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This
Page is about countries we have dived in but didn’t stay around
long enough to get enough information to warrant a page to
themselves, but are worthy of a mention just in case our limited
knowledge can be of some use to anyone in making a decision as to
whether or not to visit the country.
MEXICO
18/5/2001 – 27/6/2001
Guitar Shark - Sea of Cortez
Having
hitch-hiked the whole length if the Baja Peninsular, we finally made
it to the town of La Paz, where me met Tim, the owner of Baja
Expeditions, who didn’t have any work for us , but let us go out
for a dive with his company just to see what we thought.
Unfortunately for us we arrived a bit early in the season and the
visibility in the water was quite poor due to algae bloom. Also, the
water temperature was still on the chilly side. The coral in the Sea
of Cortez is pretty limited, but that has not deterred the Crown of
Thorns Starfish from moving in. All the usual tropical fish are
there including Porcupine fish in their thousands!! The Sea of
Cortez is also a good place for big stuff such as Hammerheads,
dolphins, eagle Rays and Pilot whales which we got see but only from
the deck of a yacht we hitched a ride on. After spending a month in
the Sea of Cortez and having only dived twice (but snorkelled a fair
bit) due to the poor visibility, we decided to head over to the
other side of Mexico to try our luck in the Caribbean sea.
We
landed a job a Playa Del Carmen but after 2 dives there on
supposedly their best dive sites (which seemed pretty dead to us)
and due to the high cost of living in Playa Del Carmen as it is a
tourist town, we decided to move on again. Our advice is don’t
bother with diving off Playa Del Carmen, rather save your money to
dive off Cozumel or in the Cenotes (inland fresh water caves),
neither of which we have done but have heard very good things about
from other people.
FIJI
16/9/2001 – 5/10/2001
Tracy and her students - Mana Island
Having
heard and read so much about Fiji it was with great enthusiasm that
we boarded the plane at LAX (5 days later than we were meant too,
due to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and the
Pentagon, which caused all U.S airports to shut) and flew to Nadi
(pronounced Nandi).
Once
in Fiji and having no idea really what we were up to, we ended up on
Mana Island in the Mamanuca group of islands just west of Nadi.
Tracy got cajoled into teaching a group of backpackers to dive –
they were a great group; Neil (The Chief) Callaghan, Vicki Heraty,
Alex Jelley, Ingrid and Melvyn (aka Malcolm) Leask and Jason (??),
ably assisted by Bridget Carol, a divemaster trainee who’d been
abandoned. Due to the fact that Tracy didn’t get paid, the state
of the accommodation we were given and the faulty equipment, as well
as the completely dead coral, we decided to move on. We were
accompanied by Bridget as Tracy wanted to get her Divemaster
finished for her so she could start working on her travels. From
Mana island, we travelled back to Nadi, then took a fast boat (still
6 hours) to Savu Savu on Vanua Levu. Next day, another boat to the
island of Taveuni to dive the world renowned Somo Somo Strait. Once
again we were to be disappointed by the lack of coral, even on the
"Great White Wall", which is meant to be one of the best
dives in the world. It certainly isn’t! The wall itself is nice as
it is covered in soft corals but the surrounding reef is completely
dead. Our dive boat even dropped anchor straight on the reef,
breaking what little coral is left.
From
Taveuni, we flew back to Suva on Viti Levu and made our way round to
Pacific Harbour (stayed in the very nice Pacific Safari Club – run
by Tony – very good cheap luxury backpacker accommodation - is
that OK Tony!!!). Tracy finally finished Bridget’s Divemaster
course off in the river!! Due to the fact that the sea was so rough
and nobody was venturing out, after 3 days of torrential rain and
wind we finally gave up on Pacific Harbour and made our way back to
Nadi so we could catch an earlier than scheduled flight out of the
country.
All
in all, we wouldn’t go back to Fiji unless we were very rich and
could afford to stay in the resorts! The diving is vastly over-rated
and the reefs have been destroyed. Also, the place is extremely over
priced – especially the so called "budget" accommodation
which is over-priced. Don’t bother with Fiji! Stick to S.E Asia
any day.
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