is supposed to be the most reliable place in the world to see mantas. I have been there 4 times and the only mantas showed up on the dive I skipped. Oh well. I did see the largest octopus that I have ever seen though and it kept us entertained for 30 minutes.

The Aboratek peer is also a very good site and I took an award winning photo there of a large school of fish that frequents the peer. The peer poles are covered with multi-colored soft corals which go all the way to the surface.

All in all you will see just about everything imaginable here. We saw 4 kinds of pygmy seahorses. We saw mandarin fish in several locations. We saw an enormous clam that was big enough to hold a small human. You see everything here except for sharks which hopefully will return some day. We did see a couple of black tips and there is hope, but not a lot to be seen right now.

We were there once in March and the weather was beautiful. We were there a second time in early July and the weather was perfect then as well although that is classified as off-season. I do know that the Misool area is not so good in our summer months.

Visited on 07/2012 - Submitted on 02/10/2014
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Lembeh Resort

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The first good thing about the Manado/Lembeh area is the ease of getting there. While many of the best Indonesian diving requires multiple flights and layovers, the flight from Singapore to Manado is just a couple of hours on a nice Western standard plane. The previous time we were in the area, we took a non-stop from Jakarta to Manado on LionAir and that worked great as well although the accommodations on board were spartan to say the least. Whatever way you go, you will be greeted on the other side of customs by a representative of the Lembeh Resort hotel. Nothing like a friendly face when you land in a remote spot.

After a 2 hour drive and a half hour boat ride, you arrive at a lovely resort pasted up against a vertical wall. I happened to be here during the Japanese tsunami, and we had alerts, but no waves which was a relief. The resort rivals Anse Chastenet in St. Lucia for vertical drop, so be ready for a walk. I stayed in cabin #1 which is on the far right hand side of the resort. It was very private but a long walk and a lot of stairs to get to. There are several cabins that are lower down, but not many. If you don’t like stairs, I would go to KBR which is much flatter (I have not been there). The room was spacious and had a great view. A non-diving spouse would do just fine here. The bathroom and shower was outside which was fun and private.

Food was very very good. A European/American breakfast with lots of egg dishes and standard hotel fare. Lunches and dinner were more Indonesian with lots of chicken, fish, and vegetarian options. One never went hungry and even the deserts were very nice. We only had to pay extra for soft drinks and beer.

The hotel has a very lovely pool, but it does get crowded at times, especially if there are non-diving groups there. It wasn’t a place that I frequented, but it was nice for an afternoon dip and sunning.

The dive operation was absolutely first rate. They had an entire building for underwater photographers with a resident camera expert. I had some troubles with my camera and they rigged a fix that was clever, free, and kept me snapping the whole time. Any other place on the planet and I would have come home without photos. You really are left to dive according to your plan and dive computer. We always waited for those lucky enough to have air to stay down for up to 75 minutes. Several of the dives got fairly deep and a prize pygmy seahorse was at about 120 feet.

Of course, people go here for critter diving and it delivers. No guarantees but we saw mandarin fish, blue ring ottos, rhinopias, seahorses, ornate ghost pipefishes, wonder pus and coconut octopus which are really cool. It has to be the best mandarin site on the planet. They have little guys trained to ignore big camera lights.

Several of the coral sites are pretty good too. California Dreamin is a very good coral reef dive with lots of pretty soft coral. You have to ask to go there because it is a bit further away and most people want to see critters. OF course, don’t miss a night dive. We didn’t get to see a bobbit worm, but I did see some the most amazing octopus behavior ever.

Lembeh has a special program with the Manado airport that includes expedited service. I think it was $25 extra and it was worth every penny. Hopefully they continue that service

Visited on 03/2011 - Submitted on 02/11/2014
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Seven Seas

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My teenage daughter and I spent 10 days on the Seven Seas in July of 2008. Getting there is relatively easy with a short flight out of Bali and landing in Labuan Banjo where the boat is ready to go. Of course, don't miss a chance to spend a few days in Bali. We dove Crystal Bay and got to see three mola mola fish which was a pleasant bonus for the trip.

While not specifically a family trip, the week was definitely more oriented in that way than any other liveaboard that I have been on. Jos Pet, the owner of the boat, had his entire family. Several other families from Bali were on the boat as well. Thus, it had a different feel to it than every other liveaboard that I have been on.

Despite this, the boat did a good job of accomodating divers such as myself who were a bit more experienced.

The land walks to see the Komodo dragons were spectacular. I have since seen these beasts in zoos and it is always disappointing to see them through the glass. One hike was fairly lengthy and we got to see some spectacular vistss. We also saw nesting sites were the dragons had their young. Impressive sites.

The rooms were pretty small, but comfortable. I do understand that since we were on the boat, the rooms have been redone (2 eliminated) to make for a bigger space. If you are going to Komodo, you have lots of options. If room size is important, I would compare square footage and get the space you want.

The food was very good and we had special meals on the top side of the boat that were especially good. On two nights we had "picnics" with a bonfire on small spits of sand. That was special and I don't remember doing that anywhere else.

Summer in Komodo means north and south maybe. North was great with some very classic sites such as Chimney Rock. These pinnacles are exposed to current which is good for fish but bad for humans. The crew was extremely careful to make sure the current was quiet when we got in. I am sure their caution was extra high because of the children on board. For that, this crew was actually perfect.

The setup for dive photography was good, but not fantastic as it is on the Damai and Arenui. Because of the folks on board (only one other very serious photographer), it worked fine. However, with a boat load of photo guys, it would have been very crowded.

The highlight of the trip was mantas. We had mantas on a half dozen dives. Even the couple of swimmers had mantas with them. A handful of gray tips were seen on several dives. The Cauldran dive was specacular and filled with purple corals. But the currents were strong so this is not a dive for the beginner. But my favorite dive was Batu Bolong which is out in the open current. Our boat was very careful with the currents. (Just two weeks earlier, two British divers had been swept away from here). It is also easy to go deep. We blew up a picture of my daughter's dive computer display to see that she was at 140 ft in depth.

Our only disappointment is that we were totally unable to go to the south at all. We had strong winds which kept us totally in the north. That wasn't awful, but we did miss half of the park. That was unusual, but it did happen occasionally.

The coral was very good, but not quite as good as Raja Ampat. This is probably the best shark diving in all of Indonesia and certainly a great place to see mantas.

Visited on 07/2008 - Submitted on 02/11/2014
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Gangga Island Resort & Spa

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Half the fun of this place is getting there. The road that turns north towards the shore starts out as a normal Indonesian rode and gets progressively more remote as you go. Farmers would use the road to lay out blankets and dry their crops in the sun. We had to go around mules pulling logs and even had to work our way through a wedding celebration march that used the road we were on. You definitely get a "We're not in Kansas anymore" feeling by the time you get to the dock where it is then a 45 minute boat ride to the island.

The Gangga Island Resort is a small island with 15 bungalows, each with two rooms. The resort itself is quite spacious with a good size pool and a nice set of core buildings for the patrons. Some of the rooms are a pretty good walk to the central resort, so look at a resort map and choose carefully if you don't want a five minute or more hike each way. The paths were dark and not real well lit.

The food was buffet style for all meals (it's not like you had anywhere else to go!) and it was very good. As a matter of fact the food was great--the best that I have had at a dedicated dive resort. The owners are Italian so that tilts the food in that direction. As a matter of fact, the entire resort is heavily tilted towards European travelers and families. We were there in August which is the height of the vacation season so there were a lot of European families with children. We only saw one other American couple the time we were there. That didn't bother us, but some folks might like more Americans.

The diving facility and dive photography facility was spacious and first class. The entire dive operation was extremely well run. They had 4 or 5 boats that would go to different sites each morning.

The diving was quite a bit more controlled due to the nature of the clientele which were generally less experienced than at most dive resorts. (I think Lembeh tends to attract the serious divers compared to here) Strict one hour limits were enforced and we were required to stay in a small group. Since I was there with my 13 year old son, this was OK with me.

The diving nearby was very good, although some of the sites were not reachable because of windy weather when we were there. Several of the sites near the resort had typical pretty coral reefs with small reef fish and an occasional eagle ray and turtle. We also went back to the mainland of Sulawesi for some dives that were a bit more Lembeh like. We did find a nice mandarin fish dive and they had a boat that went there every evening at sunset. We went twice because I forgot to have my strobe plugged in inside my housing the first time! We looked for pygmy seahorses but did not find them. We did see lots of angel fish and a couple of interesting octopuses.

We went to Bangka Island twice during the week were there and it was very good coral reef diving. Not quite as good as Raja Ampat, but still very good. For extra charge, we did a day trip to Bunaken which was actually a bit disappointing. Very pretty topography, but not a lot of fish. The resort did an all day trip to Lembeh a couple of times a week. We had just been to the Lembeh Resort, so we skipped that.

While a dive resort, this place had a multi-purpose feel to it as opposed to Lembeh which was kind of a liveaboard on land. Most people went diving, but not every day like we did. We did get paired with a specific divemaster who appreciated that we were more serious than most divers there. He helped me with my photography and kept a good eye on my young son. He was probably the best divemaster that I have ever had on a trip.

This is a great family destination where some dive and some don't. The only other place like it was the Cousteau Resort on Fiji. Kids will be happy in the pool. Teens will be happy in local diving. Divers will have lots of options as well. This is a place that more Americans should visit. There are plenty of local sites for five days or so. It makes a great extension onto a Lembeh Resort visit and gives a very nice extension to the muck diving of Lembeh.

Visited on 08/2007 - Submitted on 02/12/2014
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Bilikiki Liveaboard

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Getting here is not too bad. We flew to Brisbane from LA, stayed a couple of days, and then flew non-stop to Honiara which is only about a 3.5 hour flight away. We didn’t stay on land, but several people did. If you have an interest in WWII wrecks, there is plenty to see. Just be ready for Malaria protection as this is one of the worst places in the world for malaria.

The Bilikiki is a nice boat but not spectacular. We had a very unusual situation in that because of a group cancellation, there were only four of us on board. It was kind of fun to have a room all to ourself and we kind of designed each day as the four of us wanted to have it happen. The host and hostess were both dive masters and that was who led the four of us into battle. As could be expected, we were given total flexibility in our dive profile. I have remained friends with the other 2 divers for almost a decade now.

The boat had a great relationship with the natives. They would sell us vegetables and fish on many of our stops. We did 3 village stops during our 11 days and they were very authentic and lots of fun. We were likely the only outside civilization that they would see for a month. The welcome was always warm and sincere.

The food was consistently good, but not as good as some other boats I have been on. The breakfasts were nice, but the dinners were a little boring after a while.

The Solomons have a number of very lovely dive sites. My personal favorite was Custom Cave which is a long tunnel that ends in a large open cavern with an opening to the sun at the top. When the sun goes under a cloud, it gets dark and when the sun comes out, a light switch goes on and a beam comes from the ceiling. Very cool. Leru Cut is similar and is more famous. The shimmering light is very unusual.

Mary’s Island has diving similar to Sipadan. The premier dive site is Barracuda Point which attracts gray sharks and large schools of fish. It is quite deep and the best action is well below 100 feet.

Only the longer itineraries go to the Morovo Lagoon and the very best diving is definitely there. If you are going half way around the world, it is good to get to these dive sites. They are classic atoll dives with the best dives along cuts into the center of the lagoon. Amazing sea fans on several of the sites.

Back in the Russell Islands, a series of sites hover over the giant garbage dumps left by the U.S. after the battle of Guadacanal. Lots of critters here

Throughout the Solomons, the seas were warm and the clarity was very high. We found a very nice Mandarin Fish site here that was as good as any one that I have seen anywhere.

The overall impression of diving in the Solomons is variety. Nice WWII wrecks. Schools of fish at Morovo Lagoon and Mary’s Island. Some very nice critter sites. Leru and Custom Cave are highly unusual as well.

We were on the boat for 11 days and did 50 dives. It was a very good experience.

Visited on 07/2005 - Submitted on 02/12/2014
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Nai'a Liveaboard

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The Nai'a was an unusual trip for me in that I went alone. Being a lone traveler was a bit different because you don't have that go to person on the boat or underwater. It tends to amplify the importance of the details.

First, getting there is great. It is the easiest place to get to of the far away spots outside of the Caribbean. An overnight from LA and you are in Nadi and a 1 hour drive and you are ready for the boat. I stayed one night at a Nadi hotel to catch my breath and ended up meeting half of my future boat mates.

The boat is most luxurious that I have been on, even compared to the Indonesian boats which are bigger, but in a more casual way. The owners make sure that you feel like royalty when you step on board. When the boat was first built, the owners created a deal where each return visit would get a slightly larger discount. They were more successful that they had hoped and ended up with a lot of very regular repeat visitors. I was one of only 2 or 3 out of 18 that had not been on the boat before.

The food is the best you can get on a liveaboard dive boat. They have chefs come in and design a 2 week menu that rotates for each night. White table clothes and fine place settings. Meals are a big focus of the week.

The water temps in Fiji vary quite a bit through the year. I was there in early November and the water was a bit cool, especially towards the end of the week after 20 or so dives. If you go in our summer, the water can be very cold while Feb and March are very warm. Be prepared.

We divided up into two groups for the week and the dive operation was very hands off once they were comfortable with your skills. I passed their muster and was left to kind of do my own thing with my camera. Because I didn't have a dive buddy, I was almost too alone at times. The good thing was that water visibility was always very high and we could see a long ways. We were also left to dive as long as our air and computers would take care of us.

The camera facilities were more limited than what is now current standard. I would not be surprised if they have updated their UW photography benches. Equipment has gotten a lot mroe common and bulky over the past few years.

The diving is very good from start to end. The Namena marine reserve has a half dozen world class sites. I dove there from the Cousteau Resort a few years earlier, but it was a long ways removed from the hotel and boat only went there twice a week, wind willing.

Chimneys is a pair of volcanic pinnacles which are really nice with schools of fish from the bottom at about 100 feet all the way to the surface. All of the reef tops in Fiji are full of colorful hard coral garden and the Chimneys were beautiful. Kansas is another amazing dive with fields of beige soft coral flowing in the current to make it look like, well Kansas. North Save-A-Tack is also an incredible dive in the right conditions. Schools of fish and a handful of sharks were everywhere.

Nigali Passage has to be one of the best dive sites in the world. Very similar to Ulong Island in Palau. It is a mile long channel between two bodies of water and at the right current conditions it fills with the entire food chain from the eaten to the eaters. A dozen sharks, 50 or so big groupers , and schools of bait for the big guys. They set up like a wall of feeders and you just watch the action happen. It is almost worth the trip for that dive alone.

Also spectacular is E6 which is a bit pinnacle out in the blue. While some divers said that this site has been hurt by El Nino is the late 1990s, it seemed pretty amazing to me.

Fiji did lack the huge variety of places like Solomons and Indonesia to the immediate west. We did not see the exotic creatures that one sees there.

One other side note, I did befriend an elderly woman diver who had logged 12,000 dives in her career and she was retiring after she left the boat. She was most famous for being the blonde on Sea Hunter who always needed to be rescued by Beau Bridges. She had many stories to tell about the creation of the dive industry over the 1980s and 1990s. For an avid diver, her stories were great. And she still kept up with the group!

Visited on 11/2005 - Submitted on 02/13/2014
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Paradise Villas, Little Cayman

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Getting there is half the fun. You take a prop plane from Grand Cayman and land on a small runway with an airport building about the size of my bedroom at home. You get your luggage from the plane and walk across the road and you are at Paradise Villas. It doesn't get more casual than this.

I consider Paradise as the alternative to the much bigger and more polished Little Cayman Beach Resort where a lot of divers go to. Paradise consists of a dozen bungalows, right on the water with very lovely grounds. No TV to be found here. We did get a bit of Internet coverage.

The island is great. It has one of everything. One ATM. One grocery store. One fire truck which was given to the island by the government to keep them happy. One gas station that has gas about half the time. One road that goes around the island and is fun to take by bike but it is a bit of a trek.

The resort does not have a restaurant but the Hungry Iguana is next door and it is pretty good. A good breakfast and burgers during the day. We walked to the LCBR on a couple of occassions for a nicer dinner. And did I mention, the island has one big party each week. The week we were there, the young teen daughter of the owner played her flute for entertainment. The island also has some good bird watching with one of the best places to see boobies outside of the Galapagos Islands.

The rooms are nice with a little sitting area and a bedroom. They also had a nice sun porch. Nothing luxurious, but comfortable. The resort has a nice pool where lizards come to sun themselves during the sun of the day.

The diver operation is headed by Mark and Sabine who are great people, photographers, and divers. The shop is small, but professional.

We did almost all of our diving on the north (far) side of the island which was a bit of a bumpy ride in the windy season. We had been there a couple of years earlier in the summer and that was much nicer conditions than in March. I would say that this is best diving in the Caribbean in May to September.

The diving is all about the Bloody Bay wall and it is world class. The top of the wall is about 20 feet and goes straight down to 2500 feet. You can pick your depth and kind of see what you want. Lots of classic reef fish and a turtle or two every 10 minutes. This is a great place for children and beginner divers.

Night dives are great here and include visits from resident tame groupers who know that divers point flashlights at pretty little fish. See a cute little guy? Litght it up and you feel a shock wave over your should as a big grouper eliminates the little guy and replaces it with a puff of sand. Entertaining but not so much for the fish.

Just a bit further up the coast is Jackson's Point where there is another handful of very nice dive sites. A lot different topography with flat sand bottom and very pretty swim throughs. We saw turtles, eagle rays, and a couple of nurse sharks.

The is some good diving on the south side off the coast of the Villas. These sites are where you go when you can't get to BBW for world class diving. These south dives are very similar to what we saw on Grand Cayman. Good healthy corals and a lot of small reef fish. We saw some lobsters and a pretty interesting octopus.

If you like laid back, no pretension, this is a good place to go. There is plenty of diving for a week--20 or so dives and many of the sites can be dived at different depths. The water is very warm and visibility is 100 feet plus. I have been here three times which is always the measure of what you think about a place.

Visited on 03/2005 - Submitted on 02/14/2014

Hamanasi Dive Resort Belize

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We rarely return to the same destination a second time, and this is the third stay at Hamanasi. First it is easy to get to and it is in the same time zone as the Midwest U.S. You can get to Belize City by noon from most departure spots in the U.S. You can fly a small commuter plane or you can drive a vehicle which we have done on our second and third visits to the resort. It is about a three hour drive and it is a lovely drive on very good roads (except for the last couple of miles).

The resort has an incredible number of activities for travelers. We have visited ruins, gone bird watching, tubing and visited the very lovely Belize Zoo. The rooms are large enough for 2 adults and 2 children, but are more pleasant for just two adults. The one thing that stands out is that everyone will learn your name by the second name. Everyone from the manager to the gardener knows who you are. It's better than Cheers.

The food is very good, but short of spectacular. Of course the setting with the Caribbean in the background is lovely, especially at night. If you have flexibility, head there when the moon is full and you will be treated to an especially nice view at night.

The diving is very good, but short of South Pacific standards. We saw nurse sharks, big turtles, eagle rays and a lot of pretty small things. The dive operation is wonderful whether you are a beginner or expert. I would suggest that you check their daily schedule ahead of time to make sure that your trip will let you go to the outer atolls which have the best diving.

The diving is a bit of a trek away from the resort. The barrier reef sites are about a 50 to 60 minute ride from shore (beautiful). The atolls are 2 to 2.5 hours away and the ride can be quite rough, especially in the winter months. They have planned trips there 2 days a week, so you can miss them if you are not there on the right days. The resort kind of works on a Sunday to Sunday schedule, so if you do something mid week like we did to get cheaper air fare, it may cause you to be out of synch.

The resort has a reputation for whale shark sitings in the late spring months, but I have heard that it is a real tedious trip to find them. If you don't see them, it is a long day of bobbing around in the ocean.

Visited on 11/2013 - Submitted on 02/07/2014
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Jean Michel Cousteau Resort

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The Jean Michel Cousteau Resort is a well known eco resort on Fiji's second major island of Vanua Levu. It is near the small city of Savusavu which is not really a tourist town, but fun to visit nonetheless.

I think that this is the best place on the planet for diving parent who have young children through teens who might be learning to dive. I got certified when I was here with my family a year prior and have now accumulated about 700 dives so the hobby stuck. They have nannies to take care of your children (up to 12 I think), so every morning after breakfast, they get swept away and spend the next 10 or 12 hours with a Fijian nanny while you get to be a couple.

My then 8 year old son said it was the best vacation ever because they only gave him food that he loved. Simple view of life. He also got to go out into the ocean on a bubble marker which to him was like diving. He got certified 3 years later when he was 11, so it had a profound impact on him too. My oldest daughter who was then 15 got certified along with me and has now been on over a dozen liveaboards, so their formula for hooking divers is amazing. She came home wanting to be a marine biologist which didn't happen, but her love for the ocean has never left her.

Every night the resort would have a resident marine biologist give a talk on what they saw during the dives of the day, so there was very strong focus on diving.

The resort really caters to people learning how to dive or have family learning how to dive. The divemasters were all very good at persuading the snorkelers to become divers and regular divers to become advanced divers which I did in my return to the resort this time.

They had two very nice boats that held about a dozen folks each. Very comfortable and pleasant.

The resort went diving in three locations: inside the reef, outside, and Namena. The outside reefs were anywhere from 45 to 90 minutes away. One special dive was Dreamhouse which was a nice pinnacle at about 90 minutes. We saw a hammerhead there and sometimes they saw tiger sharks which we did not see. All of these dives were classic wall dives and some had swim throughs down at about 100 feet. We saw mantas and an eagle ray or two on most dives.

The food was fantastic with incredible variety. We had a combination of buffets and single entres. A lot of fish and chicken with an occasional piece of beef. Deserts were a stand out as well.

The inner reef dives were also good with some nice pinnacles and a good variety of hard and soft corals, but they were affected by the sediment of runoff so they were OK.

The twice a week trips to Namena were the highlight for divers. They were about a two hour boat ride away and thus left early in the afternoon and returned at about 5PM. Chimneys were my favorite dive site although most patrons who had been there multiple times like Grand Central Station (I was not able to go there until 5 years later on the Nai'a Liveaboard boat--it is very good.

Fiji has a lot of seasonal weather patterns. April is the end of summer and we had some pretty nasty storms but rarely missed some diving. This area can get hit by some pretty strong tropical storms in February and March. Water temperature was in the low 80s but drops pretty rapidly as you get into May and June.

We also went on a few night dives and they were very good as well.

We stayed here twice and my wife cried both times when we left because she liked it so much. She does not dive, but had plenty of activities and enjoyed her time sans small children. The Fijian people are loving and kind and have a great heritage. We got to visit a native chief's home and shared in a kava ceremony which was quite unique as well.

Visited on 04/2002 - Submitted on 02/14/2014

Iguana Crossing Isabella Island Galapagos

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My son and spent 5 days here before we left for a week on the Aggressor for a week of diving. I wanted to expand our experience to include more than just live aboard diving.

First, getting here is grueling. After a flight into Baltra, you take a "taxi" to Santa Cruz and then taken a rough boat ride to Isabela. Once there, the ride is only five minutes to the Iguana Crossing Hotel. The hotel is spectacular--right on the beach with a beautiful view. The Junior Suite that we had was one of the nicest resorts that we have ever stayed at anywhere. If you have a family, you will never have a better experience anywhere. The resort had wireless, but not very good. Best to use it early in the morning before people wake up.

The food was good, but pretty limited. We walked into town one night and had a nice meal for a very good price. I would recommend this option.

We did a variety of activities, the best being a hike to the top of the volcano and a boat ride to Tunneles. On the way there, we saw dozens of mantas doing barrel rolls on the surface. Wow. We went snorkeling there and a couple of other locations along the southern coast of Isabella. We also saw flamingos which were close by to the hotel. Very cool.

We went diving once along the southern coast and saw a few sharks and rays. It was all very fun. I would recommend that you spend 3 to 5 days here.

Visited on 07/2013 - Submitted on 02/07/2014

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