Rainbow Reef in the Somosomo Straight has some of the best dive sites in the world. Full of blooming soft coral and plentiful reef fish in a multitude of colors, it’s no wonder how it got its name.
With over twenty named dive sites, each with its own topography and sea life to uncover, there is much to explore underwater. There is not a single dive site that I do not enjoy on the Rainbow Reef, but when choosing my favorites, I realize what they had in common is the uniqueness of its underwater terrain.
Great White Wall
The Great White Wall is the most famous dive site on the Rainbow Reef and a stunning underwater experience. The wall is formed by a vertical drop-off covered in soft white coral. This dive needs to be timed with the tides and the currents to see the “white” wall. But if you get it right, it’s white blooming coral as far as the eye can see, it’s snow underwater. The white coral provides a stark contrast to the surrounding blue waters, creating a breathtaking visual spectacle for divers. If the timing is not quite right, you get a typical wall dive still teeming with vibrant marine life.
This dive has a couple of large swim-throughs. One is close to the entry point which takes you down to about 90 feet. The other is where we swim back toward the surface to the area where we typically finish the dive. At the top of this swim-through, we’ve often encountered reef sharks swimming in the vicinity.
Cabbage Patch
The Cabbage Patch is a stunning formation of hard coral, which resembles giant cabbages with swirling layers of “leaves” about an arm’s length in diameter and almost as tall. The abundance of cabbage coral that covers the underwater terrain seems to extend forever. In its crevices, the fish including a variety of anthias, gobies, blennies, and grouper play hide and seek.
When looking closely at the coral, it looks like little yellow flowers sewn together. Nowhere else in the world have I seen such a large formation of this cabbage coral. It provides a beautiful underwater landscape with plenty of marine life to discover.
Annie’s Bommie
As the story goes, this dive site is named after Ane, one of the first female Fijian divemasters and a dive guide at Garden Island Resort. As I’ve had the privilege to dive with her, I had the opportunity to ask Ane personally how this site became known as her bommie. She explained simply that she was diving in the area and got lost when she came upon several large bommies, or round outcroppings on the coral reef. Because she “discovered” the bommies, the site was named after her with the English spelling of Annie vs. Ane. Sometimes you have to get a little lost to find something beautiful and special.
The site is known for its incredible diversity of marine life, including a variety of colorful tropical fish, sea turtles, and reef sharks. I can spend hours diving around in circles around those bommies looking for the little critters that I love.
The Fingers
This dive site gets its name from the unique underwater formations that resemble fingers protruding in the reef, creating a dramatic and visually striking landscape for divers to explore. These formations are actually large coral outcroppings that together form what resembles fingers on a hand. To dive the site, you swim in and out of the “fingers”.
These outcroppings are covered in colorful soft corals, sponges, and hard corals, providing a beautiful and diverse habitat for a variety of marine life. There is an array of tropical fish including anthias, butterflyfish, surgeonfish, triggerfish, and wrasse as well as larger fish such as trevally and reef sharks cruising along the reef.
The Zoo
The Zoo, located near a reef break, has a bit of everything in terms of topography, including a wall, overhangs, bommies, and sandy patches. Due to the currents in the area, this is the best place to see the pelagic animals that may be traveling by.
If you’re lucky, you may encounter manta rays at this site. I’ve only seen mantas in Fiji once and only at the surface. But typical marine life encounters include stingrays and eagle rays, white-tip, black-tip, and grey reef sharks, and large schooling fish such as tuna, barracuda, and trevally. Overall, the Zoo dive site is a fantastic spot for divers in search of the larger pelagic species.
Blue Ribbon Eel Reef
I’m adding this site to the list, not because of the topography, but because as the name suggests, the reef is home to a large population of blue ribbon eels. Here the dive guides can always find the blue ribbon eels, both the juvenile (black and yellow) and the adult (bright blue and yellow) versions.
The adults are striking creatures known for their long, thin bodies and bright blue coloring, which contrasts sharply with the sandy ocean floor. These eels are shy so most often they are seen poking their heads out of small crevices. Usually, at this dive site, there are a couple of frogfish and nudibranchs that can be spotted.
Where to Stay and Dive
Garden Island Resort provides wonderful accommodations closest to the Rainbow Reef. A short 15-minute boat ride will get you to all these spectacular dive sites and many more on the reef.
