We chose Kadavu Island due to the reviews of the diving there (dived many places around the world over the past 8 years but never Fiji until now) and then Dive Kavadu due to it offering diving plus having its own beach to snorkel from.

It certainly isn't a resort to go to if you want 5 star treatment or to be anonymous. From the minute you arrive at the airport you are treated like one of the family and quickly get to know most of the staff by name. The food is all local style cooked using local ingrediants by local staff and is very good with always more of it available than you can eat (and "Mum" Mere constantly suggests you can eat a bit more). 3 meals a day are provided with all guests together which further increases the feeling of family/inclusion.

The diving is mainly at the local reef which has plently of swim throughs and caverns plus excellent coral and fish. The guides don't swim to fast and are excellent at pointing out things, particularly the little things it is easy to miss. Diving the astrolobe is a full day which is very tiring but well worth it.

The burees are basic but clean with hot running water. Whilst the generator does not run 24 hours a day there is still plenty of time to charge batteries etc. and lights and fans work 24 hours.

When we weren't diving/eating/sleeping we spent time snorkelling from the beach (very good) and kayaking.

Overall I would say Dive Kadavu is an excellent choice if you enjoy diving and sharing your experiences with others and enjoy experiencing
the real local environment rather than a tourist destination.

Loved Dive Kadavu and have been there twice the last 10 years the last visit being December of 06 to Janauary of 07. It is very basic and rustic-don't expect luxury or you will be sorely disappointed. The beach in front of the resort is beautiful and the snorkeling in front of the resort is underrated- one afternoon we spent hours watching Lionfish hunting. There is an even nicer beach with better snorkeling that is a short boat ride away but, you do have to pay (I think it was $30 for two people). You can kayak there for free but be it is challenging to Kayak back against the current. The scuba diving is fantastic and the Manta Reef is a once in a lifetime experience. Even if you don't see the mantas the reef itself is phenomenal. The manta excursion is extra unless you trade diving days, but it is worth it. The diving near the resort is also fantastic. The food was not gourmet and it ranged from very good to average good. Some meals were great though- particularly the curry night. We enjoyed the communal eating since we got a chance to meet and socialize with some great people. The accommodations are basic but the setting is beautiful and tranquil and unspoiled by over development (at least for the time being). If you want incredible diving and an unspoiled location and can tolerate rustic accommodations by all means go.

The best possible holiday!
Recently I spent three weeks in Fiji with my wife and of that we had 10 nights at Dive Kadavu or Matana Beach as it also is called. Cutting to the chase, it was the best holiday my wife and I have had ever! I can highly recommend the place. If you are a person like me, who like the combination of extremely friendly people, diving of the highest quality and pleasant accommodation, this will be the perfect place for you. The owners Bob and Reena will definitely look after you and make you feel at home.

Getting there requires flying on a small plane from Nadi or Suva on the largest island in Fiji, Viti Levu. The 45 minute flight was followed by a pick-up by a small boat and were brought the 15 minutes along the coast to Dive Kadavu's resort. The first thing that happened was that we were met on the beach by the owner Bob. This marks the experience of staying at Dive Kadavu/Matana Beach. This is much more than a holiday. This is a place where if you let yourself go a bit will meet new people and have the most fantastic time. In particular the interaction with all the staff, who come from the neighbouring two small villages with around 300 people. People are incredibly hospitable and good at making you relax and have fun.

The main activity is obviously diving, and it is by far the most diving I have done in all the years I have dived. The most visited reef is a mere 3-5 minute on the boat, in the water, and then heading back to the island to have the one hour surface time at what Lonely Planet named one of the top-5 beaches in the world. It is so, because it simply is beautiful, and most interestingly, completely deserted bar a couple of locals collecting firewood or guiding a bull from one village to the next. The beach is easily reached from the resort in one of their complementary sea-kayaks and you will have this wonderful beach with coconut palms, snorkelling, and white sand all to yourself.

Apart from the near reef we also did two one-day trips. One to the Astrolabe Reef on the South-East or windward side of Kadavu, where we did two wonderful dives in the morning on the most pristine coral reef I have ever seen. After a lunch on land, we went for an afternoon dive and were diving with five giant manta rays feeding on the plankton off the reef pinnacles. Being right next to a 15 feet wide sea-creature that looks like an UFO is for me always a huge experience, and although there are no guarantees, then they have very good sighting statistics for this reef. We also did a three-tank dive to the South-Eastern most tip of Kadavu where we experienced the deep blue of 40+ meters visibility.

However, as many places can offer excellent diving, simply focusing on this aspect would be grossly misleading. When diving, you will typically spend no more than 2x45 minutes in silence under water. The rest of the time you are with other people and here Dive Kadavu can offer something very few other places can, namely making people gel and feel at home so the hours on the boat are great fun. Fijians like a good friendly joke, I can tell you. After one dive we approached the beach for our surface time and for tea, coffee and biscuits. Just as the boat approached the beach, a small brown dog came out of the forest and stodd there looking at us silently. Joeli, the divemaster shouted; "Do not jump on the beach, it is a dingo, and there is great danger it will bite you!". As soon as the boat crew and Joeli were certain that we believed him, they all cracked up looking at all these long faces realising we were going to miss a game of throw-the-coconut or hermit crab race.

All meals are served either on the terrace or in the dining room at long tables encouraging people to get to know each other. Eating together means you make new friends and have much more fun during all the hours diving and in the evenings at the 'Jar Bar' where cocktails are served in jars with dive-suit material (neuropren??) handles. Here Seru, the bartender, will make a Pina Colada from fresh coconut cream he makes himself. The Jar Bar is right by Matana Beach and whilst having a cocktail and snacks before dinner you will have a nice chat with the locals and other guests and watch the sunset. Here you will almost guaranteed find Cava, who is one big smile and also the steady link between the resort an the village Drue next door.

Fijians are very easy going, but they are also very traditional when it comes to visiting. This means that as a guest at the resort you do not just wander into surrounding villages without being invited in the same way as you do not wander into other people's houses. This is an excellent principle ensuring some sort of demarkation between the tourists at the resort and the locals who have a life to live. It also makes it something special when you put on your zulu (a loincloth to be worn by all visiting) and go for a visit.

However, the most compelling aspect of the stay was definitely visiting the small local school where 80 primary school children sang for us, or when we were invited to a 21st birthday in the village community hall with Cava and his guitar and ukulele orchestra entertaining all night while we soaked up the local non-alchololic- but very relaxing drink cava. Fijians are very good at partying and making you feel at home and they definitely illustrate the old adage that happiness is not directly depending on social status, money or higher education. We also spend a few hours at a village across the bay where the locals had gone to extraordinary efforts to put on dancing and singing for us and although we of course contributed with some money for their local building projects, it was clearly as good fun for them to perform as it were for us to view.

The price is more than reasonable when considering that you are at a resort that at maximum capacity takes 26 guests and has around 30 members of staff for the . If you get a dive package as we did with one diver (8x2 dives) and one non-diver (who ended up coming on the boat every day to not miss all the fun we had) including a bure (hut) on the beach and all meals for 10 days, then it works out at around $70 per person per day. This is in my recollection about what the diving alone costs in Hawaii where i have so far been 5 times over the past 10 years. And the diving in Fiji is definitely better as the reefs are much older.

All in all it was the most wonderful holiday I have ever had and anyone who does not like their stay at Dive Kadavu is in my view a sad individual who is not able to let go just a bit and get to know some truly wonderful people who most of us can learn from in terms of appreciating life and not just running after more stuff to replace all the other stuff we collect. If you are the kind of person who likes a sterile resort that looks as they all do, where you only meet servants and not friends, and where you can show off about career, cars and other things you may hold deer, then please do not go to Dive Kadavu. One high-flyer tried to impress the locals that he drove a very expensive Porche. They could not care less as there is only small road on Kadavu and they are much more impressed if you can tell a good story and poke some fun at someone.

I can only warmly recommend Dive Kadavu even if I shouldn't as I would love to keep it as my secret.

I am a little late writing my review but agree with some of the other comments. First of all flying to Kadavu is interesting as our plane only had room for passengers and not the luggage ie. dive gear, this was loaded onto another plane and arrived an hour or so afterwards, even though we were told it was right behind us. I did find that everything said has to be taken with a pinch of salt but I guess on holiday everyone is on island time so shouldn't get too stressed about delays. We went through exactly the same situation on flying back to Nadi. The "resort" is basic - mainly just diving and as my husband is a non-diver did initally get a bit bored but luckily he hooked up with a local fisherman and went out almost daily on his out-rigger so was happy - as fishing is his passion. We were the only 2 Brits travelling alone and the rest of the place was filled by a group of Americans from Arizona. I did find the communal eating a bit of a trial but we hooked up with 2 extremely pleasant, educated couples and ended up spending our week with them. The owners are only marginally interested in proceedings and more could be done to upgrade the rooms which were functional but that's about it. The generator only works for a few hours a day so the lights kept on going on and off which annoyed my husband no end, simply installing solar-panels would have solved this problem immediately.

My aim in Fiji was to get some easy practice dives in as our next stop was Vanuatu and diving the President Coolidge, to this end it was exactly what I was looking for. The diving is very easy and not at all challenging, we had one DM/guide who was more interested in taking his own photographs than looking after the group so consequently lost half of them underwater. I teach diving so was absolutely livid as this was totally irresponsible as some was very inexperienced and told me afterwards they were really quite frightened. I complained to the owner and to give him his dues it didn't happen again. We were lucky with the manta dive which was fantastic and worth the trip.

To sum up, a good place for easy diving but don't expect too much + the beer is very expensive.