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NAI'A News
March 2003

FIJI'S FINEST DIVING FILLS IMAX® SCREENS

Coral Reef Adventure earns rave reviews for Howard and Michele Hall, NAI'A divemaster Rusi and Fiji's reefs.

"With its deep blue undersea vistas, vivid but delicate corals, and swiftly flashing schools of fish, Coral Reef Adventure is one beautiful piece of work... Adventure it is, and of the most exhilarating sort."
Boston Globe

"Coral Reef Adventure contains the most beautiful underwater footage ever to hit the giant screen. It captures the breathtaking color, texture and movement of living coral reefs in stunning detail."
Cincinnati Enquirer

"Rusi Vulakoro, a Fijian diver and guide who is trying to save his village's dying reef, provides eloquent testimony..."
Boston Globe

With the February release of the latest IMAX® extravaganza, Coral Reef Adventure, NAI'A's much-adored dive sites are finding international fame among divers and land-lubbers alike. Fiji's colorful coral reefs and charismatic marine creatures star in the latest lauded giant screen IMAX® film featuring and shot by Howard and Michele Hall.

The film follows the Hall's diving journey throughout Fiji as well as to Australia's Great Barrier Reef and French Polynesia. The film was shot mostly in Fiji on the dive sites that NAI'A discovered and made famous. It stars Howard and Michele Hall alongside inimitable NAI'A divemaster and songmeister Rusi Vulakoro. With NAI'A cruise directors, Rob Barrel and Cat Holloway, as the filmmakers' guides to the best sites and animal encounters in Fiji, the story documents the finest examples of diverse and abundant coral reef ecosystems as well as the quest for ways to guarantee a future for these crucial habitats. Traditional ceremonies and village life at the island of Gau, where NAI'A passengers have dived and downed kava for 10 years, feature prominently. As do the well-known NAI'A dive sites including Cat's Meow, Mount Mutiny, E6, Nigali and Namena.

According to Howard Hall: "Fiji was clearly the best location, not only because the NAI'A crew have found spectacular diving, but also because of Fiji's accessibility and safety."

"Between the sequences of hunting sea snakes, octopus and turtles plus the deep trimix exploration, in Fiji we've shot some of the most exciting underwater sequences ever recorded on film."

"NAI'A dives the world's most beautiful coral reefs."

The camera team used fully closed-circuit rebreathers on all dives and stayed submerged for up to six hours at a time to get the shot. Among the most ambitious projects for Coral Reef Adventure was the "Twilight Zone" filming of the reef between 200 and 500 feet deep. Here, armed with trimix, tech training and a rebreather, maverick ichthyologist, Richard Pyle, is discovering new species of fish at a rate only dreamed of elsewhere on the planet.

Howard and Michele have now begun to rebuild their acclaimed marine natural history footage library -- but this time in high definition video. To that aim, the duo chose NAI'A in Fiji as their first shooting destination, completing more than four weeks of high-def sequences of sharks (including a shark cleaning station), goby-shrimp pairs, soft coral scenics, cleaner shrimps, blue ribbon and garden eels and a triton shell eating a crown of thorns starfish.

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC EXPLORES FIJI FRONTIERS

While Wildlife Conservation Society scientists embark on the South Pacific's most ambitious marine park plan.

Special Expedition: May 10-24 (Space Available!)

National Geographic magazine photography and marine science team, Tim Laman, Zafir Kizilkaya and Dr. Les Kaufman will dive aboard NAI'A on this special survey trip. The team worked in Fiji previously covering the region's status as a "biodiversity hotspot" (March 2003).

"We're here to shoot the rich colorful soft coral reefs as well as the unusual stuff - the strange little creatures and the endemic fishes," said Laman.

Meanwhile, on the same trip, our dedicated and eminently qualified local and international partners at the Wildlife Conservation Society will begin in earnest the massive job of surveying, planning and creating a nationwide marine protected area network throughout central Fiji (Lomaiviti, Bligh Water, Namena to Gau). The team will investigate why so many of the spectacular Lomaiviti reefs have survived coral bleaching or regenerated at an unprecedented rate.

This work is the culmination (and yet just the beginning) of years of begging the scientific and conservation community to consider the field experience of NAI'A divers (including our passengers). Finally we have found supporters to officially recognize how abundant, healthy and diverse Fiji's best reef systems are, and create a large scale conservation area to protect them.

This charter will be the first of the WCS survey work and the cream of WCS donors has been invited to join the trip. Now, post coral bleaching mania, scientists and conservationists as well as governments and funding institutions are realizing the dire need to identify the world's remaining healthy coral reefs and understand the reasons why they are surviving - BEFORE the threats from Asia migrate any further into the South Pacific.

Watch the science, participate in the research, learn from the world's top photographers or simply dive for the fun of it. This expedition will also be the subject of a special feature article by Cat Holloway in US Sport Diver magazine.

The Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary may still be held ransom by International Whaling Commission skullduggery, but many small South Pacific island nations are not letting tedious politics hold them back. First French Polynesia and then last year the Cook Islands declared their EEZ a marine mammal sanctuary. This month Fiji followed suit!

We'll celebrate this brilliant news in Tonga this year aboard NAI'A among the region's largest tribe of Antarctic humpbacks with whom we've now spent seven superb winter seasons - snorkeling and sometimes diving alongside the leviathans. Tonga's King banned whaling throughout Tonga in 1974. And many of the the next generation are looking towards even wider protection for marine mammals there.

Whether your interest is in scientific research, photography and video or just the sheer thrill of the wildlife encounter of a lifetime, join us on one of the following trips this year:

• August 6 - 15
• August 16 - 25
• August 27 - September 5

SPECIAL DEAL FOR DIVE CLUBS & GROUPS IN 2003
New peak-season Fiji charter dates now available

• Sept 13-20 - 7 nights, 6.5 dive days
• Sept 20-27 - 7 nights, 6.5 dive days

Got a hankering for the world's most colorful coral reefs and shark channels? You'll also love our phenomenal new dive sites like Go Mo, Maytag Mountain, Howard's Diner, Alacrity Passage and Mellow Yellow. Fiji's famously breathtaking underwater scenery and NAI'A's friendly crew continues to be the ideal escape. The health and abundance of Lomaiviti's reef complex remains unrivalled with many regions looking better than ever! Global warming who?

For our many dive clubs and traveling groups, we are offering extra incentives. Got 16 divers? Bring two more totally FREE. PLUS everyone breathes Nitrox gratis. Got 8 divers? Bring one extra for FREE!

UPDATE US AND VISIT US IN NEW YORK

NAI'A will no longer be communicating via our old e-mail address naia@is.com.fj Now use ONLY explore@naia.com.fj

Have you moved or changed your email address? If so, please let us know your new information so we can stay in touch and keep you informed. Send us an email or give us a call. We're always thrilled to hear from old NAI'A friends.

Come and say BULA to our Sales Manager, Mike Ratunamasa, at the NAI'A booth of the Beneath the Sea Dive Expo: Meadowlands Exposition Center, Secaucus, New Jersey, March 28, 29 & 30.