The Point of Diving at Manta Point.

Is mantas, of course. (Not my picture, but just about exactly what we saw.)

 

Kadavu is the southernmost island in the Fiji group. It is still relatively undeveloped. There are a few roads and villages on the north side near the tiny airport, but the major part of the island is road-free. There are about eighty villages scattered across the island, averaging about 100 people each. The main means of transport is either hiking on primitive trails through the dense jungle or by boat.

 

I had booked three days at Matava Resort on the southeast side of the island. Matava is an eco resort: no electrical power in the rooms, no roads, no cell coverage,  expensive wi-fi only in the main lodge. All the water is heated by solar panels and the power in the main lodge is provided by a solar array as well. A perfect place to get away from civilization for a while. 

After a bouncy 50-minute plane ride from Nadi, we touched down on a small runway set on the isthmus between two larger parts of the island. There were four of us headed for Matava:  Bill, a Californian who had been here many times before, and a couple from Austria, Helmut and Regina. We were met by a pickup truck, loaded our gear in the back, made a few stops for groceries and supplies, then drove over the hill to a little harbor.

Here our baggage was loaded onto a small boat and we started off for the 45-minute boat ride to the resort. 

The tide was extremely low. Our captain, Skelly, told us it was a rare king tide: extra high and extra low. We barely made it over the reef in a couple spots.

When we got to the resort, the tide was at its lowest ebb, and we had to walk about a quarter mile through knee-deep water to get ashore.

It was worth the effort. This is what paradise looks like at low tide.

I stayed in the Suga Shack with a lovely view from my balcony. The rooms were quite comfortable with plenty of ventilation.

 

The staff was very friendly and helpful and the food was excellent. Well, Italian night wasn’t the best, but the Thai and Fijian dishes were very good. There were only the four of us staying there; it felt very remote indeed.

The nearest village was about a mile away, so I decided to take a walk along the beach while it was still low tide. Not really a good idea. The “beach” isn’t sand, but mud, and I soon found myself ankle-deep in it. 

There were lots of tiny crabs with one huge claw scurrying from hole to hole. As they get bigger, the move inland. The hotel grounds a pockmarked with crab holes about as big as a silver dollar. I also saw a lot of mudskippers. and some interesting mangrove areas.

 

I decided to try to skip the mud myself. I headed inland, figuring the must be a trail people use at high tide. There was a trail, but it was slippery, narrow, difficult, and prone to mudslides. I gave up a returned to the muddy shore. 

I finally made it to the local store, about halfway to the village. The thought of slogging through more mud wasn’t appealing, and I was worried that the tide might come in and cut me off from the resort, so I decided to turn back. I tried to find an inland path, but wound up at a dead end. I surrendered to my fate and forced my way through the mangroves to the shore and stumped back, covered in mud. Time for a Fiji Bitter.

 

I was really looking forward to my first dive in Fiji. There were only three of us on the boat, so the diving was easy. The seas outside the reef were still rough from the storm, however, which meant we had to dive inside the lagoon. There are no barriers between Antartica and the island’s southern reef, so waves have the whole vast southern ocean in which to build up momentum. There are some great surf spots on the outside of the reef with huge waves at times. There are also some great dive sites like Manta Point, but in these conditions, most were inaccessible.

 

Unfortunately, a lot of rain means a lot of runoff from the forest into the lagoon, and that makes for fairly murky diving. The sites we visited the first day were profuse with soft corals and fish life, but much of the coral was covered with a layer of silt and sand, and the visibility was pretty limited. 

Still, it was great to be in the water.

 

The next day, the seas and the wind had calmed a bit. James, the dive master, decided that Manta Point was worth a try. He figured that if we timed the low slack tide perfectly and the waves were not too high at the exit from the lagoon, we should be able to make the point.

 

So we waded out to the little skiff that took us to the dive boat, carrying our gear. But the dive boat wouldn’t start. A problem with the battery. Captain Skelly worked furiously to get it working. No luck. James swam to another boat to see if he could find something to fix ours. Just then, Skelly got the boat started. James swam back, and we took off, about a half-hour late.

 

From there, everything went smoothly. The swells outside the reef were relatively small, so we slid into the warm water with excited anticipation. 

 

We weren’t disappointed. The visibility was still pretty limited, but it didn’t matter. Six or seven huge mantas were cruising the cleaning station only a few feet from us. We hung on the edge of the ledge and watched as they flapped in slow, graceful circles just over our heads, trailed by strings of frantically-feeding cleaner fish. 

 

I've seen mantas before but never so close. We almost could have reached out and touched them at times as they sailed over us. Fascinated by their weird beauty, I actually forgot to breathe a few times. 

We sailed back to the resort happy. that evening we had a Fijian kava ceremony with Tui and Skelly. The kava root is mashed and added to water to release its effect. Which is not much for those of us used to drinking alcohol. The ceremony was fun, though. I played the role of chief. I drank first, but said nothing. Helmut played the spokesman. His job was to know when the chief wants more kava and to let Tui, who was mixing the stuff, know by saying, “Taki!” Tui would then ask me whether I wanted “high tide” (a full bowl) or “low tide” (a half-bowl). Of course, it was always high tide for me. I would then clap once, and Tui would hand me the bowl of kava, which had to be drunk in one go. When I finished, everyone would clap three times, and a bowl would be prepared for the next drinker.

 

We all drank seven bowls. The effects were quite mild, most noticeably a minor numbing of the tongue accompanied by a bit of a buzz comparable to smoking a couple cigarettes on an empty stomach.

 

At the end of the evening, we all agreed that we didn’t ever need to drink kava again.

BTW, there seems to be an unwritten “n” between “a” and “d” in Nadi and Kadavu. Everyone here pronounces them as “Nandi” and “Kandavu.”

 

P.