Discovering Fiji's Great White Wall

Like many Kiwis, my wife and I have a routine of taking a mid-winter break to somewhere tropical.

After months of seemingly non-stop rain and frigid temperatures, it helps one's sanity to look forward to a week of sunshine and as much scuba diving as we can manage in clear, warm water. The trip itself becomes a memory to savour for the remaining wet months until summer returns to Aotearoa.
Apart from 2020, when our borders were closed entirely, we have explored our Pacific neighbours every year. So far, we have been to New Caledonia, Cairns, Rarotonga (twice), Aitutaki, and this year it was the turn of Fiji. We have decided to try a different destination every year, considering the many awesome places close to us. Our second trip to Rarotonga was an exception, as it was the only destination available without quarantine requirements in 2021.

However, all the previous trips had been booked as conventional self-catering holiday.Finding reasonable flights, locating suitable accommodation, and then seeing what diving is available locally. My wife is very much a 'fine weather' diver who prefers a very short boat ride, visibility of 30 meters or better, and a water temperature of at least 25 degrees. Even then, she still gets cold, so we tend to dive only a few days of the trip, or at least she does – I sneak off whenever I can, even when she is having a lazy beach day.

It was with some trepidation that I approached her with a suggestion that this year, we go on an organised diving trip. The Dive Doctor in Mt. Wellington, my local dive shop, had a trip planned to dive the "Great White Wall" in Fiji. A nine-day trip containing seven consecutive days of diving and staying at an all-inclusive resort sounded like heaven, especially since it included unlimited shore diving on the house reef right outside the resort!
Knowing nothing about diving in Fiji or what made the Great White Wall so unique, I needed to research. It turns out that Fiji is renowned for its soft corals, whereas our other Pacific Island destinations have all been predominantly hard coral reefs. The Great White Wall is literally a vertical wall that, when the conditions are precisely right, turns white with the dominant species of soft coral. Since these only come out to filter feed when there is water movement, the quality of the display depends on getting the tides right.

The wall is on the Paradise Reef, which sits in the Somosomo strait between Taveuni Island and Vanua Levu, the second largest island in the Fiji group. A strong tidal stream goes through the strait, which is why the soft corals have accumulated there. Timing is crucial for wall dives to catch the right amount of current, so the corals are extended but not so strong that they become un-diveable. However, there is always somewhere to dive, no matter the tides or conditions.

There are several resorts in Taveuni, and just about all of them appear to operate dedicated dive boats. Paradise Taveuni Resort is a PADI dive centre and offers gear hire and nitrox. Depending on the number of divers, they operate up to three boats each day. On our return from the dive trips our gear was taken care of by the dive crew, and they were very thorough. Facilities for a freshwater rinse of personal items, including dedicated camera baths and dry areas, were also provided.
The conditions on the day dictated the dive site when we arrived at the reef, and a typical day involves an early start since the winds usually pick up in the afternoon. After a comprehensive dive briefing with a crew who were always cheerful, competent and obliging, we got into the water.
Every dive we did (I managed 23 dives over eight days) was superb. The Rainbow Reef is well described, with a profusion of colours and simply masses of fish. Each location was unique, from the "Fish Factory" with thousands of fusiliers, bannerfish, and squirrelfish, through to the "Cabbage Patch", which is a vast area of bizarre green coral heads that looked just like meter-wide cabbages.

The Great White Wall was, of course, the main attraction, and we dived the site on two occasions. It is an interesting dive in terms of technicality because you enter and exit the wall through a swim-through at either end, allowing the divers to get into the water from the sheltered side of the reef. After the usual safety checks, we swam down through the opening into the deeper main current side of the reef, which drops off rapidly into the abyss.

There, you drift along the wall, finning against the current to slow your rate of drift while taking in the view and ensuring you do not exceed the target depth. The wall stretches to well below 60 meters, although we spent the central part of the dive at about 30m. At the end of the wall, there was a gulley that we swam into to escape the current, then made our way up through another swim-through back up to around 15 meters. Due to the implications of the deeper dive, we spent approximately 10 minutes in the shallower water before making our way to the float line that marked the pickup point.
The first drift along the wall was slightly disappointing because only a few corals were open. Afterwards, the dive guide explained that we had missed the current by about 20 minutes, so while it was an easy, interesting in its own right, we did not get the view of the whiteness. However, the second time we dived, we got the entire show, which was spectacular. You absolutely need an excellent underwater torch or floodlights to get the full effect. Photos also do not do it justice, as the background remains a deep blue due to the plummeting depth behind them. But the brilliant white soft corals quavering in the current were worth the trip.

This is not to say the other dives were insignificant. There is another wall where the dominant soft corals are purple rather than white and is known as the 'Purple Wall'. We also regularly saw large pelagic predators lurking close to the reef and had close encounters with turtles and sea snakes, to name a few.

Although there were activities like a waterfall walk, a local village trip, and a mudslide that could be booked, for me, the main attraction was the house reef. Accessed by jumping off the boat wharf, within a dozen or so fin strokes, you are into the coral. There is very little beach in that area of Fiji, and the shoreline is black volcanic rock, so anything permanently immersed soon has coral growing on it. The house reef offered amazing variety, from snorkelling depth to beyond 40 meters. I did an afternoon dive every day that I could find a buddy willing to dive with me.
I also availed myself of the night dive option, which was a real eye-opener. Marine life that is invisible during the day was everywhere at night, including many more invertebrates, different species of lionfish, and a couple of sea snakes.

This incredible trip would always end too soon, but I have now convinced my wife to try another dedicated scuba trip. Perhaps a liveaboard
next time?