Scuba Diving the Rainbow Reef

One of our reasons for traveling to Fiji was to dive the Rainbow Reef, Fiji Islands, discovered by Jacques Cousteau and now known as the soft coral capital of the world. The Rainbow Reef is a reef in the Somosomo Strait between the Fijian islands of Taveuni and Vanua Levu. It includes one of the most famous dive sites in the South Pacific known as the Great White Wall. It is named because of the white coral inhabiting the area at depths between 45 and 200 feet.

Rainbow Reef impresses with stunning collections of red, yellow, purple, pink and blue soft corals, which thrive on the currents that bathe the reef in a nutrient-rich flow. A kaleidoscope of bright colors underwater and marvelous marine life. this reef is home to 230 hard and soft corals and about 1200 species of exotic marine life including nudibranch, flat worms and shellfish.

We spent four out of our five, two tank dive days exploring the Rainbow Reef. In addition to the Great White Wall, two of our dives were at the "Cabbage Patch" coral structure. Cabbage Patch is a sloped reef full of different kinds of stony corals. It was named as Cabbage Patch from the big field of Cabbage Corals there and their resemblance to giant cabbages.

The field of cabbage coral here is larger than the size of a basketball court. Most of the cabbage coral are over one meter (3.3 feet) high and some are higher than two meters (6.5 feet). The patch size is impressive!

The corals form upright whorls with layers inside layers and they are yellowish and greenish in color, making them look like giant cabbages.. If you take a closer look at the coral, you can see hundreds of thousands of individual polyps on them which they use for feeding. The scenery is just stunning!

The coral patch is located at around 42 to 50 feet of depth, with the clear visibility, snorkelers are also able to enjoy this amazing scenery from the surface.