Marc's Public Blog - All Items

π 2025-06-28 01:01 in Clubbing

Last year XOXO had Above and Beyond and a massive day party. This year, there was some day party, but not my music, so I only went to the night party which had Blurr and Gareth. I'll be honest that the night party felt very overpriced for what it offered, but Blurr played a beautiful trance set that was worth the trip on its own, for me :)

some nice decors, but I remember last year being a bit better

All that said, Blurr played an absolutely fantastic trance set that was absolutely lovely:

Then came time time for Gareth, without lasers or microphone :)

Great to see the local TFSF crew, thanks to all those who came.

π 2025-06-14 01:01 in Diving

For week 2 of diving in Fiji (week one was Taveuni), I picked another island and went to Savusavu area and stayed at Savasi Island. The island and resort were both beautiful, but they only had a very small 3rd party dive boat which they did not even make proper reservations for me with, so I missed the first day as the boat left 1h earlier than normal, and without me (while I was there, but told not to go before 08:00 because no one would be there, yet). This was very disappointing to be honest, but as a result I ended up going to the Jeam Michel Cousteau diving center, which was absolutely world class, although it's stuck in a very overpriced family friendly resort where it does not below. As a result, I ended up using a driver to get there and back (30mn each way), daily.

Anyway, while most of the dives were done from JMCDC, and the sea conditions were not great, still saw some cool things:

cleaning shrimp

lovely little dance they do while cleaning your hands

magic coral

beautiful Juvenile Dragon Wrasse

great to see them walking around

And then, found this beautiful baby cuttlefish:

lovely colors

My last day, the conditions were poor, so I went to sheltered Natewa Bay with Ocean Ventures, who nicely agreed to a private diving trip. Very cool seafloor and soft corals:

After diving, the last day, got to see a pearl farm and theb snorkling at split rock:

π 2025-06-06 01:01 in Diving

It had been 18 years since I had been in Fiji. Unfortunately all the liveaboards but one, are now gone and the one that was left did not run at useful dates for me. I ended up picking 2 fiji resort that offered diving. I asked Google AI for suggestions, and it offered going to Taveuni and Savusavu.
Paradise Tavenuni is an all inclusive diving resort at the end of the island. Small plane from Nadi to Taveuni, and then 1H+ car ride to the resort at the end of a dirt road :)

The dive center was attached to the resort, which was convenient. Their equipment was good, included nitrox, and their guides were also good. They had one very nice diving boat, and 2 smaller ones that still weren't bad. Diving-wise: they had 2 morning dives daily, unlimited afternoon dives on the house reef that was quite decent, and night dives 2-3 times a week (around 17:45, which thankfully ws before dinner). So basically you could do at least 3 dives a day, 4 when they had night dives
They had a camera/charging room, which was nice.

Accommodations were nice, and the full inclusive meals package was good. The staff was very nice and helpful.

Things to note are:

the resort is fairly small (pretty much nothing to do there but snorkel and dive)

there isn't anything to do nearby, and nothing at all that is really walkable.

the afternoon activities were fairly simple and short on most days (the ones at Bega Resort I wemt to many years prior, were better)

the optional tours were a bit better, but many conflicted with diving

So, let's look at the diving:

Morning Boat Dives, Rainbow Reef and Others

Rainbow Reef was the main area with the nice dive sites, but it was a 40mn daily boat ride away, which was a bit far. That said, the area was well worth it, pictures below:

plenty of scorpionfish

the few octopuses, hid well

my ownly but beautiful manta shrimp

multiple nice sea snakes

lots of firefly looking things, twinkling blue and the size of my nail

healthy population of barracudas

And as a special treat for the last day of diving, Manta Rays showed up at Rainbow Reef's Fish Factory:

Paradise House Reef

The house reef was quite decent:

Xmas!

leaf scorpionfish

It did have a beautiful eagle ray:

Paradise House Reef Night Dives

I ended up doing 3 night dives on the house reef, every dive that was available:

nice eel hunting for food

π 2025-06-04 01:01 in Ntrips

It had been 18 years since my last time in Fiji, back then it was at Bega Island, all the way in the South. This time around, with help of google searches and gemini AI for some suggestions that were not full of commercials, or as biased, it suggested Taveuni as one Island that a mix of land activities and world class diving. Within that, Paradise Taveuni came well recommended. The resort was indeed quite nice, although its non diving activities were somewhat limited and the resort itself was very small with nothing walking distance, so I would not recommend it for someone not snorkeling or diving daily.
With that being said, the staff was lovely, so were the accomodations, and outside of totally screwing up our airport pickup and having no one to contact or any phone number that was answered, the staff was absolutely lovely on all levels.

Flying to Fiji not in coach turns out to be quite expensive since Fiji Airways is indeed the only way to get there, and while LAX has daily flights, SFO is not every day (and in a lesser plane as I found out later). So while I hate connections that can be skipped, about as much as I dislike connecting through LAX, after 20 years, LAX finally connected terminals on the secure side, so putting aside that it was a long ass walk, at least it was without doing security again

nicer plane from LAX to Nadi, just quite expensive

Once in Nadi, our plane was just a tiny bit late, and retrieving luggage took so long that it was 5mn too late for the connecting plane to Taveuni that was still there but boarding had closed. Thankfully the one 1h later had room, so not too bad except for Paradise Taveuni not reading or answering any messages and not being aware of the plane change. There was no one there to wait for us or anyone who tried to call me, or anyone to call. I managed to find a random driver for another company that new the driver I Was supposed to be with, and called him on the road to turn around and come back: