Dive Review of Ra Divers/Voli Voli in
Fiji and Tuvalu/Bligh

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Ra Divers/Voli Voli: "Colorful Dive Trip", Mar, 2022, by Rik Pavlescak, FL, US ( Sr. Contributor 23 reports with 19 Helpful votes). Report 11881 has 2 Helpful votes.
No photos available at this time
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity	N/A
Dive Operation		Shore Diving
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	I stayed at VoliVoli March 8-17, 2022, traveling from West Palm Beach to San Francisco to catch the 11 hour Fiji Airways flight to Nadi. Then our dive group traveled on an arranged van from airport to VoliVoli for a 3 hour drive along the coast and through a number of mountains and villages to arrive at the resort. We were greeted at VoliVoli by the management staff and provided a briefing on the resort schedule (meal hours), amenities, and provided a map showing the location of our rooms. Our luggage was delivered to our rooms. We were asked to leave dive gear outside of our room door so that it could be delivered to the dive shop. We were also briefed on COVID protocols—all staff were masked and guests did not need to be; we were required to be tested in 48 hours after arrival (and all had been tested 24 hours prior to the flight to Fiji). The resort is built on a hillside with rooms and main facilities on varying levels. This requires walking up and down some fairly steep slopes or steps. The registration area/shop is on a different level than the dining area, which is higher than the spa and dive shop areas. Going downhill from my room was fairly easy, but I found it necessary to plan each trip out of my room to try to minimize the climbs back up which definitely were a workout. Take note: this is not the place for those with bad backs, knees, or hips. My room was clean and comfortable with tile floors, a balcony with a view to the ocean (down the hill, no beach), a bathroom with two sinks, a toilet and shower. Water pressure in the shower was fair, hot water was not an issue. A small refrigerator housed a pitcher of water that was filled each day, and there was an air conditioner that struggled against the heat and humidity but managed to keep me comfortable. The room key has a plastic fob that needs to be inserted in an outlet near the door in order for the air conditioning to be turned on; thus, when you leave the room the a/c stays off. There is a gap between the outside door and floor that allows milipedes and small lizards and roaches into the room each night. Living in Florida, I'm used to these; others may not be quite as accustomed to either chasing them out or killing them each morning. There was a can of bug spray in the room for flying insects (to spray in the room--not on a person). After registration, we mainly encountered resort staff related to dining. VoliVoli has a restaurant and provides guests with a menu for each meal. They also add a “daily special” for lunch and dinner. Guests select their meal from the menu or get the daily special. Our package included two course lunches (choose two from appetizer, entrée and desert) and dinner included all three courses. Breakfasts included regular fair, continental or eggs/bacon, omelettes, cereal, pancakes, waffles, French toast, etc. For the most part people in our group enjoyed their meals and portion sizes—desserts were often a real treat. Some did get tired of choosing from the same menu—we were there for 10 days. Also note: while they market that special requests are accommodated for, they didn’t seem prepared for two people on a keto diet and one plant-based eater who had notified them well in advance of the trip. By the third day the options for food were already repetitive: and the wait staff seemed to have challenges with the “special requests” to leave things off of the dishes listed on the menu or add things from different menu items to a single plate. The plant-based guy (me) spoke to the manager about needing enough food and variety and at the next meal I was presented with a printed/laminated Vegetarian and Vegan menu listing out several meal options for lunch/dinner. Apparently they had this all along but it was not offered to me at the start. When others saw some of the great food I was getting (such as vegetable tempura, which was excellent) they started asking for that menu and after one day of that, they were rebuked and told they could not order from that menu any longer. At first they thought it may be a joke but it was not. While the staff tended to be warm and friendly, I ended up not looking forward to meal times due to both the limited options (even with a “special menu” I had to rotate between the same 4-5 meals for a total of 18 lunches/dinners) and the length of time it took for each meal as they served each course separately, then cleared plates, then delivered the next course to the table, etc. It often took well over an hour for a group of four to get through lunch or dinner. While this makes sense for a restaurant fine dining meal, it became a bit tedious and drawn out at a dive resort. Breakfasts were typically quicker as they only served one course. While iced tea was included in our package, it often took longer than 15 minutes to get a glass and just as long for a refill. The dive shop at VoliVoli, Ra Divers, is located just about 30 steps from the beach. Depending on tide we either boarded the dive boat at the beach or were shuttled out to deeper water on a small boat. They have a nice camera room setup with numerous work stations/cubbies each with its own outlets and air guns. It is located next to the three separate rinse tanks for cameras, wetsuits/booties, and fins/masks. There is a comfortable under cover area for sitting when gathering for dives, and they have fish ID books available to peruse while waiting. Given the nice camera room setup, I was surprised that they did not have camera tables on the boats—only a single rinse tank, into which many cameras got placed. One diver’s dome was scratched in the camera soup. Without a table, it was difficult finding dry, clear space for changing batteries, if needed, between dives. The boats are aluminum: warning the ceiling gets VERY HOT in the midday sun. I made the mistake of putting up my hand to steady myself as I usually do and quickly learned how hot it can get. There are pipe railings overhead—grab onto those instead. Also over the benches (which are padded for comfort) is a mesh netting system installed to hold dry bags/towels over each diver’s gear set-up. This is very handy—but use some caution: on a number of occasions when hitting a wave, dry bags and water bottles fell, nearly hitting divers below. Generally, though, it is a nice set-up: dry bags can be kept close, instead of all being stored at the front of the boat. The dive staff were attentive and helpful. Prior to each dive a briefing was provided, almost always with a drawing of the site, including the dive profile. On a few sites they would skip the drawing, indicating we’d go down to a certain depth, swim along the wall/reef, and return. One site was new/unnamed so there was no real briefing other than to stay with the guide and explore. Divers were able to dive their own profiles following their computers. On most dives the boat’s mooring line was tied to reef at 15’-20’ below the surface, making for interesting and colorful safety stops. Typically the dive master would lead the group out and have everyone back at the mooring line in about 40 minutes, leaving plenty of time to explore the corals beneath the boat. Within our group, dive times tended to average 60 to 65 minutes or so. No one was rushed or pressured to hurry their dives. Once back on the boat, each diver was asked their maximum depth and time and it was recorded. At the end of the trip, divers are able to refer to these sheets to complete their log books with dive site names, depth and bottom times and get stamps at the dive shop. Fresh fruit and muffins were served during surface intervals, as well as hot chocolate and water. Dive staff was knowledgeable and provided some information on fish identification when asked, although they didn’t tend to point out a lot during the dives—sometimes they pointed out a nudibranch, for instance, but generally, they led the dives out and back. Our trip was in March—it was still in the rainy season and visibility was fair but not great. The colors of the soft corals however, were spectacular. I had never seen so many incredible corals in any of my diving—never-ending fields of them, waving in the current. Add to that the giant sea fans, larger than a person. I was awestruck when seeing these at first. I quickly snapped a lot of coral photos, and then started to look for fish. They didn’t disappoint: there were plenty of unusual/different fish than I typically see in the Carribbean, including unicorn fish, fiery dartfish, hawkfish, differently colored triggerfish. Every now and then we’d encounter a reef shark (white tip, black tip) swimming by. The schools of small fish, easily numbering in the hundreds, possibly thousands were impressive, and safety stops at the top of the reef truly brought to mind the idea of swimming in an aquarium. As I write this, I keep remembering the vivid colors—the rainbow was truly well represented. Other dives that didn’t feature soft corals, were a bit more drab, but certainly offered plenty of fish life. There were some nudibranchs to be found, and anemones and clownfish were plentiful throughout the trip. We did not see any turtles, and I think there was one ray. There was talk of a sighting of a hammerhead shark and one diver got a distant shot of a thresher shark, unmistakable due to the long tail. At the end of dives, divers took their cameras/wet suits off the boat and left their gear for the crew to handle. It was rinsed and stored for the night and set up on the boat the next day. If you use mask defogger, plan to bring your own. The boat had small shampoo bottles (not baby shampoo) on board and one diver used it in her mask. There was no mask rinse tank and it was too difficult to rinse properly over the side of the boat. During her dive she ended up burning her eyes with the shampoo—it was bad enough to require medical attention, medication, and her sitting out a day of diving. To its credit, the dive operation did have a first aid kit on board with OptiWash which she attempted to use, although it provided little relief. Another minor mishap was due to an unstable ladder. One diver received a blow to his shins when coming up the ladder, one was cut; another time the ladder was moving in the water and brought the diver close to a propeller that cut his leg—not severely, but more than a week later it still hadn’t healed. Several on the boat commented about the need to fix the ladder so it would be more stable when in use. At the end of the trip, the group had not yet seen a seahorse and were told they were on the house reef. One of the dive masters, Palo, took divers out on a special dive on the last day, and true to his word, located two of them, along with a nudibranch. This made the trip complete and is a good example of how the dive shop staff is willing to go out of their way to help divers have a great experience. Things to bring: your own water bottle: refills available at the restaurant.
Websites	Ra Divers Voli Voli
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	501-1000 dives
Where else diving	Costa Brava, Roatan, Key West, Cozumel, Key Largo, West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Grand Cayman, Little Cayman, Cayman Brac, Bonaire, Philippines, Bali, North Sulawesi, St. John, St. Croix, Curacao, St. Eustatius, Fiji
Closest Airport	Nadi	Getting There	West Palm Beach to San Francisco, San Francisco to Nadi, Fiji on Fiji Airways (11 hour flight)
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny	Seas	calm, surge
Water Temp	80-85°F / 27-29°C	Wetsuit Thickness
Water Visibility	20-60 Ft/ 6-18 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions	Follow your computer
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	yes
What I Saw
Sharks	1 or 2	Mantas	None
Dolphins	None	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	None	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
UW Photo Comments	Excellent camera room, but boats are not equipped to handle multiple cameras. Only one rinse tank on boat for 8 cameras led to one getting a scratched lens. Dive guides pointed out a few subjects, but not many.

Report currently has 2 Helpful votes

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Dive Review of Ra Divers/Voli Voli in Fiji and Tuvalu/Bligh

Ra Divers/Voli Voli: "Colorful Dive Trip", Mar, 2022,

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 Ra Divers/Voli Voli in
Fiji and Tuvalu/Bligh