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Kelly Kimple, CEO of Colorado-based small-group tour operator for women, Adventures in Good Company, told me the average age of her company’s guests rose to 62 years old in 2023 compared

with 58 in pre-pandemic times. She also told me her company regularly hosts guests in their late 70s and even into their 80s on some of its more challenging trips, giving me lots of hope for

a long life of adventuring.   When Maddy and I arrived at our dive resort, Paradise Taveuni, on the island of Taveuni, we felt like the youngsters in the bunch as we enjoyed our first

dinner with a father-son-uncle group of divers from California (the older men were in their 60s) and a 55-year-old uncle traveling with his nephew from Colorado. Diving in the Caribbean and

our home waters in Florida can be very beautiful. But for anyone who gets seriously into scuba diving, traveling to the South Pacific or Indo-Pacific is almost always on the wish list thanks

to the sheer diversity of species and coral in this part of the world. BUILDING CONFIDENCE THROUGH DIVING I’d chosen Taveuni, which is known as the Garden Island, because of its

surface-level lushness and renowned dive sites that are famed as the “soft coral capital of the world.” It was a great chance to show Maddy the storied Rainbow Reef, known for its vibrant

colors and healthy corals. On our first shore dive we entered the water right from the resort’s dock into what felt like the most spectacular aquarium. Maddy and I spotted anemone fish

(Nemo!), boldly striped Picasso triggerfish and blue and yellow ribbon eels swaying hypnotically in the current. Maddy spent the first few dives with a beloved dive instructor from the

resort, Fijian Christine Riley. She told me Maddy nailed her PADI Advanced Open Water Certification and was a great diver. Underwater together, I found myself admiring the confidence and

technique my niece had gained nearly as much as I was admiring the layers of cascading table corals and clouds of fish around us. Our next stop on Vanua Levu, was just a boat ride away at

Sau Bay Resort & Spa, an intimate dive resort with a collection of beachfront _bures_ (bungalows). I’d chosen it after learning it was Fiji’s first PADI Eco Center. The certification is

awarded to dive centers that promote things such as citizen science, conservation, community resilience and dive industry sustainability. Maddy and Fijian children participated in a beach

cleanup organized by the resort. Courtesy Terry Ward MAKING CONNECTIONS After dinner around a bonfire on the beach, we’d chat with an entertaining Australian couple, divers in their 60s who

reconnected at their 40th high school reunion, about what we saw and heard. Humpback whale song was the soundtrack for most of our dives (they migrate through these waters from August to

October), and we spotted them multiple times from the dive boat, if not underwater, showing off their flukes. Before I knew it, Maddy had made plans to visit the Australians during her gap

year.