Naia

NAI’A is a 36-metre steel ship built in Holland and working in Fiji since 1993. She began as a research vessel: founder Rob Barrel, a marine mammal biologist, wanted to carry divers alongside scientists studying dolphins. The economics never worked, but what remained is a ship with the range and stability of a real expedition vessel — one that has sailed from Fiji to Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Tonga, Samoa, Tuvalu and the Phoenix Islands in Kiribati. NAI’A is painted in large letters on the bow and the stern; under the stern name is her port of registry, SUVA.

Inside there are nine passenger staterooms for 18 guests, all at the waterline, all with portholes that do not open and all with private en-suite heads. The staterooms were rebuilt from scratch in 2010: warm timber panelling, 110 V and 240 V sockets, a hairdryer in every cabin. You reach them down a steep companionway — the ship is not wheelchair accessible and the operator says so plainly. The crew is fourteen, almost all Fijian, plus two cruise directors; in the water there are two divemasters and two instructors, eight divers per guide.

Both itineraries cover the same compact ground, and that is the point. The ship leaves from Lautoka main wharf and works central Fiji: the Vatu-i-Ra barrier reef and the E-6 and Mount Mutiny seamounts in Bligh Water, the Namena Marine Reserve, and Gau, Wakaya and Makogai in the Koro Sea. No domestic flights to distant airstrips: Lautoka is a thirty-minute bus ride from Nadi airport and the transfer is in the price. NAI’A does not run to Kadavu or the Great Astrolabe — that is a different part of Fiji and different operators.

Berths are sold individually: each departure in the operator’s own booking system reads either “space available” or “full”. A solo traveller can buy a whole cabin for a 75 per cent supplement; otherwise solo guests share with the same gender, which the operator guarantees. The ship is also taken whole: with 16 divers two more come free and the nitrox is on the house, and on a half-boat charter of 8 divers one comes free. Some dates are given over entirely to private charter — the twelve-day Lau Islands expeditions in October and November 2028, for example — and carry no berths for sale.

The biggest departure from usual liveaboard arithmetic is that nothing is compulsory on board. The operator states it directly: the listed price includes all transfers and government taxes, and NAI’A pays the marine park fee for you. In the two protected areas guests are invited to make a voluntary donation, and declining changes nothing. The village visit carries no levy either: dress modestly (the ship provides sulus) and, if you wish, bring balls or children’s clothing as a gift. The only mandatory surcharge the operator publishes is fuel — $187 on a seven-night trip and $249 on a ten-night one — paid in advance with the final payment and reviewed monthly. The FAQ page, meanwhile, says no surcharge is being collected at present, so confirm the figure when you book.

The season is written into the schedule: trips run from mid-February to mid-December, and the ship does not work in January or early February — the peak of the cyclone season. The water is warm all year but not equally: about 29 °C in February and March, 24–26 °C from August to October. The operator recommends 5 mm plus a hooded vest — at four or five dives a day even people who never feel cold do. Visibility is best in the cool season, May to October.

Diving is from skiffs: two 6.8-metre rigid inflatables built for the lobster grounds off the south of New Zealand pick divers up wherever they surface, so there is no swimming back to the entry point. Tanks are aluminium 11.1 L (80 cu ft); the ship no longer carries 15-litre cylinders. Nitrox is membrane-mixed, 32 per cent as standard and anything from 21 to 100 per cent on request — including for rebreathers, for which 2 and 3 litre cylinders are available to rent along with oxygen fills to 200 bar. A dive computer is compulsory for every diver, your own or rented. The first dive is a check dive on the afternoon you board, on a shallow calm site close to Lautoka.

There is no formal certification floor: the operator says a brand-new diver may come. But it adds in the same breath that it would much rather see Advanced Open Water with the Deep and Navigation dives, strongly encourages Drift and Buoyancy, and asks for 30 dives within the previous calendar year — Fiji’s currents are strong and the walls drop away fast. Children are welcome from age 10 with a parent present at all times.