Although I had a large Northern Diver bag with 'Dive Pack' in bold letters on the side I was still not convinced, as I queued at the Sydney check-in, that I would be doing any diving in Fiji. I had all my snorkelling gear and my wetsuit; the rest of the bag was stuffed with kids toys for general splashing around.
Fast forward to Fiji - Plantation Island Resort - and it took me very little time to jump in the water in my board shorts and rash vest, masked and snorkelled, and head out into the water that was about 30ft from the door of our bure. I can't remember the exact temperatures, but I'm fairly sure both air and water were hovering around 28degrees.
Over the next few days I spent a decent amout of time going up and down the reef out front of the resort, getting myself comfortable on and under the water. I was quite glad with the way my breath-hold came along and was pretty comfortable heading to about 8m. Any deeper would have required a shovel. By the end of the holiday I was comfortably staying at around 5m long enough to click off a couple of pictures, mess about with my camera settings, and drift back to the surface without my lungs exploding. I'm no Jacques Mayol, but for the gentle bimbling I was doing after a long lay-off I was happy. In fact I was quite surprised at how quickly the "BREATH NOW!" feeling was replaced with a far calmer "loads of time" (look up) "and beside, the surface is just there."
Most of my pictures were taken on breath hold on the local reef, and although it is not a great site there is plenty on offer for anyone prepared to put a bit of time in looking for stuff. I found loads of anemone fish, a striped sea snake, (too many) crown of thorns, cardinal, angel and butterfly fishe, shrimp goby and industrious shrimps, loads of clams, coral trout, jeuvenille wahoo, a decent sized octopus, flounder, feather star, sea cucumbers, batfish and more besides - but you get the idea; lots of stuff. Most non-dive days i was spending a couple of hours drifting over the reef. Visibility was variable, and it seemed the low tide was best, although the high tide seemed to bring in nutrient rich water and bring out the clams. On the high there was a real mix of water temperatures - probabaly ranging from warm to very warm. It took about a week of board-short and rash vest days before I shivered. Not bad.
And I also dived. Five - yes 5 - dives.
The first was a single afternoon dive to The Plantation Pinnacle, a coral pinnacle that comes from 24m to about 7m on the top and has a swim through at the bottom. Dive plan was find the pinnacle, swim through the swim through and then spiral up and around before a safety stop and return to the boat. The swimthrough, although quite large, had a good sized chunk of coral on the right hand side that I did not want to touch. I was keenly aware that I'd not dived for three years and was in hire gear. This would test me. I think I prodded a single finger into the sand as I exited the passage and was a little disappointed with myself. I looked back to see who was behind me so I could ask them when back on the boat how I had looked; they had their hand on the floor and were leaving a small cloud of sand in their wake so I figured I'd done OK. I'm not a massive fan of reef diving so don't recall much detail other than it being thoroughly pleasant. I do recall a lot of anemone fish on the top that I spent an extended period watching as I made my way back to the boat after everyone else but the dive guide. I guess my air consumption is still OK. A nice confidence boosting reintroduction to bubble blowing.
Next up was a double dive starting with the wreck of the Salamander. I buddied up with Chris from Melbourne; the backplate, cannister light and general "knows-his-shitness" on display gave me a feeling of confidence. I felt a little guilty about the attention I was paying my camera (more so when I saw how blurry my pics were.) Anyway, depending on who you listen to the wreck is 30, 36 or 40m long, but everyone agrees it is a cruiser and that, depending on the tide, it is in about 27m of water. It is a perfectly pleasant dive but not as exciting or encrusted as the blurb would have you believe. I think I've been spoilt with wrecks in the past. We popped around and through the upper desck but the dive guide grabbed Chris's fin when it looked as if we were about to drop down another deck level. Which we probabaly were. Ah well. Highlight was definitely the ghost pipe fish on the stern - a critter I'd not seen before.
The second dive was a reef dive that I've forgotten the name of. It was a wall sloping shrply to about 30m on the sand but we stayed at around 18m. I think I was just glad to be back in the water and that was enough; when I go back I'll be paying more attention. We bimbled along and I took a few more shots, one or two of them reaching the dizzy heights of "OK." Out of practice, so there is a mix of the underexposed and the fried-with-the-strobe. I kept gazing away from the reef in the hope of spotting a shark but to no avail. So it was reef fish, hard and soft corals and again perfectly pleasant again, without knocking my socks off. To be honest, I think I was more interested in just being in the water, making sure I felt comfortable and so on. Pleasantly surprised to grab a couple of anemone fish shots that I kinda like.
Next dives were another double and were supposed to first go to the Supermarket where we should find sharks. As it turned out we did the Supermarket second and first was Bird Rock. Again they were lovely dives and I took some more pictures - none of sharks. Nevermind. Chris shot his SMB a couple of times and I took some pictures of that, and another of him taking a picture of me. Odd to think that we were sitting just off a reef that many people would give their right nut to dive.
OK, bottom line, because if I don't post this now I never will...three year lay-off but I can still hold my own and in unchallenging conditions I still feel very comfortable.
When I got home I started to go through my old dive gear. Well, you never know...
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