Dakuwaqa’s Garden

Underwater footage shot whilst scuba diving in the Fiji islands and Tonga. Featuring colorful coral reefs, huge schools of tropical fish, sharks, humpback whales, underwater caves, scuba divers and much more marine life from the south Pacific.

Underwater footage from Fiji & Tonga

The coral reefs of the south Pacific are alive with a huge variety of tropical fish and marine critters. A great way to explore them is to scuba dive with the Nai’a liveaboard based in Fiji. I was working as the Nai’a’s video pro when I shot this footage. See http://www.naia.com.fj/

The underwater footage was shot in high definition HDV 1080i 60i with my Sony HVR-Z1P HDV camera in a Light & Motion Bluefin HD housing. The footage was converted to 720p for YouTube using my high quality method:
http://www.bubblevision.com/underwater-video/Vegas-YouTube-Vimeo.htm

The music is “In the Meadows” by Stephen Richard Thomas Brown, whose wonderful work you can find here:
http://www.myspace.com/stephenrichardthomasbrown
http://stephenrichardthomasbrown.bandcamp.com/
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=276599
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfJnVPFdndkD3FFpeL28oBA

View the names of all the dive sites and names of all the tropical fish and other marine life by turning on closed captions with the CC button. Here is the full shot list of species and dive sites. You can find more complete information at http://www.bubblevision.com/underwater-videos/Fiji-and-Tonga/scuba-diving.htm :

0:04 – “E6”, Bligh Water, Fiji
0:06 – Reticulated Dascyllus at “Maytag”
0:09 – “Mushrooms”, Namena Marine Reserve
0:11 – “Coral Corner”
0:13 – “Maytag”
0:15 – “Coral Corner”
0:17 – “Mellow Yellow”
0:20 – “E6”
0:22 – Chironephthya corals at “Mount Mutiny”
0:24 – Cave at “Lion’s Den” near Wakaya Island
0:28 – Chironephthya corals at “The Whole Shebang”
0:31 – “The Whole Shebang”
0:33 – “Mellow Yellow”
0:35 – “E6”
0:37 – “Kansas” at North Save-a-Tack
0:39 – Lyretail anthias at “Howard’s Diner”
0:43 – “Maytag”
0:45 – Banded sea krait at “Jim’s Alley” near Gau Island
0:52 – Pacific sailfin tang
0:54 – Button polyps at “Humann Nature”
0:56 – Urn ascidians at “Becky’s” near Makogai Island
0:59 – Pom pom Xenia
1:03 – Barberi clownfish
1:05 – Barberi clownfish at “Cat’s Meow”
1:07 – Barberi clownfish
1:11 – Pink anemonefish
1:13 – Blueband gobies
1:16 – Firefish at Lua Lafalafa Reef, Tonga
1:18 – Orbicular batfish
1:20 – Teira batfish over the “Nasi Yalodina” wreck
1:22 – Elongate surgeonfish
1:24 – Blackfin barracuda
1:27 – Bigeye trevallies at “Grand Central Station”
1:29 – Schooling bannerfish at “School House”
1:31 – Pacific double-saddle butterflyfish
1:33 – Blue and gold fusiliers over yellow scroll coral at Nigali Passage
1:35 – Barcheek trevally at “Tetons”
1:37 – Golden damsel & bluestreak cleaner wrasse
1:40 – Blue and gold fusilier and bluestreak cleaner wrasse
1:42 – Sunburst anthias at “Palako’s Patch”
1:44 – Speckled damsel spawning at Uoleva Point
1:46 – Arc-eye hawkfish at “Anthias Avenue”
1:38 – Longsnout flathead at Luangahu Reef
1:51 – Ribbon eel at “Tetons”
1:53 – Giant moray
1:55 – Juvenile rockmover wrasse at “Two Thumbs Up”
1:57 – Firefish
2:00 – Red lionfish
2:02 – Whitetip reef shark under “Kansas”
2:04 – Grey reef shark
2:10 – Sinularia corals
2:12 – Blue-spotted puffer
2:15 – Blackspotted puffer at Ha’afeva Island, Tonga
2:17 – Blue-green Chromis
2:21 – Red lionfish
2:23 – Zebra lionfish at Luangahu Reef
2:28 – Coral grouper at “Becky’s”
2:30 – Dwarf hawkfish
2:32 – Scorpionfish
2:34 – Randall’s prawn-goby
2:36 – Signalfin goby
2:39 – Gorgeous prawn goby & snapping shrimp
2:41 – Weedy pygmy seahorse
2:43 – Ornate ghost pipefish
2:47 – Ornate ghost pipefish eggs in brooding pouch
2:50 – Christmas tree worm
2:53 – Manta ray at Vatu Vai
2:58 – Hawksbill turtle
3:03 – Humpback whale mother and calf at Ha’apai, Tonga
3:10 – Malabar grouper
3:15 – Honeycomb coral
3:19 – “Lion’s Den”
3:21 – “Mushrooms”
3:23 – “Coral Corner”
3:25 – “Mushrooms”
3:28 – Whitemargin unicornfish
3:30 – Dendronephthya soft coral
3:32 – Bigeye barracuda
3:35 – “Gomo”
3:39 – “Nasi Yalodina” wreck
3:41 – “E6”
3:43 – Lance blenny
3:45 – Triplespot blenny
3:48 – Valentini puffer
3:50 – Parrotfish at Nukupule
3:52 – Bluespotted ribbontail ray
3:54 – Blotched fantail ray at Ha’afeva Island
3:56 – Orange mantis shrimp
3:59 – Sexy shrimp
4:01 – Day octopus
4:04 – Fuchsia flatworms mating
4:07 – Bullock’s Hypselodoris
4:09 – Spanish dancer
4:14 – Spanish dancer at Ha’afeva Island
4:18 – Brown booby at Vatu-i-ra

Dakuwaqa is a shark-god from Fijian mythology. Learn about him at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEHydvbCeVg