Kadavu Island

Diving in Kadavu is all about The Great Astrolabe Reef, one of the largest barrier reefs in the world. Boasting pristine hard corals and a tremendous variety of marine life including manta rays, this location caters for all levels of divers from beginner to experienced. From passageway drift dives to coral lagoons and outer barrier reefs, dive sites here vary in depths, currents and visibility ranging from 20 – 100 m. It’s no wonder the Great Astrolabe Reef has been rated as one of the world’s premier diving locations in the world.

Overview

Kadavu Island is located south of Fiji’s main island and has daily flights from Nadi and Suva.

The principal reason that people travel to Kadavu is for the phenomenal diving. The Great Astrolabe Reef is a fringing reef and Fiji’s largest living organism. It extends along the entire southern side of Kadavu and stretches for over 120km. It is rated as one of the fiji’s premier diving locations offering great diversity, and spectacular coral structures and marine life.

Uncrowded diving on virgin reefs, with well over a dozen world class sites with an enormous variety for divers of all levels. All these wonderful sites are within five to thirty minutes by boat from the resort. Visibility rarely goes below 25 metres and there is a fantastic variety of fish and coral to be found here.

The Great Astrolabe Reef offers a huge variety of fish life and an equally diverse range of both hard and soft corals. Astrolabe is the on of the world’s largest reefs in the world yet possibly the most unexplored. ‘Virgin Diving’ is a term often flaunted but is the best way to describe the diving from Matava. There are whole segments of the Astrolabe reef no one has ever dived or even seen; it is all just waiting to be explored. Astrolabe is renowned for the prolific amount of large fish and great pelagics are a common sight on these reefs.

Dive Sites

Naiqoro Passage
This passage is a recognised marine sanctuary and part of the Great Astrolabe Reef. An extremely rewarding drift dive in calm to strong currents that is a kilometre and a half with non-stop walls abounding in pelagic and reef fish, sharks and colourful coral gardens. A very rewarding dive site.

Manta Ray Reef
Experience a close encounter with one the of ocean’s graceful giants. The Manta Ray Reef is primarily a feeding area for Manta Rays, and is outstanding in its quality and diversity of fish life. A 40-minute boat ride from the island resorts (approx) and you will get to see mantas on about 80% of all dives.

Eagle Rock
Located in the narrow Nacomoto Passage, Eagle Rock is a superbly varied dive site in depths of 10-30 metres and with visibility up to 30 meters. From spotted eagle rays that swish past you to large red snapper, colourful butterfly fish, freckled hawkfish, Eagle Rock also has an impressive array of the largest and most colourful hard corals on show in the reef world.

Golden Chimney
This delightful dive is found in the Soso Passage. The Golden Chimney is a large coral structure completely covered in golden soft corals, which, when blooming, light up the entire area. Gorgonian fans, moray eels, reef sharks and the soft corals are highlights of this area.

Nacomoto Passage
This passage includes Eagle Rock and Nacomoto Wall. Eagle Rock is named after the schools of Eagle Rays which constantly glide around the bommie at the mouth of this passage. This dive also typically hosts schools of reef sharks, barracuda and pairs of turtles. Nacomoto wall is home to one of the biggest cabbage coral patches a diver is ever likely to encounter.

Reef sharks, bump nose wrasse and colourful schools of reef fish are commonly seen on this relaxing dive.

The Pinnacles
The Pinnacles is a dive site outside the main reef with a wealth of hard coral structures, swim throughs and reef fish galore. The extremely good visibility makes this dive a photographers dream.

Best time to Dive

Diving at Kadavu is all year round. Take a closer look and you’ll discover August to October generally enjoys the best visibility in slightly cooler sea conditions (24°C). Between November and April, the seas are at their warmest (30°C) although there is a greater chance of rain at this time.

Kadavu Island

Overview

Dive Sites

Best time to Dive

Getting there

Accommodation