After visiting the Coral Coast,  our next stop were the Mamanuca Islands, to the west of Viti Levu. Our stay was at the Plantation Island Resort.

The Plantation Island Resort

Unlike the excellent treatment we received in the rest of Fiji, the Plantation Island resort turned out to be a nice place, with good beaches but with quite poor attention. We had several problems (upon arrival we were left waiting two hours because nobody had our keys, they charge for breakfast but when you go early to go scuba diving they don´t have the food ready yet etc). We communicated all these issues to the customer service manager, who promised us a compensation which he did not fulfill. My verdict: I do not recommend it at all!

Lion fish in Fiji

Scuba diving in the Mamanuca Islands

Scuba diving  in the Mamanuca Islands

Beside the low quality of the resort, you can find Subsurface at the ferry jetty, a diving center ran by Karen, a very friendly New Zealander, who provides a first class service.

Dive sites in the Mamanuca Islands

A wart sea slug

I dived with Subsurface for a few days. The places I visited were:

• Barrel head:A wall dive with some current. We saw a white tip sharks.
• Camel hump:Simple diving to a maximum depth of 18 meters on mounds that look like camel humps. We saw a few nudibranchs and a yellow small boxfish.

Anemones

• Plantation pinacle: A very nice pinnacle with a tunnel below. We saw some lion fish and a scorpion fish. Also a popcorn shrimp
• Wilke´s passage:  shallow dive. In the sand there were several garden eels. We saw a blue spotted stingray and some nudibranchs.

Hiding stingray 

• Supermarket: One of the highlights of the area. We had  a short 34 minutes dive because one of the divers consumed his air very fast. We saw two gray reef sharks and two white-tipped sharks.
• Charly´s reef:Very easy dive with some waves. Beautiful corals.
• Yadua pinacle: Calm dive on a pinnacle with corals. We saw a white-tipped shark.
• North reef: Nice reef. Before we went diving we did spent some minutes snorkeling.

In general the dive sites are for entry level  to intermediate divers with an abundant amount of life although not as much as on the Coral Coast. The water temperature is at 29 ° C so you can dive without a wet suit.

Snorkelling in the Mamanuca Islands

Snorkelling in the Mamanuca Islands

One day we also did a snorkel trip through several islands in the area. As a curiosity, we passed near Monuriki island where the movie “Castaway”with Tom Hanks was filmed. The original raft of the movie is on the Plantation Island beach (without Wilson).

Raft of the film ¨Castaway¨. Wilson !!!! (Photo by Mariana)