Little holiday

Two weeks tomorrow I'm off for 4 weeks in the South Pacific. So far I've got
flights for:

LA, Nadi (Fiji), Vanuatu, Nadi, Auckland, Tonga, Auckland, Papeete (French
Polynesia) and then back home via LA.

I've got a list of a few 'must do' dives for Vanuatu, but have you guys got
any good ones for Tonga or French Polynesia?

Cheers

Simon

"Simon" <sranson@_at_wodhill. co. uk> wrote in message
news:3f83e4e4$0$11452$afc38c87@news.easynet.co.uk. ..
> Two weeks tomorrow I'm off for 4 weeks in the South Pacific. So far I've
got
> flights for:
>
> LA, Nadi (Fiji), Vanuatu, Nadi, Auckland, Tonga, Auckland, Papeete (French
> Polynesia) and then back home via LA.
>
> I've got a list of a few 'must do' dives for Vanuatu, but have you guys
got
> any good ones for Tonga or French Polynesia?
>
> Cheers
>
> Simon
>

And your problem with blackpool is what exactly?

Alex


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On Wed, 08 Oct 2003 11:21:01 +0100, Simon wrote:

> I've got a list of a few 'must do' dives for Vanuatu, but have you guys got
> any good ones for Tonga or French Polynesia?

What have you got on the list for Vanuatu? Are you going to visit Tanna? I
would if I went again.

Jason

--
http://www.scuba-addict.co.uk/ for Aussie diving reports including
Coral Bay, Rottnest Island, Dunsborough and Darwin

"Simon" <"Simon"> wrote in message
news:3f83e4e4$0$11452$afc38c87@news.easynet.co.uk

> Two weeks tomorrow I'm off for 4 weeks in the South Pacific. So far I've got
> flights for:
>
> LA, Nadi (Fiji), Vanuatu, Nadi, Auckland, Tonga, Auckland, Papeete (French
> Polynesia) and then back home via LA.
>
> I've got a list of a few 'must do' dives for Vanuatu, but have you guys got
> any good ones for Tonga or French Polynesia?

Give Tahiti (the island itself) a miss, and go to Rangiroa, or one of
the other Tuamotus.. At the very least get off Tahiti to Moorea, but in
general French Polynesia gets nicer the further from Papeete you get.

http://www.huwporter.com/tahiti.html

Don't forget to dive in NZ as well...

Cheers,
Huw
--
http://www.huwporter.com


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Where are you going in Fiji ? Best diving near Nadi is Beqa (pron Benga)
Lagoon. Aqua Trek in Pacific Harbour run the boats there. The real touristy
islands are in the Mamanucas group, best avoided. If your willing to make
the effort to get there take a 45min flight to Kadavu, the diving on the
Astrolabe (www.matava.com) is really rather special, just keep it a secret !

Cheers

Ed


"Simon" <sranson@_at_wodhill. co. uk> wrote in message
news:3f83e4e4$0$11452$afc38c87@news.easynet.co.uk. ..
> Two weeks tomorrow I'm off for 4 weeks in the South Pacific. So far I've
got
> flights for:
>
> LA, Nadi (Fiji), Vanuatu, Nadi, Auckland, Tonga, Auckland, Papeete (French
> Polynesia) and then back home via LA.
>
> I've got a list of a few 'must do' dives for Vanuatu, but have you guys
got
> any good ones for Tonga or French Polynesia?
>
> Cheers
>
> Simon
>
>

"Ed" <ed_sturdy@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:bm1799$g7hkn$1@ID-202585.news.uni-berlin.de...
> Where are you going in Fiji ? Best diving near Nadi is Beqa (pron Benga)
> Lagoon. Aqua Trek in Pacific Harbour run the boats there. The real
touristy
> islands are in the Mamanucas group, best avoided. If your willing to make
> the effort to get there take a 45min flight to Kadavu, the diving on the
> Astrolabe (www.matava.com) is really rather special, just keep it a secret
!
>
> Cheers
>
> Ed

I don't know what I'm doing in Fiji - I'm meeting up with a friend I've
knows since school who is out there at the moment - so far I have left all
the Fiji arrangements up to him. I'm up for getting internal flights, so may
get to Astrolabe.


Simon

On Thu, 09 Oct 2003 07:32:25 +0100, Simon wrote:

> I don't have Tanna on the list - I'll see how I can get there, at the moment
> all I have organised is the flight to Port Villa (I think). I'll get the
> rest sorted while I'm out there. So far the recommendations for Vanuatu
> centre around the Coolidge and the other sites in that area.

Well you'd have to fly. It's got a very active volcano. It's supposed to
look very impressive at night. The internal airline is Vanair. I had no
end of problems getting tickets for their flights. They don't have
ticketing agreements with anyone. In the end Opodo, the online booking
agency with the world's crappiest website, managed to make the booking via
Qantas because I had a Qantas ticket.

On Santo I dived the Coolidge and did one dive at Million Dollar Point.
There weren't really any other sites to do. I had to ask specially to get
taken to Million Dollar Point. They normally just do the Coolidge. There's
also supposed to be some nice diving around Port Vila itself, including
some wrecks.

Trip report on my website if you haven't read it. And be careful. The
Coolidge is deep and they regularly take people down with singles to 60m,
on air, and guided by someone with no formal technical diving training.

Jason

--
See http://www.scuba-addict.co.uk/ for UK diving reports and the UK
Underwater Visibility Database. View the database or add your own report

"Jason" <jason.usenet.nospam@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
newsan.2003.10.09.08.38.15.245596@ntlworld.com.. .

> Trip report on my website if you haven't read it. And be careful. The
> Coolidge is deep and they regularly take people down with singles to 60m,
> on air, and guided by someone with no formal technical diving training.
>
> Jason

Your report makes a good read... cheers.

It's a little worrying how deep the guides go with less than suitably
trained divers on the Coolidge (when you say 60m, I class myself as being
one of them!).

I've been speaking to the daughter of a next door neighbour, she spent 6
months teaching out in Vanuatu and she got her PADI OW cert out there. She
said that on their practical training dives, they went down to 'the lady' on
the Coolidge, which is around 40m according to the various websites I've
seen... not the most sensible thing to do with novice divers, that's for
sure!

Cheers

Simon

freeserve wrote:
> "Jason" <jason.usenet.nospam@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
> newsan.2003.10.09.08.38.15.245596@ntlworld.com.. .
>
> It's a little worrying how deep the guides go with less than suitably
> trained divers on the Coolidge (when you say 60m, I class myself as being
> one of them!).

I spent a while out in Vanuatu with Allan Power as a guide.

It is a fantastic, fantastic place to dive.

While people do go deeper than is common here in the UK, the conditions
are somewhat(!) better than most UK diving you may have done (well
certainly better than any I've done).

The guides I worked with were always well trained and knew the dives
inside out - we knew when to check a client's air and what air they
should have at each check point. And believe me, I checked everyone's
SPG visually, regardless of who they were. I think one of the best
recommendations for diving the Coolidge (certainly with Allan) is that
his dive operation has had well over 20,000 divers down on her (oo-er).

If you do get out there, you must, must, must (did I say must enough?)
do a night dive - seeing flashlight fish is like swimming in a field of
twinkling stars (I know I'm going all poetic/narked-sounding but trust
me, it is great). Having said that, only recommend the night dive if
you've done a few before - it does get dark down there

Sorry if I sound a bit like an advert/zealot, but I had some of my best
dives out there.

Regards,
Jas