Sharks!

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Hi again all,

I'm currently in Nadi, waiting for my flight tonight. I take off at 22:00 on the 27th and land at 13:15 on the same day! It's going to be a long day..

Anyhow, back to what I've been upto:

Whilst on Waya Lai Lai I went on a hand fishing trip with some people I met, I didn't catch anything but most the others did - there were some really good size fish coming out too!

Bounty island is quite different from the other 2 I visited, you can walk around the whole island in about 10 minutes and it's visited by day trippers. Whilst on Bounty I took the opportunity to do some diving in the area.
First, on the Sunday I dived the wreck on an American B26 Bomber which crashed shortly after the war. Supposedly it's the only bomber that there is no known record for, which makes the locals think there were some important people on board!
On the Monday I went on 2 coral dives, I didn't see much out of the ordinary but the coral and fish in the area were of about the same quality as the Great Barrier Reef. There was a large sting ray on the 2nd dive!

After I returned to the main island from Bounty I had a quick lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe in Port Denarau, mostly because I couldn't believe it exists! Then I caught a bus over to Pacific Harbour.
After arriving at the resort I was booked into in Pacific Harbour I found that there was only 1 person in the dorm and we were in different rooms, and it was a girl I breifly met in New Zealand. It was very useful because I'm now very tired of having to make the effort to meet new people and stay in dorms. I ended up eating with and spending my time with Nikki whilst there.

On the Wednesday I went on the shark dive I went to Pacific Harbour for, they hadn't seen a Tiger shark in over a month so our expectations were not too high. The first dive we went down and stood behind a rope 26m down whilst the divemasters opened up 3 wheelie bins full of fish to stal the feeding. The main attraction for that dive was the 4m long Tawny Nurse sharks whilst were waiting for us. During the dive they even called us forwars in turn to stroke a shark whilst it fed! There were many other big fish around including some smaller sharks.

Th second dive we went down to 16m and this time were asked to sit on some rocks, this is the dive the Bull sharks come in for and there was one 4 1/2 to 5m in length. You dont get a very good look at them becasue the water is a little murky from the food and there are just soo many fish in the way, but occasionally one appeared out of the mass.
Just as we were insructed to leave the second dive and go up we looked up and saw a 5m Tiger shark descending down on us - this was a new shark and the divemasters had to constantly swim by it pushing it away from us. The shark was much bigger than them so they couldn't keep in constantly away! An 80 year old lady (who does the dive regularly!) had to puch it away at one point, and it lost the divemasters and came staight at me once, I had to dive out of the way!
The shark wasn't being aggresive or tryint to bite us, but as the divers explained after it was a new shark to the area and was trying to scare us away from the food like it could do the other fish and sharks!

After the dive I learnt that there was space on the next shark dive - no the Saturday I was due to leave, Nikki was booked on this and I was offered it cheap and so I did it again! It was good but not as good at the Wednesdays diving, and no Tiger shark turned up.

Between the dives we went on a cultural tour which explained how the tradtional fijian way of life used to be, and also included some firewalkers which was interesting!

I'm out of time again and have to get ready for my flight.

I'm back Tuesday and will see most of you soon.

Take care!

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