Big Blue Vanuatu

How to spot a frogfish

Frogfish don't look like fish. They sit still, dressed up as a sponge or a lump of coral, and barely move until something worth eating gets close. Instead of swimming, they walk along the bottom on modified fins and dangle a little lure off their head to pull prey in.

Scan slow and close to structure rather than open water. A frogfish relies on you swimming straight past it.

Tag the buddy who needs a reason to slow down and look closer.

Morning double dives every day except Monday.
Call +678 5544054 or email [email protected].

An octopus has three hearts, and the main one stops beating when it swims.

Jetting squeezes the mantle so hard the blood can't get back, so the heart feeding the body cuts out mid swim. Swimming wears them out. Crawling doesn't. That's why you nearly always find one poured across the reef instead of moving above it.

The blue blood is part of why it needs three. Copper carries oxygen, just not very well.

Tag the buddy who always spots the octopus first.

Morning double dives every day except Monday.
Give us a ring on +678 5544054 or email [email protected]

Four dives, and the last one takes you inside.

Wreck Diver is the course that teaches you to dive a wreck properly. Mapping it, spotting what's loose and what isn't, running a line so you always know the way out, and holding your trim so you're not swimming through your own silt on the way back.

From 56,500vt over four dives. Pair it with Deep and the two together are 107,500vt.

Save this for your next trip and tag the buddy you'd dive it with.

Double dives run 8am to 12pm, every day except Monday.
Call +678 5544054 or email [email protected] to book.

Meet the humbug damselfish. Its entire world is one coral head.

Those little black and white fish over the staghorn are not passing through. The whole group lives in that one coral, feeds on plankton in the water just above it, and drops back into the branches the second anything comes close.

Next dive, hover a metre off a branching coral patch and hold still. Give it a minute and they come back out around you.

Tag the buddy you want spotting these with you.

Morning double dives run every day except Monday.
Call or WhatsApp +678 5544054
or email [email protected]

Take only photos, leave only bubbles.

Here are ten reef hazards worth knowing how to spot. Not reasons to stay out of the water, just things worth being able to recognise, because knowing what you’re looking at is what keeps your hands, your fins and the reef out of trouble.

The golden rule is the easy part: if you didn’t bring it down with you, don’t touch it.

Learn to spot them, keep your buoyancy tidy, and leave only: 🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧 (bubbles)

Come dive with us and we’ll teach you the rest!

Five dives takes you from 18 metres to 30.

That's Advanced Open Water. Deep and Navigation, then three you pick yourself. No pool, no final exam, just two days of diving with an instructor beside you.

That's Cathy up there. She teaches this one.

Save this one, and tag the buddy who's due an upgrade.

PADI Advanced Open Water, 59,500vt over two days.
Open Water certified, 12 and up.
Book on 5544054 or [email protected]

Best free show on the reef 🐟

Find a coral head with a little cleaner wrasse working it and you've found a cleaning station. One wrasse can get through a couple of thousand customers in a day.

Don't park on it. Hang back a couple of metres, get level, stop finning, give it a minute.

They go back to work, and you get to watch fish far bigger than them hold still, open up and let something the size of your finger swim right in.


Boat dives every day except Mondays.
Give us a ring on +678 5544054 or email [email protected]

Know someone who would love diving and just hasn't tried it yet?

Discover Scuba is where it starts. A bit of pool time to get comfortable, then a real reef dive with a PADI instructor next to you the whole way. A lot of people come up from that one already asking about the next.

No license, no experience. If you can swim and you're 10 or over, you're in.

Tag the person you have in mind, or surprise them and put a gift card in their hands instead.

Discover Scuba Dive from 15,500vt, gear included. Gift cards available for any dive or course, just call +678 5544054 or email [email protected]

Look up more 👀🪸

Overhangs, ledges, under the table corals. Anything with a bit of a roof on it usually has something living on the ceiling, and we all swim past at eye level and miss it.

So get low, hover off it a bit, and look up. Feather stars, pipefish, shrimp, soldierfish. None of that is visible from above.

Have a look, don't touch, carry on.

Tag whoever you're diving with next.

Boat dives daily, single dive 1 to 3pm. Give us a ring on +678 5544054 or email [email protected]