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Fiji Scuba Diving Regions > Pacific Harbour > Dive Sites

Fiji Scuba Diving Regions 5. Pacific Harbour

BEQA/Vatulele?

Side Streets
This legendary dive site is difficult to describe - difficult to take in! More than a dozen superb coralheads with more to see than the diver can absorb. Lush canyons of gorgonias in vivid reds and yellows, tunnel walls festooned with multi-colored soft corals and ancient black coral trees. Imperial angel fish patrol through the stands of sea whips, while white tip reef sharks and coral trout lazily circle the coral heads. Days could be spent at this one great dive spot, which an experienced diver recently described as 'the closest thing to paradise that I have ever seen'. Even the living clam shells are lavishly decorated with brilliant soft corals!

Frigate Passage
Sea fans up to eight feet across. Colorful soft coral. Schools of jacks and baitfish. If you're lucky, you'll see - Gray reef sharks. 40-120 feet. Moderate to heavy current.

Wreck of the TASU No. 2
In September, 1994, a 200-ton Taiwanese fishing vessel was intentionally sunk at 75 feet on a flat, white sand bottom, just adjacent to the very pretty dive site called 'Yanuca Shallows'. The site is well protected from current and wind chop, and the crystal-clear water means that the divers can usually see the full length of the vessel from the bow! As the years go by, the wreck gathers more fish (both tropical and pelagic) soft and hard corals, sea fans and other tropical underwater scenery. The vessel sits upright on the sand bottom and it's a great photo opportunity for still or video.

Crusoe's Channel
3 huge leopard sharks residing in a swim-through, eagle rays, shovel-nosed rays, schools of barracuda, and more! This is a fantastic "big fish" dive

Coral Gardens
Beqa Lagoon's best display of hard corals and tropical fish. Fiji is on the eastern extremity of the largest area of hard corals in the world - and in these 'gardens' one can see most of them represented. Corals, of course, attract the tropical fish that hide in their spiny protection. The twinkling colours of clowns, damsels, butterflies, regal angels, fire fish and Moorish idols shimmer among the stands of fire coral, staghorn, elkhorn and mushroom coral formations. Schools of batfish disport on the deeper edges of the heads while the packs of Pacific barracuda are always in the background, hunting a juicy lunch of tropical fish. This area is also prolific in fluted and giant clams and other members of the clam family. There are squirrel fish, triggerfish, trumpet fish - the many varieties of the surgeon fish - they're all here. In fact you would be hard pressed to name a Pacific Tropical that you did not see at the Coral Gardens!

Caesar's Rocks
Ten spectacular coral heads honeycombed with tunnels and caves. The walls and roofs of every cave and tunnel are covered with soft corals in every color of the rainbow; shades of red and yellow, purple and maroon. Huge gorgonias ('sea fans') and black coral trees hang from every coral head and ensure excellent photographs. This is surely an underwater photographers' paradise - schools of batfish, amberjack and shimmering schools of silver pelagic fish merge with turtles and rays. One of the world's ultimate dive spots, a constant delight to divers, conservationists and ecologists.

Tom's Thumb
When you get there you'll find out the reason for the name! Visit the lion's den!

Soft Coral Grotto
This spot, in the north-western area of Beqa Lagoon, is one of the top spots in Fiji for soft coral in a kaleidoscope of brilliant colors; orange-and purple-and white-and red dazzle the mind. Multi-hued crinoids add to the explosion of colors while Spanish Dancers perform their acts in time to some invisible orchestra. Reef Cod and Coral Trout roam the canyon-like gutters in these heads while pelagic fish hunt the reef fish on the periphery of the divers' vision. A lucky diver may be fortunate enough to see the Garden Eels swaying like living metronomes. And divers who hasten slowly through this underwater wonderland will take the time to notice the many varieties of nudibranchs in their diversity of shapes, sizes and colors.

1. Turtle Patch

2. Coral Gardens

3. Soft Coral Grotto

4. Sea Fan Ledge

5. Side Streets

6. Black Coral Fantasy

7. Garden Eel Patch

8. Colonial Boy Point

9. Yanuca Shallows & Wreck of the Tasu No. 2

10. No Name Passage

11. Frigate Passage

12. Surgeon's Alley

13. Nasici Rocks

14. Caesar's Rocks

15. Action Drop Off