It has been a while since we posted pre trip posts. Life has been in the way. Sometimes things happen that are beyond your control and they sap mental and physical energy. Not leaving enough to do the extra curricular thing. Things have stablized a bit and maybe I can find a little time to document the run in to our next trip.
The other point to the no pre trip posts is, as our planning was going quite well, there was not anything to report that had not all ready been addressed in previous posts.
This time however our plans have taken an unsual twist and it will required some thinking and quite a bit of extra work to have things come out in the wash.
A week or two before we left for Bonaire we had made some commitments towards our trip to Australia next spring. Our son told us what will be the best time to visit so we can coordinate some time with him while he has a few days off work. We outline a trip we think will make sense maxing our time down under. If we are going all that way we don’t want to go for two weeks. Also wanting to expand our diving horizons we think we should take advantage of the situation and find a place or two in the South Pacific to visit the under water flora and fauna.
Fiji is easy to get to on the way to Aus. We have heard the diving is good there and the tourist infrastucture has been in place for along time. On the way home the Solomon Islands seem to be almost in line with our flight north. So, we do some research and decide we should probably make two stops, one on the way down and one on the way home.
There are plenty of dive resorts in Fiji. They are located on various islands and all have there forte. There are not too many resorts in the Solomon’s although each of them has their niche as well. There are also dive live-a-boards that ply the waters of both places. After weighing out the options we decide to book trips aboard live-a-boards in both places. We think that would give us the best overall view of the diving available.
There are really only a couple of options in each place. The dates we will be in each place are one determinant of our choice, price of course is a factor, the dive sites visited by each boat, the services offered (like nitrox availablity), and our gut reaction to the info and pics on the web sites all play a part in the choice of vessels.
After some reflection we think we should hook up with the Fiji Siren, and the Biliki. A few emails later we have figured out how to make the reservations and pay the deposit.
We then head to Bonaire.
Upon our return I am in the process of contacting a few of our friends to see if they want to join us. One couple is very interested and makes steps towards coming along. Their flights have just been booked, we are looking forward to diving with them and D sends me a return email asking me to look at the web site I have sent her the link to, there is something strange.
The web site is veiled over with a message reading something like, Update 1. Read further down the page and it looks like the boat sank and in fact it did. Even before D & C get a chance to put their names on a cabin the boat is no more. This of course puts somewhat of a damper on our plans as well……