Ra Divers - Fiji Islands

Fiji Time: 16. 05. 2008 - 00:45 hrs

About us

Accommodation

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About Fiji Islands:

General Information

The Fiji Islands are known as the friendliest paradise of the world. There are approximately 332 islands in the romantic South-Pacific, enchantingly islands ... this signifies: Thousands of kilometers glistening white sandy beach ... splendid coral-gardens ... blue lagoons ... a virtually untouched, exotic ambience of beauty and silence and an amalgamation of different cultures - just a place for relaxation or to collect new experiences.
At RA Divers we are lucky enough to be located on one of these islands. Many tourists come to Fiji for the weather, people, food, diving, fishing and to relax.

General:

The official name of Fiji ist "Republic of Fiji Islands". Fiji is republic since 1987.

The island-group lies between the 12th and 21st dregree of southern width as well as between the 175th and 177th degree of western length, north from New Zealand in the South-Pacific.

There are alltogether 332 islands (visible islands, if counting the ones only seen at low tide it comes to nearly 1,000), which yield a country-surface of 18.333 km² together. Only 100 of them are permanently inhabited. The total is distributed over approximately 1,3 Mio km² ocean-surface.
The main-island of Viti Levu is the largest with 10.429 km², followed from Vanua Levu with 5.556 km².

The capital is Suva on Viti Levu where lives round 10% of the population. Suva is only since 1877 final metropolis. Before it was Levuka on Ovalau.

The population is easily retrograde with 826.300 inhabitants (stand 2003) which attributing to emigrations after Australia, New Zealand, USA and also to a low part to Europe is.

Approximately 53,4% of it are „Indigenous Fijians”, only 39,7% Indian-descended FIjians and the remaining 6,9% are from Chinese and other inhabitants of the South-Pacific (biggest part), Rotuman as well as part-Europeans and Europeans together.

Approximately 54% of the residents are Christians (mainly Methodists, Catholics, Anglicans, 7-Days-Adventiststs), 36% Hindus, 7% Moslems, 0,8% Sikh and 1% others (also like the witnesses Jehovas).

The official style is English. Fijian and Hindi is spoken of a predominant part of the population. There are both Fijian as well as Hindi dialects, that are different from region to region.

Fiji is independent from Great Britain since the 10th October 1970 and so there a recurrent public holiday on 10.10.

The islands are predominantly volcanic in origin, partially however also atolls and coral-islands like for example the Yasawa Islands or that the Lau Group.

Flora and Fauna:

In Fiji, the vegetation varies on the basis of the different height-steps and climate-zones from the tropical rain-forest until to the dry savanna.
While partially only grass, acacias and some few trees grow at the dry places, one finds palms in the rain-forest (there are approximately 76 different types in Fiji), ferns, hibiscus, bamboo and orchids of most different types. So one finds sugarcane-fields in the west of the island mainly while one finds mangrove-forests and coconut-plantations at the mouths of the moister side.

There are not so many mammal, the bird - and underwater-world is all the rich of species and diverse.
There are from humans imorted pets as well as different bat-types and the Mungo, which was brought by the Indians, in order to exterminate the snakes. So, there are only snakes on a few islands, but everywhere you find the Mynah birds, which were also brought here by the Indians, to keep the sugarcane-fields preferably free of insects. These are Beo-Brids and quite funny fellows.
Over 100 bird-types are here at home... thereof different parrots and seabirds. You will see only less reptiles in the free nature, therefore you should visit the Kula-Eco-Park.

Concerning the underwater-world, there are approximately 400 different corals in Fiji , more than 1.200 different reef-fish, turtles, big-fish, dolphins and also whales.
Also here, the diversity varies from island to islands and from dive-spot to dive-spot.

Month:	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dez
Temperature in Degrees:
Day:	30	30	30	29	28	27	26	26	27	27	28	29
Night:	23	23	23	23	22	21	20	20	21	21	22	23
Sunny Hours (per Day):
	7	7	7	6	7	7	7	8	7	7	7	7
Rainy Days (er Month):
	18	18	21	19	16	13	14	15	16	15	15	18
Watertemperature in Degrees:
	28	28	27	27	27	27	27	26	25	26	27	27

This table is based on statistical median values.
On the Fiji Islands prevails the whole year over a relatively mild climate. The Winter (May - October) applies as the drier season (= Dry Season) and is somewhat cooler than the Summer (November - April) which brings more rainfall (= Rain Season)

In Summer, therefore rainy season, the humidity is very high - especially in the end, if the most rain falls.

The all-year Passatwinds always provide fresh breezes.

As the Fiji Islands are located in an area of tropical cyclones, it can become quite blustery between December and April sometimes. The strong storms, known as cyclones, occur approximately evry 20 years. For this there is a good early-warning-system
Like everywhere on the world the weather here is not reliable. The environment has an influence on it, we not.

A 3 mm wetsuit is considered a satisfactory exposure suit for comfortable year round diving in our waters.