NI SA BULA (Greetings) from Fiji and Happy Thanksgiving!
I'm not able to upload photos from the Nai'a, and will have to do that next week when we get off the boat, but here's what's happening so far!

After a slight delay for Bob, Tom & I, with an unexpected overnight in Los Angeles, everyone arrived in Fiji in time to board the Nai'a on Tuesday afternoon. Shortly thereafter, it was time for the "check-out" dive just outside of Lautoka Harbour. We checked out our gear and made sure all was functioning properly and had a great dive in the meantime! Water was warm, vis was good and those brand-new to South Pacific diving learned about the wonderful varieties of life and saw lots of critters and fish they'd never seen before!

We dove off Lautoka, Viti Levu again on Wednesday and then moved down to Gau early this morning. Capt John greeted me this morning with "It's a MANTA morning!" Right in front of the bow of the boat lots of manta were feeding! White wing tips were frequently seen breaking the surface and we had an "almost total" breech of one of them! Breaktaking, to say the least! After an early "pre-breakfast" snack, everyone was anxious to hit the water and hope the manta were still there! We were greeted by a couple of fast moving sharks but no manta. Obviously, THEIR breakfast was over also! But the dive was beautiful with absolutely gorgeous soft corals in reds, yellows, pinks, purples & white with big sea fans, red whip corals and lots and lots of beautiful fish. Jeff and Grant did manage to spot one manta right at the end of the dive, just before they boarded their tender so they were happy guys! And Grant is diving a rebreather (that means NO bubbles, gang) so he
got pretty close to it and filmed it for the trip video.

After that, we moved around the island of Gau a little and did the Ningali Passage where 30-35 black tip reef sharks hang out! We were dropped just outside the barrier reef and drifted in on the slight current, traveling through schools of snapper and barracuda and then held on to the rocks at the top of the ridge while the reef sharks swam in front of us and all around us! It was a great, exciting dive!

This afternoon after the third dive, we did a visit to the village of Lova where we were greeted by the chief, toured the village, sampled kava, met the kids and gave them kites, beach balls, balloons, pencils, Frisbees and stickers! The village then treated us to a meke, a traditional Fijian song & dance demonstration and it was lovely.

Thanksgiving dinner is, of course, traditional turkey, so everyone is looking forward to that. That's it from the Nai'a and Gau Island in Fiji..pictures from the trip will come in a few days when I have a good internet connection but we wish you were with us!

Isa lei (sorry to see you go) and vinaka vaka levu (thank you very much!)