Expedition Journal: CORAL’s 15th Anniversary Dive Trip to Fiji

Farewell, Fiji

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Friday marked our last day on the NAI'A before heading back for our Saturday morning docking in Lautoka. But before that, we just had to get in three more dives.

Over night we cruised back across the Bligh Waters to the Vatu-I-Ra Passage, near Makongai Island, to see what we had missed a few day before. Though we didn't see the huge schools of jack, barracuda, and sharks that we had just seen in Namena, smaller numbers accompanied us on each dive. We marveled at creatures as small as the quarter-inch pygmy seahorse and as large as four-foot white tip sharks. But perhaps the most impressive animal was a grouper that was at least 4.5 feet long and 2.5 feet from belly to dorsal fin. Truly magnificent.

The NAI'A crew cooked up a delicious farewell dinner for us, and the evening's celebratory mood continued with a kava ceremony and a sing-along-the crew has an incredible repertoire that ranges from traditional Fijian songs to Eric Clapton.

This morning we said good-bye and departed for hotels and airplanes, beginning the adjustment back to normal life. It has been such a long time since the conception of this trip, it's hard to believe that it has now come to a close. And I couldn't have been more pleased with the outcome.

First of all, it was truly inspiring to witness firsthand the visible positive impacts that the Namena Marine Reserve is having on the reefs and fish populations. All of our dives were spectacular, but no one needed a degree in marine biology to see the huge difference that the marine protected area was making for the health of the reef ecosystem.

Even with all of the fantastic diving we did, though, the true highlight of the trip for me—and I think for others, as well—was the visit to Kiobo Village. Meeting the traditional owners of the reefs and seeing their dedication to both the marine environment and their communities was nothing less than inspirational. I was proud to share that experience with so many people who have been helping to make CORAL's work possible over the years. And, of course, the food was delicious!

As I reflect on the remarkable accomplishments of the Namena Marine Reserve, it drives me to find ways to advance our Coral Reef Sustainable Destination approach to new areas both in Fiji and beyond. The Vatu-I-Ra Passage near Makongai, where we dove yesterday, is a good example. The area, being offshore and subject to wind and large seas, receives less fishing pressure than those areas closer to land. But fishing does take place, and the larger predators like jacks, barracuda, and sharks are in shorter supply. Still, the ecosystem remains intact, coral cover is good, and diversity is high. This area is an ideal location for protection and we have begun discussions of how CORAL can partner with other groups to establish a new marine protected area around Makongai Island. Makongai Island is also an important breeding site for noddies and boobies.

And so, with pride in our work with the Kubulau, we leave Fiji with a vision for how we can continue to bring the Coral Reef Sustainable Destination approach to more coral reef communities.

Thanks to all who made this trip such a great success!

Cheers,

Brian

The dive trip participants with graduates of the ecotourism business training and other members of the Kubulau community

 Visiting the Kubulau District

Thursday, November 26, 2009

After a 7AM dive in the Namena Marine Reserve, we returned to the NAI'A and set our heading for Kiobo Village in the Kubulau District. To say there was a sense of excitement among the passengers would be an understatement. Over breakfast, Brian and I provided a briefing on Fijian village protocol, what to wear, and what to expect. Perhaps excitement was also mixed with a bit of nervousness as participants wanted to make a good impression. Sulus were wrapped and adjusted, our traditional offering (sevusevu) of kava was in hand, and we all watched on the bow as the Kubulau came into view. We even had a pod of Spinner dolphins greet us as we approached the nearshore reefs.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I think I'll let these images do the talking.

Cheers,

Rick

We were welcomed to Kiobo Village by members of the Kubulau community and music by Tui Kubulau himself (he is the chief of the whole district, in the green shirt).

The entire village spent a week constructing this gorgeous bure, or traditional building, in preparation for our visit. We held a kava ceremony inside. Now the bure can be used for future tourism endeavors in the village.

Our visit included a graduation ceremony for community members who had completed a recent CORAL-sponsored ecotourism business development training. I was thrilled to be able to personally present certificates to the graduates with Brian and Didi, one of our Fiji field reps.

The village prepared an amazing Thanksgiving feast!

Boys from the villages performed a traditional dance, or meke.

We presented a bolt of cloth to the community that will be used to make sulus for the village.

After music and dancing in the village, we were sent off with a musical farewell.

The Namena Marine Reserve

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Namenalala Island

After cruising overnight from the Vatu-I-Ra Passage, I awoke to a view out my porthole of Namenalala Island in the distance. Finally, we were inside the Namena Marine Reserve and ready for our first full day of dives within the marine protected area.

This morning, no one on board was awoken at 6AM by the sound of an anchor dropping. Because CORAL had invested in the installation of mooring buoys throughout the Reserve, the NAI'A was able to tie off on one of our mooring buoys at North Save A Tack. The moorings make the Namena Marine Reserve Fiji's first anchor-free zone, removing the threat of anchor damage to reefs. It was a great feeling to see the ship connected to this tangible benefit of reef conservation.

Our 7AM morning dive had both skiffs dropping the entire group into the blue just off from the North Save A Tack wall. We fell into endless cobalt blue water that dropped to nearly 3000 feet. Since the tide was incoming, the dive group needed to hover in the blue just off from the wall, or the surging current would easily have carried us up and over the reef through one of the many natural channels.

Blacktail barracudas (Sphyraena genie)

As we sank to about 60 feet, we followed our dive guides until a faint image of the reef began to emerge. Immediately, we began to see massive schools of fish. Hundreds of silvery jack schooled at the tip of a coral channel. At least three species of barracuda schooled and merged below and above us. Blue-streaked fusiliers were so numerous it was impossible to count them. And almost everywhere we looked, big gray reef sharks patrolled the reef wall. It was absolutely spectacular!

In sandy shelves over the reef channels, we could see big grouper tucked into depressions in the sand or loitering near coral colonies. White-tipped reef sharks slept on the sandy channels where the tidal surge could pass water over their gills. And here and there an impressive wahoo or tuna would emerge from the blue to pass close to the reef wall in search of food. Namena is a predator-dense ecosystem that speaks well of the biomass necessary to maintain this trophic reef structure.

Sinularia coral

At the end of North Save A Tack wall, we passed through a sandy channel into the interior of the Namena Lagoon. The channel led us to an underwater coral arch swim-through where an enormous Napoleon wrasse hovered, open-mouthed, at a cleaning station. The current really picked up at this point and with some serious kicking, we all managed to navigate by compass to the coral bommie known as Kansas. Kansas gets its name from the wheat-colored Sinularia soft coral covering its entire surface. The coral waved like a wheat field in the strong current.

In the remaining minutes of our dive, we tried to find shelter from the current behind the bommie while exploring its nooks and crannies for macro life. A few of us succeeded in spotting a diminutive yet amazing pygmy seahorse attached to hydroids. Others found a few long-nose hawkfish. But whatever we saw was just the cherry on a spectacular introduction to the Namena Marine Reserve. MPAs work, and this dive was a stunning example of the hard work of conservationists, local communities, and tourism providers to protect Fiji's precious marine resources.

Cheers,

Rick

A Coral Cathedral

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

On Monday, we backtracked a bit to the Vatu-I-Ra Passage to visit the spectacular dive spots Howard's Diner and Coral Corner. With currents ripping along the surface, we had to drop in and sink immediately so as not to be carried into the deep blue.

Howard's Diner brought us our first sharks of the trip! White-tipped reef sharks were sleeping on sandy grooves along the reef slope there, and over on Coral Corner, the dive group spotted a sizable gray reef shark patrolling the drop-off. Clouds of orange and blue Anthias hugged the outcroppings of Tubastrea coral, fighting the strong current to hold position in the surge while continuously snapping at plankton in the water.

My air consumption on this trip thus far has been terrible! I'm averaging 35-minute dives with a full tank. What gives? I've tried controlled breathing, slow breathing, short breaths, long breaths...Nothing had given me much additional bottom time until today's 2PM dive. We dropped in at the dive spot Whole Shebang (which is aptly named, as it had a little bit of everything!). We sank to 65ft and were immediately picked up by the current for an amazing drift dive. There's nothing quite like the sublime joy of a free reef ride, courtesy of the ocean conditions.

We drifted nearly the entire length of the reef, and then it all suddenly stopped. We were deposited alongside a 70-ft vertical wall of rainbow colors: soft corals, table coral shelves, leather corals, tunicates, sea whips and coils, and sponges galore. Our dive guide, Bridgitt, led us along the reef through a swim-through into what I can only term a "coral cathedral:" a coral garden at 55ft where, literally, every square inch was covered by live coral. A pastel blue was the predominant hue in this garden, and the water was still as I swam through in awe. Words simply can't describe the beauty. While I know it sounds cliché, I literally had to catch my breath at the sight.

When I looked at my computer, I was surprised to see that I had already been down for 50 minutes. Fifty minutes? How did that happen? And I still had 500 pounds of air remaining! Enough for one last look, and then the safety stop.

Slingjaw Wrasse (Epibulus insidiator)

Fiji's reefs are as beautiful as I remember. The abundance of coral and fish and invertebrates is astonishing. Yet as amazing as all these sights may be, I can't wait to get to the Namena Marine Reserve to begin seeing what all our years of work have achieved. Will it all be obvious to our participants? No way of knowing. But tomorrow we finally enter the reserve and begin three days of diving within its waters.

Cheers,

Rick

Coral Bommies

Monday, November 23, 2009

Life aboard the NAI'A liveaboard is grueling. It's dive, eat, dive, eat, dive, nap, dive, and then eat some more...A rough job, but the CORAL Fiji Dive Trip participants are up for the challenge!

A warm welcome from the crew of the NAI'A

After boarding the NAI'A on Saturday afternoon, performing a check-out dive close to Lautoka, and receiving a warm Fijian welcome with singing by our crew, we raised anchor and cruised overnight to our Sunday all-day dive destinations of Makogai and Makodroga Islands, just south of the incredible Vatu-I-Ra passage. We plan to dive a few sites outside of the Namena Marine Reserve to compare and contrast the benefits of protected vs. unprotected areas. The NAI'A has four dives on the agenda daily (7am, 1030am, 2pm, and a dusk dive that transitions into a full night dive at 6pm). An aggressive and exciting schedule, though I'm not sure how many of us will continue diving a full four dives.

Makogai featured two major coral bommies: enormous towers of coral and reef-associated species. Each team dove one bommie during the morning dive, and then we switched for the second dive. Coral bommies are impressive structures. The lushest growth tends to be on the top of the bommie, where strong current circulation and maximum photosynthesis make for brilliantly colored coral gardens. Massive table Acropora corals rule this topmost zone, interspersed with elkhorn, staghorn, boulder, and finger corals. Moving further down the bommie, reef encrusters that thrive in strong currents are common (sea fans, tunicates, and soft corals of every hue). Leather corals also thrive in the rushing water.

View from Rick's room on the NAI'A

I often compare a coral bommie to an old, heavily-used candle holder. Imagine a candle holder that has had wax dripping down its sides for years, forming ridges, grooves, shelves, and other features that build up, change, and even break away over time. It's an apt metaphor for a coral bommie. On a bommie, the live coral and other reef encrusting species live atop centuries of accumulated growth, change, and erosion.

Makogai Island was hit by some of the mass bleaching events that struck Fiji in 2000. A lot of the rubble around the bommies, as well as some bare patches along the bommie surface, show some of the casualties of the bleaching. But coral can be remarkably resilient, and even in the rubble field, new coral colonies are taking hold.

Stay tuned for stories from our next dive sites in the stunning Vatu-I-Ra Passage!

Cheers,

Rick

Fijian Hospitality

Friday, November 20, 2009

After arrival in Nadi on Thursday morning, I grabbed a shuttle for the 2-hour ride to Pacific Harbor along Fiji's Coral Coast to meet CORAL's Fiji Field Manager, Heidi Williams, and finalize plans for Friday's meeting with the Fiji Locally Managed Marine Area (FLMMA) Network. CORAL was presenting an overview of our work in Fiji and our global conservation efforts to FLMMA members for consideration as formal members of the Network.

A "locally managed marine area" is an area of near-shore waters that are actively managed by local communities or resource-owning groups, or are being collaboratively managed by resident communities and local governments and/or partner organizations. This approach has brought back traditional management practices in Fiji, and has been formally adopted by the state government.

I got to sample true Fijian hospitality at Heidi's home, meeting her husband, Wayne (a staff member of WCS Fiji, a local partner), and their beautiful daughter, Kaya. Wayne turned out to be quite the chef, cooking up an amazing dinner of local pork, potatoes, and taro. We were later joined by Fiji Field Rep. Moala Tokota'a and his family for a grog (kava) session.

A little local color: As Heidi was dropping off some towels in my bedroom, we heard her scream. When I checked, she was tip-toeing around this humungous rhinoceros beetle that had just previously been attached to her toe!

The offending beetle

As we both leaned in to look, it suddenly opened its wings and flew directly at us. We both screamed and darted out of the room...

Sharks? No problem! Big Beetles? Scary!

Cheers,

Rick

And...We're Off!

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

The time has finally come to set off on our long-anticipated trip to Fiji! Our neatly packed bags belie the huge amount of effort that went into creating this special occasion—planning this unique event has truly been a team effort, with help and input from all departments at CORAL, as well as friends and partners in both the States and Fiji.

Sitting here in the airport, anticipating our 10-hour flight across the Pacific, we're finally getting a chance to reflect on the significance of the journey we're undertaking. We're sincerely thrilled to be celebrating CORAL's 15th anniversary with this visit to our oldest project site, and we're excited to have this opportunity to share the impact of our work with friends and supporters in person. Of course, we're very much looking forward to getting in the water and showing off the amazingly beautiful reefs that our work is helping to protect! But our time on land will be particularly significant, too—this is a rare chance for us to introduce our supporters to the very people they are helping, and for them to meet the folks who are making the work happen on the ground.

We look forward to keeping you updated on our progress. Here's hoping for an Internet connection from aboard the NAI'A!

Cheers,

Rick and Brian