Royal Davui: Snorkeling

A beautiful snorkel today! The first shot is a teardrop butterfly fish, in front of a drum of coral that was one of our favorite spots. Next is longnose filefish. These reminded me of hummingbirds, i the shape and the way that they move. Then an example of one of the many many blue starfish we saw.







We ran into these reef squid a few times, they are gorgeous! And this bluebird wrasse is one of my favorites. The clams are always cool, and then a truly rare sight, a white-tipped reef shark. It's really rare to see them snorkeling! Ending with this pacific double saddle butterfly fish.

Royal Davui: Snorkeling

After a brief break (we were probably eating) it was back into the water for us! :-) The first picture is a longnose sugeonfish. Second is a tomato anemonefish. Then an anemone with its two orangefin anemonefish. Then a redfin butterflyfish.


It was really precious to us to see the reef so close to the shoreline looking so healthy. The best shore snorkeling we'd ever seen!

Royal Davui: Snorkeling

Our first time in the water at Royal Davui proved that the snorkeling is world class. Some of the best snorkeling I've ever seen, actually. We saw tons of fish and corals! The first picture is a cloud of damselfish above a coral head they will hide in if you get too close, they are amazing to watch dive in. I don't know what kind specifically, but I think they are some sort of chromis. Then is a nice shot of some coral with Christmas tree worms on it. If you touch the worm it retracts. Fun. Then the pennant bannerfish, we saw tons of these. Last is a keeltail needlefish, they are very cool! We also saw lots of different butterflyfish (latticed, threadfin, and others) and other of our favorite reef fish.

Fiji: Royal Davui: Beach

After getting to Royal Davui, we immediately went to explore the beach. There were some little hermit crabs and also this guy. :-)

As part of the Big Sail in 2005, we went snorkeling a few times in the BVI. The snorkeling was good but not great, and the pictures didn't knock my socks off. But we did get these two. The first is a scralwed filefish. I first saw one of these in Hawaii at Hanauma, and immediate loved it! It's still a favorite one of mine. The next is a barracuda. I used to know which one looks like it has camo on, hopefully I'll remember the name and fill it in later.

Fiji: Vatulele, Turtle Mountain

This was a problem dive for me. This is the one where the weight belts got switched, so I needed to add more weight and Jack had too much. As we discovered after the dive. :-) Also I had a very long series of sneezing. Over and over. It was maddening!

Anyway, this was also the dive where I spotted a stonefish. One of the ones that is really well blended and hard to spot. All proud of myself I gathered everyone over to show them. The guide saw it and moved near it to get it to move. And about 18" to the left, another one moved, that none of us had seen at all! It was wonderful and hilarious. :-)

Fiji: Vatulele, Poseiden & Lava Tube

This dive was all about the lava tube. There were squirrelfish upside down, and some little lung fish with sea horse heads. Whatever. I hate swim-throughs. Now I know!