 Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Fiji!It's a NAI'A tradition for something strange to happen on the last dive of every trip. You know, a dozen feeding mantas, mass parrotfish spawning, seven fighting octopus or an underwater volcano - the kind of stuff that inspires frustration and jealousy in those who chose to rinse their camera gear early and miss the dive. So it makes perfect sense that the dive I returned from just minutes ago, the last dive of the year, would be one of my weirdest ever. Never before has a glorious ghost pipefish been upstaged by a shy coral trout. And never before have our divers felt safer feeding 20 sharks than toying with a couple of tiny cleaner shrimp!
Anyway, after dragging the most intrepid divers up-current to see three blue ribbon eels that are "always there" only to find that, today, they were not there, I redeemed myself by spotting a spectacular emperor shrimp on a sea cucumber. One diver was holding me to my promise to find a whip coral ovulid - a simple feat at Anthias Avenue of the island of Gau where clusters of brilliant red whips grow all over the bases of these lavish bommies. But my cockiness soon turned to panic when by the fifth whip cluster I still hadn't found it! In desperation I frantically waved water over the whips to to cause the white fluffy polyps to retract and make my exploration easier, when suddenly one of those bright red fluffy whips rose up in front of my mask! Finally I realized that I was looking at one of the prettiest harlequin ghost pipefish I'd ever seen. It seems like NAI'A has been 'pipefish paradise' these last few weeks. We've logged two more of the extremely rare and hard to find rufous ghost pipefish, a green ghost pipefish with black and orange spotted fins, two long black stick-like pipefish with sawn-off snouts and bellies full of babies, a lovely long-tail ghost pipefish on an open-sea wall and, on hydroids, white seahorses so tiny their very existence defies logic let alone the ability to find them! But today's harlequin was the heartbreaker. In fact, we would have come straight to the surface satisfied and ready to go home, if we hadn't also spotted a poison bristle nudibranch, a blue-lined flatworm, a long-nose hawkfish in snow-white black coral, a miniature trumpetfish among orange whips and a black leaf scorpionfish atop a giant clam. But as anyone who's been to Anthias Avenue knows, it's the height of rudeness to pass by this bommie and not drop in on our voracious resident hump-backed cleaner shrimp. And so, on our final breaths of air, we made the pilgrimage to their hard-coral den at 25 feet where "Ron & Val" (named after those fearless Aussie shark divers, Ron and Val Taylor) were already dancing about looking for filthy fingernails to manicure and cavernous mouths to feed on. Now, this morning we had already twice dived with more than 20 gray reef sharks passing merely an arms length away - first through a massive school of big-eye jacks and later to take a bait engulfed by 50 red "snappass". It never occurred to me that having cleaner shrimp jump in your mouth would require a safety briefing. If you've had these shrimp clamber into your gaping maw for the old dental one-two, then you'll know it's not a death-defying procedure. And you'll understand why I pressured Ayesha Kyari, a wildlife veterinarian, to try it just for a lark! Ayesha held a formidable breath and opened her mouth wide for Ron & Val to do their dirty work with glee while rest of us hovered around to giggle. Out of nowhere, a red coral trout shot center-stage and sunk it's piercing teeth into Ayesha's bottom lip! Fair dinkum! He tugged and shook like he was never going to let go! As green blood gushed forth, I surged to the rescue, fought off the wretched beast and retrieved the missing regulator for Ayesha - by now more pissed at me than in pain. Despite the violent attack, Ayesha suffered only bruising, grazing and a few puncture marks - but no 'loss of face'. Having discovered a natural alternative to collagen injections for the Hollywood pout, she and the attack-trout will become the stuff of NAI'A dinner-time legend as Rob is sure to embellish the tale over time. And it remains to be seen who will be courageous enough to be the first to visit Ron & Val for a gum-cleaning in the New Year. Maybe a "grouper-guard" will be launched at DEMA...
Best 'fishes' for many friendly underwater encounters in the New Year
Divemaster, Cat Holloway
Now - Fiji's Finest DiningIn October, we lured Austrian gourmet genius, Christian Gruden, aboard NAI'A to revolutionize our menu. Some of you may know Christian from his days managing the culinary castille of Marlin Bay Resort. If you thought Manasa's meals were delicious before, you'll drool over the flavors now! In the interest of worldwide health and the right-to-life of indulgent desserts, Sereana now hosts dawn aerobics on the top deck...Just when you thought it was safeRusi Vulakoro, best known aboard NAI'A as "Rusi Singer", is now officially one of the NAI'A dive team! After excelling at his beginner dive courses, he admitted that he'd actually been diving for about 20 years! Despite his constant catch-cry "I'm old already" his Fijian eyes seem to work perfectly underwater. Within his first days on the dive deck he turned up never-before-spotted ghost pipefish and frogfish. Listen carefully during night dives and you'll hear Rusi's famous voice singing the Spanish Dancer Serenade...Aren't you on E-MAIL yet?We send out regular news releases and messages via e-mail to our past passengers, colleagues and friends. If you have not been receiving them, we probably don't have your e-mail address! E-mail is our God-send and it enables us to keep in close contact with you even from the distant wilds of the South Pacific islands. PLEASE send a quick message to explore@naia.com.fj saying "ADD ME TO YOUR NAI'A LIST".New NAI'A websiteBonnie Pelnar of Under Watercolours has taken charge of the NAI'A site to revamped and revolutionize it. Go to www.naia.com.fj, look around and sign our guest book. We're continually adding new sections and updates. Best of all the site is now jam packed with more great photos and video of Fiji diving and life aboard NAI'A. Your grimacing face in a kava bowl or your hairy legs in a sulu may be in our online photo album! Check out some of the spectacular underwater photography portfolios from our passengers.Stan's Back on NAI'A - just announced!Can't wait until Vanuatu 2000 to meet the incorrigible Stan Waterman? Due to popular demand he's hosting a very special NAI'A trip: April 3-13, 1999. With Waterman as guest guide and videographer, NAI'A will cover her regular itinerary as well as explore newly discovered dive sites such as the virgin pinnacles "Ravai's Wives" and the thrilling drift dive "NAI'A FLY'A". Contact us immediately to join the journey and experience the pleasure of diving and dining with Stan Waterman - one of the ocean's great adventurers and filmmakers, not to mention a hilarious storyteller.SCUBA diving with whales?Three humpback whales, nine divers and half an hour of bliss on a virgin reef in Tonga! This was our top story in a inspired medley of miraculous all-new dinner 'n' wine tales to tell in our newly refurbished salon - jazzed up with the latest stereo and DVD equipment plus a new TV.Our new NITROX system on NAI'A has proved enormously popular and we enjoyed more than our fair share of perfect sunny weather and calm seas. Newly discovered dive sites are even more vibrant and lavish than the old favorites. Just wait Ôtill you ride the NAI'A FLY'A! A bumper season of bizarre and weird critters included several rufous pipefish, as yet unidentified garden eels, nudibranchs and deep water fish. Hammerheads schooled at Namena, silvertips spooked us at E6, mantas gathered at Wakaya and Nigali's gang of grey reefies remain among the most photographed sharks in the Pacific. So, when we arrived in Tonga in July to seek out humpback whales, we wondered if our luck would hold.... The first week, a special Whaleman Foundation charter with prolific marine artist and charismatic whale-lover, Wyland, saw numerous remarkable snorkeling and surface encounters with humpbacks. (Look out for a television piece on the group's adventures.) Then, in our second week, late one balmy afternoon near Lofanga Island, we decided to leave a humpback mother and calf alone to go diving on some pinnacles instead. It was a mediocre dive without Tonga's trademark pristine coral terraces and 150-foot viz, until three massive forms loomed into view...HUMPBACK WHALES! Proving untrue all the theories about SCUBA bubbles and humpbacks being mutually exclusive, three whales danced and cavorted and tumbled and played among nine (heavy breathing!) divers for 25 minutes! They also posed for the cameras and taunted us close enough to reach out and touch - had we not been either paralyzed with awe and surprise or busy shooting the images and video of a lifetime! It fulfilled wildest dreams. It brought some to tears. For others, it was better than sex! As ecstatic California diver Derry Kabcenell described it, "Watching whales on snorkel or from the surface is like reading only page 7, 17 and 70 of a great novel. But now I feel like I've read the whole book!" Two days later, in what appeared an impossible stroke of more fortune, it happened again! For the full story of the NAI'A Tonga Humpback Whale Expeditions: www.naia.com.fj
1999 DATES: Aug 3-9; Aug 10-16; Aug 17-23; Aug 24-30
NAI'A in Vanuatu 2000Vanuatu's mammoth and magnificent President Coolidge shipwreck will be just one of several unique attractions that NAI'A will visit in 2000 during three special Vanuatu expeditions with Stan Waterman and Paul Humann. The itinerary will include the stupendous President Coolidge, Million Dollar Point, Bokissa Island Shark Dive and various offshore reefs, pinnacles, passages between Port Vila and Santo. But the exploratory diving is not the only reason for NAI'A to sail throughout Vanuatu's pristine islands. The raw Melanesian culture and traditions in this country's more remote locales are like no others in the world. With special permission from the staunchly protective chiefs, we'll visit a "custom" village. And if a hike up an active volcano doesn't thrill you, then try Vanuatu's extremely thick and potent version of 'kava' - known to send even fierce Fijian warriors crawling for cover. For more details about NAI'A in Vanuatu, contact us immediately to avoid disappointment as places are selling fast! DATES: Feb 25-Mar 7 (Paul Humann); Mar 10-21 & Mar 24-Apr 4(Stan Waterman).Happy Holidays from the NAI'A family and crew!
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