August 2, 2013
Fiji generally has warm but comfortable temperatures, but there are those occasional days where the trades die off and it gets pretty hot. This was one of those days, and we planned to spend mid-day in the water. We were in the perfect place to do so, a short dinghy ride from some small islets rumored to have good snorkeling. (Below a gallery of the islets at various times of the day.)
We started by motoring between two of the larger islets nearby. The water between them was shallow and beautiful shades of green, teal and aqua. This colorful waterway between two pretty islands felt like its own world and have been a beautiful place to swim, but we were looking to snorkel and headed on.
Our first stop was a small islet. The snorkeling area wasn’t very big, but it was impressive with fish and coral everywhere. Just off this island was a tiny rock island with a single small tree. We headed over to discover a large bommie that had more clownfish than we’ve ever seen. It was covered with both the fish and their anemones (where they like to hide) hidden amidst the rocks. Not only was there an abundance of clown fish, but at least two or three different kinds. Some of them were pretty tough, following me up to the surface after I invaded their territory, but they’re not the kind of fish to ever bite or attack. I’d swim down again and again to watch them get all huffy about it. We swam around and just enjoyed the scenery and all the fish action.
After the rock island, we were both getting cold and opted to head back to the boat. We had a small area of coral under our boat and decided to swim down and check it out. What a surprise to see a fair amount of fish down there, including more clownfish and a squid. It was a bit of work to get there as we had to freedive about 20 feet, but the fish were so interesting we did it quite a few times.
At this anchorage we also had interesting fish life near the surface as some Golden Spade Fish had decided to hang around our boat and enjoy the bread we occasionally tossed to them. These spade fish were even bigger the ones we had in Tonga, but just as friendly. –Cyndi
