Dive Review of Nai'a Liveaboard in
Fiji and Tuvalu/Nai'a Liveaboard

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Nai'a Liveaboard: "Fiji Bucket List Trip: Part 3 – The Nai’a Liveaboard", Sep, 2022, by Rene Cote, VA, US ( Sr. Reviewer 11 reports with 14 Helpful votes). Report 12044 has 2 Helpful votes.
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Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity	N/A
Dive Operation		Shore Diving	N/A
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$	N/A
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	In Part 2 of my Fiji trip, I spent 3 days of diving on Kadavu island. After that I flew back to Nadi and spent a night at the Gateway hotel near the airport. The airport was inexpensive ($70), meals were good and there was Wi-Fi. There were several divers also there awaiting the transfer to the Nai’a. At 1pm on Saturday a large bus pulled up and we loaded onto it. It was about an hour drive to the harbor where the Nai’a was docked. We boarded and then the fun started. We were cheerfully greeted by the cruise directors Bel and Mike. Later we would learn their story of how they met on Utila, became a couple and ended up here on the Nai’a. They are cheerful, helpful, energetic and professional… and Bel is especially animated during briefings. Bel conducted our initial briefing which was both very thorough and punctuated by her humor. I began smiling during the brief when she went over how the Nai’a runs their diver operations. Key points were: “...we don’t have a time limit or depth limit on dives… you are certified divers... come up when you need to come up…”, “…you don’t have to follow the guide…”. WOW, we could dive our experience, and follow or not follow the guide, what a great improvement over my previous week’s diving on Kadavu island where 40-45 minute dives and 60 feet max were the rules. This is the first liveaboard, and frankly any dive operation I’ve ever been on, that they start out by telling divers that we can dive our experience and THEY ACTUALLY MEAN IT … many other places market that, few deliver, Nai’a delivered. We were welcomed to dive based on our abilities, safe limits and air consumption, and I can attest that over the week, that held true. That first day we motored for a couple of hours to a spot named Samu Reef that had calm seas for us to do the 30-minute checkout dive. Along the way we set up gear, checked nitrox, and in my situation, set up my camera. The divers were separated into 2 groups for each skiff (that’s what they called them, but they are actually RHIBs). There was “mighty righty” skiff, which is the group I was assigned to, and “lucky lefty”. It was an uneventful checkout dive, but those who had not dived in a while got to sort out their gear and weights. After the dive it was time to get situated in our cabins, then dinner and then the official boat orientation – it was about to get even better. After we completed our checkout dive, we had dinner and then the ship safety briefing. When an entire crew makes their way into the dining area playing acoustic guitars and singing, you quickly realize this is not your ordinary liveaboard. They sang a Fijian greeting song (my guess, since I don’t speak the language) in perfect harmony and welcomed us with a cheerful “BULA!” at the end of the song. The captain then introduced his crew and they conducted the safety briefing. That night we sailed around 8 hours to Vatu-I-Ra; a remote area near the bligh waters between Fiji’s main island Viti Levu, and Vanua Levu to start the “real” diving. The Yacht: The Nai’a has been in service in Fiji for around 30 years. Prior to that it was in the Caribbean for a number of years and was purchased by the current owner specifically to become a dive yacht in Fiji. It went through a complete transformation and became what it is today, a well-run, well maintained, and very fun liveaboard. It definitely did not feel like a 30+ year old vessel to me. My cabin was spacious, lots of drawers, a closet for hanging clothes, 2 beds and a nice large shower in the bathroom… and ALWAYS hot water. The dining area is also spacious and has an A/C, but while at sea the windows are left open as part of their COVID protocols – it was very pleasant. The dining room has a charging area for cell phone and laptops, and the fridge had the post-diving essentials: BEER. Wine and some hard liquors were available, all alcohol was an extra charge, but soft drinks were included. Forward of the dining area is the dive deck, but not in the typical sense. The ‘dive deck’ is where divers suit up and hang wetsuits and where the dive briefings are held. The BCDs and tanks are located at the stern of the boat where the compressor is. Forward of the dive deck is the camera room… I give it 5 stars!!!! Two horizontal rows of carpeted shelving wrap around the room, the bottom shelf has power strips for both European and U.S. power plugs, and the room is a “dry” room, with fans constantly running – it was very spacious and can accommodate a lot of camera gear. The typical routine from day 2 and beyond was a continental breakfast starting at 05:30, first dive at 07:00, then cooked breakfast at 08:30, dive #2 10:00, lunch 11:30, dive #3 13:00, snacks 14:30, dive #4 16:00, dinner 17:30 ish… and for those doing a night dive, that was started after dinner, around 19:00-20:00. Four night dives were offered during our cruise, and the last day 3 dives were offered – a total of 28 dives offered. The skiffs: The way the skiffs operated is that the crew would load the dive and camera gear, and after the dive briefing, we would board. Crew assisted us stepping onto the rubber sides of the skiff, and if needed to our assigned spot. When the boat reaches the dive site (usually less than 5 minutes from the Nai’a), the dive guide and skiff driver lift the dive gear and assist the divers in donning it. Entries are back roll. I opted to do my entries negative entry with my camera gear – sometimes we had currents, so negative entry was my preferred way on every dive. To reboard the skiff, divers removed their BC and the skiff driver hauled it up. For those that needed it, a ladder was lowered, but most of us kicked hard to pull ourselves up onto the boat… and many times it made for a good chuckle based on the ‘grace’ exhibited by divers conducting that awkward maneuver… I probably provided much of the reboarding humor. I did provide the Nai’a with my feedback regarding my concern about skiff safety though. During reboarding if a diver is just out of reach, the skiff driver would engage the prop to move the skiff, sometimes even when a diver was within 2 meters of the prop. In at least one occurrence, the diver was slightly behind the skiff and the prop was engaged to move the skiff backwards, coming very close to the diver. I felt that was a little unsafe. In my opinion, the diver should have been instructed to kick away from the skiff so that the driver could reposition the skiff safety away from the diver, rather than engaging the prop while a diver is less than a body length from the prop. The Diving: Over the course of the week, the cruise would take us to places named Vuya, Namena, Wakaya, Makogai and two seamounts. For most stops, each skiff took their group to a different dive site – rarely did we see the other divers during the dive, we only had our small group from out skiff, which made each dive very uncongested. Some of the dive sites had spectacular soft and hard corals, with some spots nicknamed “fish soup” due to the sheer number of small yellow, red and purple reef fish. There were occasional shark sightings, a few turtles and at a couple of dive sites we had some nice schools of barracuda and Trevallies, even tuna came by to check us out. We found a handful of nudibranchs, and someone (not me) found a pygmy sea horse. At times it was pretty calm, and others we had moderate currents; reef hooks helped on several sites, especially for filming. The “epic” dive sites were named “Maytag” and “Grand Central Station”, for their historical strong currents and schools of fish. Having dived the Blue Corner in Palau, I found Grand Central Station a bit over-hyped, but I did get some good footage of schools of barracuda. A couple of the dive sites didn’t have much to offer and seemed repetitive to other sites we had dived the same day… I sat out a couple of day dives for that reason. Our very last dive of the trip was on a seamount named Mount Mutiny where the coral was just spectacular… those images are the closing scenes in my YouTube video [youtu.be link] In summary, the Nai’a is a wonderful liveaboard – the crew and guides are so nice and fun; the cruise directors Bell and Mike are uber professional, and they LOVE diving; their passion is contagious. It’s a good cruise on a superb liveaboard.
Websites	Nai'a Liveaboard
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	501-1000 dives
Where else diving	Most of the Caribbean, FL, Morehead City NC, Okinawa, Socorro, La Pax, Cenotes MX, Yap, Palau, Komodo Islands, Bali, Maldives, Hawaii, and now Fiji
Closest Airport	NAN	Getting There	LAX to NAN Fiji Airways
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny, rainy	Seas	calm
Water Temp	76-80°F / 24-27°C	Wetsuit Thickness
Water Visibility	40-80 Ft/ 12-24 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions	Check your Nitrox; dive your experience and computer
Liveaboard?	yes	Nitrox Available?	yes
What I Saw
Sharks	1 or 2	Mantas	1 or 2
Dolphins	1 or 2	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	1 or 2	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish
Large Pelagics
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter		Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's		Shore Facilities	N/A
UW Photo Comments	Wonderful camera room with lots of space and charging power strips. 2 camera rinse bins, and even compressed air to blow off the water.

Report currently has 2 Helpful votes

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Dive Review of Nai'a Liveaboard in Fiji and Tuvalu/Nai'a Liveaboard

Nai'a Liveaboard: "Fiji Bucket List Trip: Part 3 – The Nai’a Liveaboard", Sep, 2022,

Photos Submitted with this Report

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Dive Review of Nai'a Liveaboard in
Fiji and Tuvalu/Nai'a Liveaboard