True to his word, the chief of Vatulele showed up on the beach this morning ahead of schedule to give us a tour of the lagoons where the sacred red prawns live. We gave him a dinghy ride out to Raven and shared a cappuccino and banana bread while we chatted. He wanted to time the tour for low tide – otherwise the lagoon waters are too deep and the prawns too difficult to spot.

The site was not too far away – in the dinghy we navigated banks of very shallow coral to find a path to the beach – en route passing a very exclusive resort where the nightly rate is $6,000 Fijian ($3,500-$4,000 US) and the minimum stay is four nights. Access is by helicopter or chartered seaplane. The land for the resort is leased from the chief and his villages for a 100 year term. As a result he is a VIP there of sorts, and among other benefits is allowed to use the resort telephone at no charge. The resort has also provided a scholarship to educate his son in the hospitality industry – he is training to become a chef.

The path to the red prawns followed a beautiful shady trail along the edge of huge limestone cliffs. The site itself is studded with craggy limestone caves and overhangs, and the pools are clear dark turquoise blue. The red prawns are clearly visible moving about underwater. The chief muttered some kind of Fijian words to them (a prayer, a chant?) and we spent some time wading in the lagoon waters and exploring the caves.

Then we headed back to the beach where more limestone cliffs are marked with primitive petroglyphs, predominately depicting faces, stenciled hands, and birds. Apparently they are not Fijian in origin, and no one really knows who made them.

Our morning expedition lasted several hours – then we dropped the chief off at the resort and returned to Raven, where Rod spent a good part of the remainder of the day repairing our generator which had broken down, overheated, and blown a hose. Happily the repairs were successful or we might have been reduced to really roughing it aboard Raven without electricity!

The afternoon’s scheduled activity was a PADI deep dive to add to my advanced certification. I studied the textbook chapter regarding deep dives and Anouk gave me a briefing – then off to the dive site which turned out to be absolutely spectacular and wins first prize as my favorite dive of all time (at least so far).

From the dinghy we went down a buoy line marking the location of a sunken wreck, probably a copra steamer. It was somewhat deeper than our maximum allowed depth, but at 38 meters (40 is the absolute max for recreational divers) we were hovering just above the bow which was clearly visible rising up out of the sand. We traveled along the length of the bow taking in the sights, but for a short while only as we are very limited in time and air at this depth. Then we started ascending while circling a pinnacle of rock and coral rising out of the seabed nearby.

The visibility was in excess of 60 meters and very clear – the sea life we spotted extremely varied and interesting. A sea turtle swam by us, as well an an ancient Napoleon wrasse (he looked to be about four feet long and massive). We spotted a couple of barracuda, a walou and a trevally cruising the deeper water near the pinnacle. Anouk was in charge of the video camera since I was supposed to be concentrating on my deep-diving skills. She got great footage of a lobster hiding under a ledge; also the Napolean wrasse and a big Titan Clownfish who was vigorously occupied munching on the reef (in the video playback we can hear the sounds of his teeth crunching on the coral). At the end during the safety stop she spotted and taped a lionfish. The coral at the top of the pinnacle in shallow water was extremely varied and colorful – I saw a lot of varieties of both coral and fish that I have not seen previously in Fiji.