20/7/24 – 24/7/24

After a very windy night we headed across to Viani Bay back on Vanua Levu. This was our gateway to the famous Rainbow Reef.

We anchored close to the dive resort and in front of the village. We then went in search of Jack Fisher. Bruno (and Erin Bomati) had told us about Jack and we had seen references on various blog postings. Jack is now in his seventies but had been a dive guide several decades ago. We eventually found his house (the Fisher house is even marked on the Navionics chart) and a very cheerful Jack agreed to take us to the dive sites on our boat for $20 per person. This compared very favourably to the several hundred dollars per person that we would have to pay from the dive resort so we readily agreed and planned a dive with Jack that afternoon.

It took us a bit longer than we had anticipated to get to the dive site so it was in fading light that Jonathan and Claire followed Nigel and Sue into the water. The site was known as the Fish Factory but we saw very few large fish. It was an OK dive but not as spectacular as we had hoped. One lesson learned; if possible, dive in the morning. The sea is generally calmer and, with short days and a low(ish) sun, it’s best to dive in mid-morning to lunchtime daylight.

The next day the diving improved considerably. We had a much earlier start and Jack put us on the Great White Wall – an impressive vertical cliff wall covered in all manner of (unsurprisingly, mostly white) soft corals as well as a huge variety of others. The diving was fabulous but it was somewhat nerve wracking manoeuvring our 44 foot catamaran within a few metres of the surf crashing on the reef as we tried to follow Jack’s instructions to get directly over the dive site before the dive pair jumped of the stern of the boat. Once the divers were safely in the water the boat was moved away from the surf as quickly as possible. The divers were picked up by the dinghy. We would have dropped the divers from the dinghy except that were very nervous about getting the decidedly immobile Jack from the boat and into the dinghy in somewhat rolly conditions.

Today also happened to be Nigel’s birthday. It started, somewhat predictably, with the Beatles singing “When I’m Sixty-Four” and ended with a steak dinner and mini carrot cakes for dessert. Perfect, according to Nigel.

The day after birthday celebrations we had sensibly opted not to dive. Instead we took a long walk around Viani Bay – with several detours inland and through mangroves. The highlight was ending up at the dive resort bar on our return. The bar acts as a social hub for all of the yachties in the bay so you are guaranteed an interesting evening.

One lady who we met, Jenny (Southern Star) recommended diving the Cabbage Patch so, naturally, that was our choice of destination early the next day with Jack.

The dive started as an average sort of a dive across a variety of coral that made us wonder what all the fuss was about. Then, suddenly we came across the most enormous covering of a single variety of coral that left us in no doubt as to why the site is known as the Cabbage Patch. It was a great recommendation – and one we have passed on several times since. Quite incredible!

The early start also allowed us to travel across the Somosomo Strait to return to the town of Somosomo that we had visited on the island/waterfall tour with Paradise Resort. This time Jack directed us into a safe anchorage and gave us his shopping list to add to our own. He sat on the beach and caught up with his grandchildren while we walked up the hill and into the town to reprovision.

We had told Jack that we would catch him a fish while we were out and, true to our word, Sue reeled in a good sized yellowfin tuna that Jack was delighted to take home.

For our last day on the Rainbow Reef we asked Jack to take us to the Purple Wall. We only have enough equipment for two people to dive at a time. Today it was Jonathan and Claire’s turn to go first. After the usual hair raising drop off near the edge of the reef they managed to follow Jack’s directions and, fighting a strong current, managed to swim along the impressive underwater cliff that is the Purple Wall before ending the dive drifting with the current into increasingly shallow water. They realised just in time how close they were getting to the surf and managed to swim far enough out to be collected by Nigel in the dinghy.

The dive gear was then swapped onto our second set of tanks and Nigel and Sue attempted the same dive. By now the current had increased so much that although Sue could just make progress against it, Nigel, who was towing a surface marker buoy, could not. They eventually gave up trying to get to the famous wall and had a short drift dive instead. It seemed that none of us, including Jack, had stopped to consider that tide times (another lesson learned!).

By way of a little consolation, Jack gave us lessons in de-husking coconuts and gave us a pile to take away.