Rainbow Reef - Taveuni Island

🇫🇯 Rainbow Reef is a reef in Somosomo Strait, located in between Vanua Levu and Taveuni Island, the second and third largest island in Fiji.

Fiji is often citied as the "Soft Coral Capital of the World". Rainbow Reef is one of the well known reef in Fiji. Rainbow Reef has one of the most extensive coral reef system in the world, the coral reef are made up from over 230 coral species. This healthy coral reef hosts an extraordinary diversity of marine life, including more than 1,200 species of fishes and countless invertebrates.

The Reef is famous for its rich soft coral, you would see soft coral in various vivid colour, red, violet, yellow, orange etc. One of the dive site here called Great White Wall is considered one of the best dive site in the world where you could find a spectacular wall covering with white soft coral from 25 meter (82ft) and it goes down to 60 meter (197ft). It is a stunning wall. What other things make this vivid and colourful reef is the diverse species of colourful fishes.

Rainbow Reef is thriving because of the tidal currents condition and consistent warm water. There is constant strong tidal current which pushes large amount of water through the narrow and shallow passage at the Somoomo Strait which brings plankton and other nutrients to the reef which keeps the reef healthy and thriving.

It is very common to dive with current here, sometimes it could be completely still, sometime it could be fast moving, it is mostly depend on the moon cycles plus other factors like wind. But it should not be something to stop you diving here, dive shop here are very experience of judging dive site to take divers with the current condition. It is the current that makes the reef thriving! Diving here is impeccable!

If you are looking for dive destination which is suitable for both divers and non-divers, here is a really good choice as there are choices of land-based activities in Taveuni Island for non-divers.

How To Dive There?
Since the Rainbow Reef is in between Vanua Levu and Taveuni Island, you could stay at either Taveuni Island or Vanua Levu side where the part close to the Rainbow Reef.

Based on Taveuni Island
It is convenient to base on Taveuni Island to dive at Rainbow Reef, boat ride to Rainbow Reef takes 20-25minutes.
There are choices of resorts/hotels, you can access to supermarkets and shops. Also, there are different land-based activities on Taveuni Island.

How to get to Taveuni Island?
1) By plane, from Nadi/ Suva

2) By ferry with Goundar shipping [budget option]
Route departs from Suva in evening in every Friday and Tuesday, the ride would take the whole night and arrive at Taveuni in the morning next day.
Cost: FJD67 per person; Twin Cabin FJD 400
You could only get ticket at Goundar Shipping office.
More details can be checked at their Facebook page.
(Please be aware that there are cargo ships together with passages service, it is very local)

3) Option if you are coming from Savusavu
- Goundar ferry
It is the same route from Suva to Taveuni and the ferry would stop over Savusavu, departs early morning. The route only goes Wednesday and Saturday.
Cost: FJD40 for adult; Twin Cabin FJD 300
- Local ferry
There is ferry go between Buca Bay and Taveuni once everyday except Saturday. Ferry ride takes 1.5 to 2 hours.
You could take a bus from Savusavu town and connect to the ferry at Buca Bay, the connection takes 2 hours.
Cost: 40FJD including bus connection
You could book it at Savusavu bus terminal.

Based on Venua Levu side
Basically you would need to stay at south eastern part of the island where it is closed to Rainbow Reef, so there are very limited choices of staying. Dive shops at Savusavu typically do not have dive trip to Rainbow Reef as it is very long boat ride.
Based on my understanding, there is two choices at Venua Levu side:
1) Viani Bay Resort (where Dive Academy based)
2) Remote Resort (partner with Taveuni Ocean Sports and Dive Academy)
The resort provides boat service to connect with the dive boat with charges.

Although it is less convenient, it is more peace and quiet on Venua Levu side and you can enjoy white sand beaches.
Personally, I based on Matei at Taveuni Island, so I could only share my experience on Taveuni side.

When To Dive?
Diving in Fiji is all year round. Visibility is more clear in winter months, from July to September. Water temperature in winter is around 22C to 23C (71.5F to 73.5F).

Monsoon season is from November to April, you may run into risk of cyclone during these months. Water temperature around 27C to 28C (80F to 82.5F). Personally I feel cooler with the 27C here than the 27C water temperature in Caribbean Sea, I am not so sure of the reason.

Rainbow Reef season:
June to July - Mating season of reef sharks
May to October - Manta Ray season at cleaning station between Kioa and Rani Islands
October to November - Coral spawning - a night in these two months, depend on the moon cycle and water temperature.

My Dive Experience & Highlight

Soft coral capital of the world
Fiji has the name of soft coral capital of the world. In Rainbow Reef, the soft coral is thriving from the nutrients bringing by the constant tidal current through the Somosomo strait. The reef is rich of soft coral, you can see varies colour of soft coral, pink, violet, orange, yellow, white etc

One of the world known dive site Great White Wall locate at Rainbow Reef, the wall is full of luminescent white soft coral from 20ish meter down to 60 meter, you would be stunned by this spectacular wall when you look down, look forward or look backward and the soft coral seems to be endless.

Apart from the Great White Wall, there are many other dive sites with stunning soft coral here. Dive site "Golden Tunnel" where the whole narrow tunnel is full of yellow soft coral from 25 meter deep upward to 14 meter, basically you feel like you can not swim through when all the yellow soft coral is blooming. Stunning!
Another dive site Jerry’s Jelly, it is famous for the huge coral head with full of white soft coral overhang under the ledge which look like a jelly fish. Another highlighted with soft coral is Annie’s Bommie where it has an big ledge around 15-16 meter and it is full of white soft coral overhang. You would also see mixture of colourful soft coral and healthy hard coral at all three bommies there.

I have never been to a dive place where the environment has this extend of rich and vibrant soft coral until I dove in Fiji.

Sometime it not possible and feasible to dive with some sites with thriving soft coral due to current. It could just be not viable when the current is too strong. When the current is completely slack or too slack, you will not see any soft coral blooming, all soft coral would be closed and super small. You would rather go for other dive sites with other highlight. I guess that is the downside with what current can bring to us. Nature!
Rainbow Reef has more than soft coral, it has rich diversity of marine life, you would also be stunned by the healthy hard coral system here.

Thriving hard coral system
In Rainbow Reef, not all the dive sites are rich in soft coral due to the landscape, but you would always see healthy hard coral system in every dive site. Healthy system as in the reef is full of different species of hard corals and they are sizeable. Staghorn corals, brain corals, tube corals, fire corals, sea fans are everywhere.

Some highlight includes field of cabbage corals with size larger than basketball field at Cabbage Patch, you would not see this sizeable field of cabbage coral in a lot of place in the world. At Cabbage Patch, you would also see massive staghorn corals everywhere.
Other than that, there is number of massive healthy black sun corals at "Enchanted Forest". Also, the bommie at "Pandora Box with numerous lobe corals in bell or hamlet shape which is also amazing, it looks like a decorated Christmas tree together with all the colourful fishes. All the scenery are stunning.

Wide diversity of marine life
With this healthy coral system, Rainbow Reef is hosting an extraordinary diversity of marine life, including more than 1,200 species of fishes and countless invertebrates.
You can find different kind of marine life at the Rainbow Reef from small critters to pelagic marine life.

Lot of different colourful fishes is basis expectation in every single dive here, the reef are full of different kinds of anthias and basslets schools of fusiliers, damselfishes, butterfly fishes etc. You could even see blue ribbon eels as well as the juvenile version of them which is in black colour, different colour varieties of leaf scorpion fishes, pipefishes, field of garden eels, giant moray eels, countless species of fishes that I could not even name...

It is also a small critters world here, I encountered varieties of small critters, including the rare Ponton’s pygmy seahorses, sea spiders, skeleton shrimps, decorated crabs, orangutan crabs, varieties of nudibranchs etc. Those marine life are not rare to encounter here.

If you want to see pelagic life, go to “the Zoo”, you can see different types of reef sharks, school of barracuda, big eyes jack, dogtooth tunas. You may also have chance to encounter manta rays or devil rays in the Reef. In June, it is the mating season of reef sharks, you could even encounter the action if you time it right.

You would always find surprise to dive here, because you would not know what you would see every dive.

Is it worth to go?
Totally, hands and legs up!
Rainbow Reef is one of my top 3 favourite, it is the first place I actually returned for diving. I came back 5 years after my first time here, the healthy coral and diversity of life did not change at all, still stun me.

Other Useful Information

About Taveuni Island👇

Here is some information of the island so that you have some concept of the life here. Even though Taveuni island is the third largest island in Fiji, it is pretty undeveloped, it is not like those bigger cities Nadi or Suva or Savusavu. It is a place still not be over-croweded by tourists, there will be no souvenir shop, only four restaurants/cafe (not counting the resort restaurants) in the whole island.

The island is clean, it has what it needed here, like supermarket, vegetable market, hospital etc. But when it comes to speciality products, sometime it is hard to get, eg. sunscreen, coke zero etc.

The island is big and there is only one main road. It takes more than an hour to drive from south tip to north tip. The town is in Somosomo where you find most of the shops. The airport is at Matei, north of the island, where you will find few resorts, some airbnb, a supermarket (Suncity) and a food store. Further than Matei, the road are not well paved, there is not much except local residential area and the waterfalls (refer to land-based activitiees). At the south part of the island, it is mainly residential and few resorts.

About monies - there is only one Bank - BSP bank in the island, located in Somosomo, there are two ATM machines outside. That is the only place you could withdraw monies in the whole island. All of the resort/ hotel, dive shops, supermarkets accept card payment with 4% charge.

About Sunday - it is the day most of people go to church and it is their rest day, so most of the shops closed on Sunday and supermarket would closer earlier than usual.

About power and water - all the resorts either have wired power or using solar power with generator. For resorts that use solar power and generator, sometime they will stop using generator in some hours in day time. Overall, power are pretty stable.
For water, most of the resorts have water filtering installed, so tap water is drinkable.

Dive Shop Used 👇

Taveuni Ocean Sport 🥇
(For your information, Taveuni Dive in Paradise Taveuni Resort at south side is the only shop provides nitrox on the island, I did not use them before)

Dive Gear Shop 👇

Like I mentioned, it is pretty hard to find speciality products here. There is only one shop next to the BSP Bank in Somosomo, the shop mostly sell gear related to fishing.
Please do not expect you can get much gear here, so bring your own gear and prepare extra part you needed or else all dive shops here provide gear.

Accommodation 👇

You would find some resorts and hotels on the island and few expensive Airbnb.
You may find most of the hotels and resorts have sign for selling after COVID, but most of them are running as normal.

Resorts by budget:
Maravus Taveuni Lodge $ [hostel option available, it have not been well maintained throughout COVID time, such as pool is not working, wifi is not working sometime]
Coconut Grove Beachfront Cottage $$ [decent resort with the price]
Aroho Taveuni $$$
Nakia Resort $$$$
Taveuni Dive Resort $$$$
Paradise Taveuni >$$$$$
Taveuni Palms >$$$$$
Raiwasa Private Resort >$$$$$$

Homestay is a choice for a lot of places in Fiji, but there is no much homestay in Taveuni.

Renting a house here is a complete different story, in a complete different price range, but most of them only have very simple set up and very local living style, typically those houses are for renting to local.
One bedroom house can be as cheap as FJD400 per month = USD190 =EUR170
We rented a three bedroom house with solar (no AC) and paid FJD1,000 per month, we pay extra on gas for cooking and petrol for electricity from generator.
It is pretty hard to find a local price house for rental here, you sort of need to know some local people here and need their help to ask around.

Local Transporatation 👇

Taxi
This is a common way tourist will pick and it is convenient. Price are pretty standard for all the taxi.
From Matei to Town: FJD20 one way
From Matei to International Day line/ Hospital: FJD25 one way
From Matei to Bouma Waterfalls: FJD45 one way

Local Bus
There are local buses going from Somosomo to Lavena and Somosomo to Navakawau.
Due to COVID, the buses do not run as frequent as before. The timetable in bus terminal in town is not very accurate.
From Lavena to Somosomo (run two times a day) - around 630am and around 1230pm [normally pass by Matei around 7am and 1315pm ]
From Somosomo to Lavena (run two times a day) - around 1045am and 4pm
I did not take the route toward south before, not so sure about the schedule.
Cost:
From Matei to Somosomo - 1.8FJD
From Matei to Bouma - 2.8FJD

I did not take the route toward south before, not so sure about the schedule.

Land Based Activities 👇

Bouma - Tavoro Falls [Worth to go]
Tavoro waterfalls located at the village - Bouma.
How to get there:
1) Hire a taxi, the driver would wait for you and take you back, it costs between FJD90-100 half day, costs more if you spend full day there.
2) By bus, based on the current bus timetable, you could go or come back by bus one way, you would need a taxi the other way.
(One way taxi from Bouma to Matei cost FJD 45)

Entrance fee: FJD40 per person (Cash only)

There are three waterfalls on one track. The walk to the lower waterfall is mostly flat and easy to get to, the steep bit and most uphill part are from the lower waterfall to the middle waterfall.
All three waterfalls structure are quite different, the rock formation and surrounding environment are slightly different. Personally, I like the lower and upper waterfalls most. The scenery of the track are amazing, there is a lookout point for the ocean view between the lower and middle waterfall.
[Tips: 5 to 10 minutes walk after the lookout point at tree house, you would encounter a spilt, keep right, then you can avoid the waterfall crossing in at the middle waterfall. If you go left, you will need to go into the waterfall to continue the track.]

Lavena Coastal Walk and Wainibau Falls [Worth to go]
The walk starts from the village Lavena, the back side of the island. Currently (March 2022) the track is closed officially due to the low vaccination rate in the village. Unofficially, you can still go with paying unofficially entrance price with FJD20 per person, I think the official price is FJD30, cash only.

The 5km Lavena Coastal walk would be walking along the coastline, you will pass beautiful white sand beaches then volcanic black sand beach and arriving at the stunning Wainubau Falls. I would say it is the most stunning waterfall in Taveuni. At the end of the track, You could see the waterfall from distance (like 100-150meter), you could get into the water to get close to the waterfall and it is totally worth it to get into the water, so get ready to swim. All the rock formation at the side are stunning, and you will find a surprise when you get close to the waterfall. The waterfall is like hidden gem in this green jungle.

The walk is mostly flat, you might feel the track is quite long to reach to the waterfall. You would need to do a river crossing, the water could reach to the knee level and it is quite easy to fell into the water due to slippery rocks, so be prepared that you may get wet, remember to prepare a dry bag.
[Tips: prepare a full day to enjoy the beaches and waterfall and bring food to have picnic at the waterfall.]

Lake Tagimaucia
Lake Tagimaucia located in the centre of the island, in the volcanic crater. At the lake, you will find the national flower, Tagimaucia, the rare red and white wild flowers. They grow high up in the mountain with colder temperatures and Taveuni is the only place you can see this flower in the whole world, but you could only see it between October to February.

How to get there?
1) By foot all the way from Wairiki , it will take 3-4 hours one way
2) Hire 4WD for part of the way up, then it is an hour walk to the lake
If you opt to go from the Wairiki, it is a long and steep hike, you would pass by the highest mountain in the island - Des Voeux Peak. I personally have not been there, apart from the unique flower, what I head is the lake is not particular amazing, but I could imagine the scenery must be stunning on the way up and on top of Des Voeux Peak.

Waitavala Water Slides
Waitavala water slides is a natural rock slide.
The location shown on the google map is incorrect. It is close to the Taveuni corrections centre, around 10 minutes drive from Somosomo town toward south side. Michael’s review in google map is very useful with the direction and pictures.

Is it dangerous to do it?
The water flow can be faster and stronger after rainy day, it could be dangerous if the flow is too fast.
Every single rocks near the waterslide are very slippery, you have high chance to fall from the slippery rock and get hurt rather than getting hurt by the slide, that’s my experience for been there twice. I did the slide once, I think is enough for me, that’s for me. The more times you did, the high chance that your body part will bump into rocks and get a bit sore.

Is it worth to go?
Depend if you have limited time or not. It is fun to try the slide and nice to dip into water in a hot day. You may also see a lot of local doing the slide by standing, pretty awesome. It is quite popular place for local.
[Tips: The waterslide is pretty close to town, I would recommend you to do it together with the International Date Line and the day to town]

International Date Line
The 180th meridian–commonly called the International Date Line, located in the middle of Taveuni island, splits the island from today and yesterday.

Location: it is not so far from town, about 5 minutes drive from town toward south side. It locates right below the Waiyevo hospital and next to the rugby field.

Is it worth to go?
Depend if it is your kind of thing.
There is only a board with details about the international date line.
[Tips: as it is pretty close to town, I recommend go there on the same day with the waterslide and the day to town]

Blow Hole at the South
The blow hole is located at the southern tip of the island, it is a natural feature created by water rushing between the black volcanic rocks.

How to get there?
You would need to hire a driver to go there.

Is it worth it?
Personally I have not been there. It doesn’t look stunning to the point that I would hire a driver for an hour drive since I based at Matei.

Snorkelling Place
I only did snorkelling outside the Dive Cafe, the reef out there is stunning, I would not expect to see these healthy reef this close distance from the shore. You would swim pass by some sea kelps close to shore then you could see massive healthy hard coral structure at around 2-3 meters deep where diversity of fishes live there. Totally worth it.

Food Choices Recommended For Vegan 👇

Restaurants at Resort
If you stay at resort, all the resorts would have few choices for vegan, at least fried rice or fried noodle or stir fry vege with rice, sometime Indian curry since it has a pretty large Indian herit population here.
Some resorts are providing better vegan choices than others.
Please be aware that some resorts do not take non-customers for dine in because of COVID, please call and make reservation before you go at least one day in advance.

I have only been to three below:
Nakia Resort - best vegan food - they do really good vegan pizza with coconut chutney instead of cheese, vegan burger and tamari ginger garlic eggplant. They have more vegan options, check with them for options. Sometime they even have vegan cake if they have vegan customers staying there.

Coconut Grove Beachfront - vegan options - different Thai curry and Indian curry. Thai curry would not be proper Thai food, food were pretty good.

Maravu Taveuni Lodge - limited vegan options - vegan fried rice or vegan pasta, food was okay.

Sadly, apart from restaurants at resorts, there is no much choices out there.

Other Restaurants
There are only four restaurants on the island,
- Jessica Cafe and another restaurant in Somosomo, both are very local restaurant, very limited vegan choices. They may able to do vegetable fried rice or fried noodle.
- Tramonto and the Dive Cafe in Matei
Tramonta can do vegan pizza, vegetable curry, stir-fried vege with rice, the food are okay, do not expect it will be fantastic. Food are similar price as resort.
Dive Cafe can do very limited vegan choice, stir-fried vege with rice, the pizza may able to be vegan. The view is really nice there, but the food is really so so. It is the only cafe provides coffee, the coffee is not in very good standard if you are a person into coffee.

Others
Roti at Suncity Supermarket - they sell fresh vegan roti in the supermarket every morning, The quality varies, sometime it tastes good, sometime it is ok, but it is definitely worth for the price, only FJD1 for one. They could be sold out if you arrive too late like in the afternoon.

Above information based on dive from December 2021 to March 2022.