My DREAM Vacation- Long Overdue Pics

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#1
Hey Guys,

Just started posting some pics on the "other" website, and figured I would share with everyone here (that has been banned or otherwise don't visit the other website) the absolute BEST trip I have EVER been on, which took place last summer.

So it all started when my wife and I (while having some cocktails at Javier's in the Irvine Spectrum- a great mix whenever coming up with a great idea... alcohol and awesome food) were talking about what we wanted to do in the upcoming summer. We knew that we wanted kids soon, so we came to the conclusion that we should enjoy our "kid-less lives" while we had them and go out with a bang. We wanted to go somewhere that, once we had kids, wouldn't be a great place to bring them and/or couldn't bring them at all. A place that we could relax and be away from it all.

With that in mind, as well as the fact that I've been scuba certified for a number of years now, and my wife is a big trooper when it comes to snorkeling (and was planning to get certified before the trip), we decided it would be somewhere tropical with good diving. Although we've been lucky enough to have already traveled to a number of places such as Australia, Cozumel, Belize, and Hawaii, none of them really gave us the feel of being truly remote and away from everything else.

So after quite a bit of research on my part, we decided to travel to the South Pacific... to a place called FIJI!!!

Here's a map for those of you not too familiar with it's location...


Hopefully I can do the trip justice by showing you just a few of the images we captured on camera (knowing that there were hundreds if not thousands of other images not captured on camera that will stay with us forever!).

Thanks,

Chad
 
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#2
So after researching all of the different islands and resorts (there are actually over 300 islands in the Fijian archipelago), I narrowed down my search to an Island Resort on Namenalala Island, located in the middle of a Marine Reserve. It only allows guests over the age of 17 and feels like you stepped right into Jurassic Park. They even pick you up in a little electronic golf-car looking four-wheeler to take you around the island... pretty awesome.

Here's all 110 acres of the island... the cool thing was that there was the island's reef (immediately off shore), and then the "outer-reef" which you can see in this pic.


As you can see, the island itself is extremely lush, which was indicative of what lied below the water's surface...



Also, the island was unique in that it was completely eco-friendly and self-sustaining... meaning all of the water used was from rain water, most of the foods are grown on the island itself, and the only electricity used was from solar and wind generators.

You can even do what they called "Chair Snorkeling"... which included sitting in your villa and looking down at the fringing reef below, sometimes seeing sea turtles and baby reef sharks...




'Course, "Chair Snorkeling" wasn't nearly enough for me, so within an hour of getting on the island, I took a dive in the beautiful waters right off of our beach...


What follows is a collection of pictures that I took over the next 10 days (averaging roughly 2 dive or snorkel trips per day)...

Hope you guys enjoy this half as much as I did! :D

Thanks,

Chad
 
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#3
To be honest, many of our trips were simply snorkeling trips because most of the stuff we saw were within 5-20 feet from the water's surface. But here is one of our joint scuba diving trips...


And here are a few pictures we got on one of the many beautiful days we were there...









Enjoy!

-Chad
 
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#9
chad how much a trip like that cost you. do they charge extra if you cant swim?
Well, the airfare ain't cheap... it was just over $1200 to get on the island I stayed at when I went (per person/roundtrip), but from there, you can go relatively cheap depending on where you stay.

Haha... I don't think they charged extra... but they do have flotation devices for those "not-so-strong" swimmers that still want to do some snorkeling.

This is one of my dream spots too. Congrats on making it there...and thanks for sharing it all with us.
Thanks!

Chad
 
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#10
Here's some fish pics for you guys...

I think this is a yellow dogface puffer... can't find a frontal shot to show it's face better.


Some sweetlips...




A Lionfish lying in wait for its next meal...


A Hawkfish perched, checking out what's going on around the reef...


And some different Groupers (I think)...





-Chad
 
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#11
And some more fish...

There were a ton of Sunburst Anthias under the overhangs... here's one of them.


And some butterflies that will never make it in my tank because of their diet...






My favorite trigger of all-time... this was a HUGE clown trigger...


And I couldn't go diving without getting a pic of some "Nemo's" for my wife



Got some more fish pics coming soon, then onto the corals! :)

-Chad
 
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#12
Now it's time for my FAVORITE fish... saw a ton of these and took plenty of pictures. They, unfortunately, are pretty difficult to catch on film since they are always moving around, but here are a few that turned out...




And then these were just a little creepy looking... welcome to a garden of Garden Eels...


I had to lay on the seafloor for about a 30 seconds to get that shot... after things were quiet, they slowly rose from their holes and swayed in the current. Pretty cool stuff.

Enjoy!

-Chad
 
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#17
AWESOME PICS!!! I'm going to ST. THOMAS, ANTIGUA, TORTOLA BVI, & NASSAU, BAHAMAS in the middle of May and I plan on snorkling (don't know how to dive yet) at every stop... It's no FIJI but they have good fish and hopefully it will be fun!!!
 

Kbra

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#19
Great pics. What Island(s) did you go to? My wife and I went to Matangi last year. Good times. We scubaed pretty much every day!
 

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