Welcome to the Maunie of Ardwall blog

This is the blog of Maunie of Ardwall. After a six-year adventure sailing from Dartmouth to Australia, we are now back in Britain.

Wednesday 20 August 2014

Diving the Great White Wall, near Viani Bay

Today was the first day of diving in the Somosomo straight near the island of Taveuni. We anchored in Viani Bay but only with some difficulty as the bottom is strewn with coral 'bommies' and pinnacles and we didn't want to damage the coral or get our anchor chain wrapped around one. Eventually Graham snorkeled around to find a clear spot for us and Bravo to drop the hooks whilst Dianne enjoyed driving Maunie around single-handed and brought her expertly to the perfect spot.

So this morning we were picked up at 07.00, along with Adam and Cindi on Bravo and Karen and Cheryl on Interlude, by a fast dive boat to take us around to the Dolphin Bay diver centre, run by Swiss Roland and his German wife Viola. Two dives were planned for the day, the first being the Great White Wall which is widely rated as one of the top ten dive sites in the World. Due to the normally swift tidal currents, the dive can only safely be done on about 3 days of each month and so we'd planned ahead to be here at the optimum time. It is, truly, an amazing experience best described by more experienced divers than I - this was only my (Graham) 16th dive so here's a link that tells you more

Whilst Graham was getting wet on this and a subsequent dive aptly named the Fish Factory, Dianne was chilling out on the beach and enjoying a very therapeutic massage in the little spa at the wonderfully low-tech but hugely friendly resort; we rounded off a great morning with a delicious lunch. More diving and chilling tomorrow.and Friday but we'll be around for evening (UK time) Skype calls Friday and Saturday night. Drop us an email if you'd like to chat!

Finally, we've met some great cruisers here and most have their own boat blogs - Bravo's has some more great stories and photos of Faluga so have a look here

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