Actually, Donna Gianniotis doesn’t use the Sanskrit names for the asanas in her teaching. She reckons that when people recognise the name they automatically drop into the pose without checking if they are doing it correctly, whereas when she describes the action, they are more likely to get the correct alignment.

Hers is a gentle, nurturing practice, exploring the yoga of opening the heart. She starts with the breath and an intense awareness of the body, moving up from the legs and coming to rest in the heart centre. Each pose is slow and even slower, so controlled that some limbs start to tremble. Each stretch is calm and aware, leaving bodies satiated with a feeling of deep contentment. And each shivasana is long and thoughtful and brings you back to that heart centre.

Donna is also a practitioner of AcuEnergetics (Accurate Energy Medicine) and incorporates this into her yoga teaching. During the week she offered each student a private session when they could either focus on their own practice, or receive a session of AcuEnergetics. Everyone came out glowing.

The sum total for her week in June was a very joyful group of yogis. The yoga platform was a place of companionship, jokes, support and finding out new ways to do things. New ways to breathe. New ways to still the mind. And then later on between the yoga practices, fun and play – even new ways to integrate a yoga practice with snorkelling!

Join Donna on her 2012 course – Holiday for the Heart – read more here »

The snorkelling week in June was our biggest yet. We had uninterrupted sunshine although the opening few days were windy and the sea had a fair chop. Nevertheless, the snorkelers saw plenty of fish and several sharks which is always a buzz.

There was also a turtle sighting – a special joy to see the grace of this creature, so clumsy on land and so fluent and powerful in the ocean. The later part of the week was calm and clear, with fantastic visibility at Lighthouse.

The best coral of the week was a toss-up between Nuggets and Maravu beach – both of them seen in good sun and offering a lovely range of hard and soft corals.

We also saw several giant clams and, less happily, a number of crown-of-thorns starfish. Split Rock continues to delight with its clouds of sergeant majors.

Johnny’s evening lectures were lively and informative and the snorkelers soaked up the all the information he had to share and laughed at all his silly jokes!

Our relatively new snorkelling weeks are proving to be very rewarding. We only take a maximum of 8 guests; this trip had 4. Two were from Brisbane, and two from Adelaide – and I asked one of them to write up the week as they saw it.

In January, my husband and I arrived at Daku for a much anticipated snorkel holiday. Neither of us is very experienced and I was a little anxious about what to expect. I need not have worried: from the moment we arrived (me without luggage due to too much cargo on the early flight) everything was taken care of. In a borrowed swimsuit I was straight into my first dive at Split Rock and was mesmerised by the variety of marine life before us.

We had a very experienced guide in marine biologist Johnnie. Every day we went to different dive sites in the inner or outer reef depending on weather conditions. During the dive and on set evenings we learnt about the reef and surrounds, I now can recognise butterfly, angel, parrot, wrasse, groupers, altheas, snapper, sweetlips, surgeons and – my favourite – damsels. When we went to Charlie’s Point there were hundreds of them; it was like floating above multi coloured confetti – a truly magical experience.

We saw a turtle on the dive out to Lighthouse – so graceful and amazingly fast through the water.

We even got to dive on the pearl farm and look at the operation from below.

We had the most relaxing holiday and have gained a new passion for snorkeling and cannot wait to get back for more time below the water.

Anemone Clown Fish at Split Rock

Who cares? you might say…..but in this day of search-engine driven marketing, it matters. When we put up details of our snorkeling weeks, the Americans will find it – but if we want the Australians and English to come along, it has to be snorkelling. Well, I’m probably exaggerating a bit because people trawl around and have a look. And once the quibbling is over, the snorkel(l)ing is fantastic. I’ve already blogged about it, but there’s always more.

Our recent group of singers had a lot of keen snorkellllllers amongst them and we ran trips out to the reef on a daily basis. Here’s what one of them said:

We came to attend a singing course. The opportunity to combine two of our favourite activities (singing and snorkelling) on a daily basis was incomparable. Easy access to posh resort (Cousteau) for diving, Savusavu for trinkets and Indian tailors, reefs for snorkelling and even a local scooter hire place. Who could complain!

Catching the early morning reef activity is always great – when I’m at Daku I often take people out to Split Rock at 7.00am, which is when there’s an abundance of fish feeding around the rock and the nearby coral gardens.

And in July and October we’ve got snorkelling weeks with lectures, so people can learn more about what they’re seeing.

Delia on the boat (oh!! the hair!!!)

The last two months have been fantastic for snorkelling – great visibility and lots of fish. Split Rock continues to astound me – and everyone I take there. Last time I swam out from the beach with a family staying at Daku, and we saw a striped sea snake in the shallows. Although venomous, they are shy creatures and won’t bite unless you really annoy them. We hung back and it swam off lazily. The shoals of black and white soldier fish which are always at Split Rock seem to multiply – and they’re cheeky little things and often give you a nip. I also saw a line of small cuttlefish. I tried to get closer but they just disappeared leaving only a small squirt of black ink.

Damsel fish at Charlie's Point

There are at least three big clams on the rock – and the anemone at the end of the split is still there, along with the clown fish that lives inside it. These fish have an extraordinary biology: they are hermaphrodites, so they develop as males first, and when they reach maturity, they become females and can mate and reproduce.

We also went out a couple of times to Charlie’s Point out towards the lighthouse. It’s only accessible by boat, but is one of my favourite spots. The coral is spectacular – a range of coral heads with all sorts of plate coral, and clouds of fish of every shape and size. There are also some Christmas tree worms – those pretty little red and blue and yellow creatures that look like tiny Christmas trees, and which flick back into their tubes if you disturb them. They actually build these tubes by secreting a calcerous substance – the tube is both home and protection to the worm.

I saw a couple of trumpet fish at Charlie’s Point, drifting along quietly, almost translucent in colouring. It’s hard to tell which is its head and which its tail – and that, of course, is part of its feeding strategy. it hangs about in the water, going with the current, and then ambushs its prey when the other fish swim unedrneath it, sucking them up. It’s a method called “pipette feeding.” Its mouth creates a vacuum and sucks up small animals by expanding to a size equal to its body diameter.

People often ask if there are any sharks around, and of course the answer is yes. They are reef sharks and well fed so they never show any interest is snorkelers. I haven’t seen any there for some time, but once we saw a group of 6 chasing each other in a circle just like they do in the cartoons! Normally, though, the biggest fish we see are the groupers and sweet lips.