Commodore
July 3, 2024

Thursday 4 July – Snorkelling Rainbow reef while the UK votes

It was a very early start for us as we had to be at the resort dive boat by 7:15am. Lots of divers on board and three other snorkelers with us. It was a 20 -30 minute boat ride to the reef on the island opposite us. The lady snorkelling on her own with us turned out to be on the Oyster Rally and lives in Suffolk just outside Ipswich. She was moaning the rally was going way too quickly, they have sailed from BoraBora with a quick stop in Tonga. They have no fresh fruit or vegetables left, so were enjoying the resort meals.

It was a lovely snorkel with colourful vibrant coral looking pretty healthy. The water was surprisingly cool, so we were very glad we had borrowed short wet suits from the resort. We did a long slow drift with the tide along the reef, quite a strong current in the beginning but eased off. We saw a small white tip shark lurking under a coral overhang, otherwise the fish life was quite sparse, the parrot fish were all small, nothing very big about. The gem was seeing a big clam, that was so well camouflaged. The owner of the resort was on the boat with us as he was taking one of the groups diving, he says they have been trying for years to get the area designated a marine reserve because it is so special, but it has been totally unsuccessful. Made worse by Covid when money was so tight many locals had to live off the sea and land. Our second snorkel was just further along the reef, and had some lovely coral. It looked like there were deep paths running through the coral beds, we were told they were created by lava flows.

Rowan’s GoPro video of the coral

Beautiful clear water at the resort, all built on lava

PolePole in front of the island secondary school, lovely to hear the sounds of kids all day long. Great location for the school, out of town and right on the water’s edge

Stunning sun rays on our way to snorkel the reef

Calm waters at the resort

These furrows on the volcano look like the paths we saw in the reef

We got back around midday and decided to make a late breakfast which was perfect.

I had a wonderful massage in the afternoon, a great recommendation from Jacqueline. The Fijian lady doing me got stuck into some big knots on my shoulders which felt great afterwards. Rowan had a few work calls in the evening, after which we were very ready to crash into bed.