I've just got back from a two week family holiday in Fiji with the wife and two little kids. I managed to sneak out for a 2 hour spearfishing session in the Mamanuca islands, and a full day charter in the Beqa Lagoon from Pacific Harbour.
The diving was great - the variety, colour and amount of coral was more than I've seen anywhere else and the water pulsed with aquarium fish on every coral head.
To get a dive from Castaway Island in the Mamanuca group took a little bit of work, and I was stoked when one of the locals asked the village chief for permission to allow me to spear the reefs offshore from the island. The ground was pretty outstanding once out there, with a coral wall dropping from the surface down to sand at 18m and then coming back up in a series of coral bombies which varied in depth from 10m to 15m and which dropped off to around 30m on the outside. Going was a litte slow here fish wise, but I picked up a coral trout and a mu before moving to a channel further around the reef.
The channel was pumping with reef fish with large schools of unicorn surgeons, large mu, red bass, maori sea perch, and a variety of tropical snapper. I've never seen so many fish in the one spot and picked off a large unicorn surgeon for the local who asked permission for me (his favourite eating fish) and a small mackerel of a species I've never seen before. I missed a couple of shots here and spent too long looking for the big fish, but I didn't have facilities to store large amounts of fillets so I was happy just to watch the action.
The locals were a little dissappointed that I only shot 4 fish, but they have a different approach to spearfishing where they are filling empty stomachs rather than just enjoying a sport, and they have good reason to take their fill of fish when the opportunity presents itself.
The resort cooked up my coral trout and the mu immediately on landing and both fish were beautiful. The coral trout was steamed whole in a Chinese style and was by far the best fish I have ever eaten.
After a week or so, we headed back to Viti Levu so that I could get on a charter with Freedive Fiji. The charter boat was fantastic and fitted the six guests and two staff with ease. The fishing was a little slow, however I think that if I had more experience chasing pelagics on coral reef atolls I would have seen a lot more fish. The charter operator certainly reported seeing a lot of fish when I felt I was swimming in a desert, just because I didn't position myself relative to the current correctly. This is something I've been wanting to learn more about for a while, so I was happy tp pick up a couple of tips for the future.
I finished the day with a nice mackerel of around 20kg, another small mu and a reasonable size blue spot trout. One of the other guests on board shot a great maori sea perch and a few other macks and trevallies were shot. I think on a day where the fish were firing there would be some incredible fish landed from these locations.
I'd highly recommend Fiji as a family holiday and spearfishing destination. The stay at Castaway Island in the Mamanucas was fantastic for the family with great kids swimming pools and beaches and a beautiful house reef for snorkelling. If you had a couple of spearos with you I think you could do a very reasonably priced spearfishing holiday from this destination as well. :thumbsup2:
More photos to follow once I get home from 'work' .
Hopefully I'll get out a few times soon and write some more.