Fiji … sun, reefs and more reefs

The port of Savu Savu on the island of Vanua Levu was the starting point of this leg of the journey. After the already in the last post described ‘officialdom’ of clearing in we welcomed our new crew Cathy and Pam on board.

Before setting off on our cruise through the island world of Fiji we decided that Johnny was a worthwhile recipient of some of PasoDoble's ‘5% project’ funds. About 12 years ago Johnny suffered an accident, which left him a quadriplegic. He now receives a disability pension of 65 Fijian dollars per month and needs to support his family with selling necklaces on the street. We hoped our small contribution would bring at least some short-term relief.

Another urge we needed to satisfy was a dive with the Jean-Michel Cousteau resort to the renown Namena Marine Park dive site. A few different factors need to coincide, but we were lucky. The weather gods provided a flat sea for the 20miles or 35 minutes trip in a 500hp speedboat and the luxurious resort came up with the 3 more divers to bring it up to the necessary number 5 to make to trip possible. It was worthwhile as the dive was magnificent. Large coral heads at their best architecture and condition, at a depths of 25 to 35 meters and at the edge of the reef a steep drop to about 600m. Perhaps the word awesome describes it best. Unfortunately we have no underwater pictures of the dive …

… but were sufficiently motivated wanting to return to the marine park the following day with Paso Doble. This time under sail, the slow motion trip with a fresh breeze took about 4 hours. Entering the reef via the North Safe-a-Tack Pass, we tied up to a mooring buoy just before dark at Namena Island. The next day we snorkeled the reefs surrounding the boat and although lacking the excitement of depths found it almost as satisfying as the dive. The corals and fauna were simply wonderful.

We had plans for an overnight sail straight to the Yasawa Islands in the west of Fiji and left the Namena reef via the South Safe-a-Tack Pass - facing a wall of black sky; no mention of that in the weather forecast. About a mile outside the reef the skies opened and the wind started to blow with 30 knots from the west, exactly where we were headed for. About 2 hours later we were still a mile from the reef pass and gave up, changed tack and started to head south. With the wind abeam now we sailed briskly down towards the main island of Viti Levu, hoping that the wind would turn by the time we reached the next reef channel. By 1700h the wind was still westerly and we made for an anchorage in the lee of Makogai Island, hoping for a change of wind overnight.

We woke up to good news the next morning – the boat was facing south. We weighed anchor and continued with our plan of the overnight sail, only this time the wind came from aft quarter and we ‘broad reached’ up through the Vati-i-Ra channel towards the Yasawas. The timing was for a dawn arrival at the Qio Pass leading into the Tivolei reef. We got there at 0700h and managed to sail trough the narrow passage without changing sail – perfect. At 0900h we slipped through the Tamasua Pass and put down our anchor in the lee of Sawa-i-Lau Island, right outside the steps to the limestone caves.

Soon after the beach in front of the caves came alive with Fijian vendors setting up their stalls getting ready for the daily water taxis loaded with resort tourists from the surrounding islands. After all the activities were over, vendors gone and peace returned we checked out the cave. The angle of the afternoon sun was perfect for the rays to shine through the skyward opening and set the cave alight.  The corals in front of the caves were also very pretty and it was easy to while away a few hours with snorkeling.

The following day we left the bay and motored down the lee side of Nacula Island to the most famous of all Yasawa spots – the Blue Lagoon. The midday sun helped navigating through the reefs protecting the lagoon and we put down the hook right where Brooke Shields might have swum all these years ago. That night we went to the adjoining Coral View resort for a traditional ‘Lomo’ earth-oven cooked meal, however the ‘fire dance’ performed by the staff made up for the very average meal.

We organized a last South Pacific dive at the same resort, but the Namena dive was a hard act to follow. It also pointed out that after the very professional Cousteau dive outfit one should be choosy with whom to go diving … although we were lucky and got away with a minor inconvenience, the combination of a few smaller issues could have resulted in a major problem.

We left the Blue Lagoon and headed out the channel to the west. We decided to take advantage of a fresh breeze for a brisk sail down the outside of the islands rather than weaving our way through the seemingly endless reefs within the group. Our next stop was off the beach next to the village of Yamata on the island of Wayalailai. No sooner did we drop the anchor we got a visit from Ili in his tin canoe, who sold us 5 plate size reef fish – dinner was organized.

In the late afternoon another canoe stopped by. Steven was on the way to his ‘night shift’ of lobster hunting and promised us some for the next morning. Well, he turned up at 0730h with his catch ... and dinner was organized again. He stayed for a chat and some morning tea. Following an invitation to his village we later on met some of his extended family clan and acquired some locally made souvenirs.

Then we left the Yasawas and headed off to Monuriki Island in the northern Mamanuca group. This island is nicknamed Tom Hank’s island in most guidebooks, after the movie Cast away. One thing is sure with these places made famous by Hollywood movies – they pick spectacular locations.

The next few windy days were lazily spent beach combing and snorkeling around the sand spit before the inevitable last port for this leg called – Musket Cove Marina on Malololailai island. Heading into a southeasterly wind we sailed [motor assisted] through the southern Mamanunca islands and entered the protecting reefs of  the Malolo group. Originally sold for one musket, Dick Smith had a vision for this cove and in the 1960’s acquired it for a quite a few more muskets, turning it into a resort and marina. We tied up stern-to, connected to the civilized world of running water and power and gave PasoDoble the fortnightly scrub-down.

We aptly finished off this leisurely holiday leg with a Fijian dinner and traditional song night at the resort – at sunset … life’s tough

Officialdom had to be dealt with again to be able to leave the country. Lautoka is the clearance port for this area of Fiji, some 60 km away from Musket Cove on the main land of Viti Levu. We got there by ferry and bus and were quite put off by custom's refusal to clear us out; further more demanding that we actually present the boat at the port of Lautoka for inspection. This was completely contrary to what we were told by the customs officer in Savu Savu. Trying a number of more or less diplomatic approaches from ‘sweet talk’ to ‘please-please-please’ to ‘I will have to lodge an official complaint’ got us no results … it meant going upwind for a whole day and through a stretch of water littered with reefs – thank you very much, Mr Custom's Officer. 

The last Kingdom ...

Tonga is the only pacific island nation that was never colonized and it is the oldest and last remaining South Pacific monarchy. Besides having strong traditions it is also staunchly 'christian' and on Sunday morning the turnout at church must surely be the envy of most christian nation throughout the world. But not only the numbers are impressing, it’s the singing that matters ….

Tonga is bordered by Fiji to the west and the Tongan Trench to the east, with 10632m depth the second deepest ocean trench in the world. It is composed of 171 islands, clustered into 4 different groups. Vava’u in the north with its magnificent archipelago is considered the sailing centre of Tonga and is also well known for the presence of humpback whales during breeding season. A mother and calf greeted us while going through the pass into the islands.

Neiafu is the main town in Vava’u and somehow reflects the islands south pacific attitude – it is so laid back that it is almost falling over and everything works on ‘island time’, including all the governmental offices. We spent almost 2 weeks there including a week of boat maintenance and admin catch-up, necessary after having been almost 4 weeks under way between French Polynesia and Tonga. We almost qualified as ‘locals’, walking several times daily between the Cafés Tropicana and Aquarium checking for the best internet connection.

Finally our new crew arrived – Helen and Diana from [neighboring] Australia and Tilman from Germany, after a mammoth 50 hour flight around more than half the world [the same distance has taken us so far only about 12 months … so, what’s your choice ????]

After the clearing-out procedure with customs and immigration officials and victualing the boat at the local market we set off to spend the first 5 days somewhere in the maze of islands … to get the crew used to their new duties.

Before leaving Neiafu we organized to get picked up at our first anchorage by a dive operator to experience the outstanding corals and underwater lava architecture. Unfortunately we were at the tail end of the whale season and the humpbacks didn’t show up for the ‘booked’ swim along. However the corals we saw diving and snorkeling were outstanding.

It was easy spending the days cruising between the beautiful spots in the archipelago, waiting for the right weather to arrive for our passage to Fiji.

Some local fisherman came around to give us some of their catch and we bulked it out with a conch shell we found snorkeling in the Blue Lagoon.

Unfortunately the weather forecast never quite promised the perfect wind conditions and after a rainy day and thundery night at anchor we decided we might as well split.

The morning we set sail looked still pretty threatening with more rain, but once we were out on the ocean it turned out to be a great day for sailing with 15-20 knots of wind, coming from northeast to start. By the end of the day we had the wind go to the north, then over northwest to west and then to the south. We never had a dull moment with setting and re-setting the sails.

Our destination was SavuSavu on Fiji’s northern island of Vanua Levu, but we had our mind set to make an ‘illegal’ stop over in one of the islands in the northern Lau group in Fiji’s east. To visit the Lau islands one normally needs a special and rather costly cruising permit, but … we had a steering problem [we really did!!!] and needed to make an emergency stop on Vanuabalavu, an island in the Exploring Islands group.  Separated from the rest of the Fijian islands by 120 miles against the prevailing trade winds it is really a forgotten and hence isolated corner – but just amazing. In the early morning after 3 days of better than expected sailing we negotiated a reef pass into the lagoon and after not having had an anchorage to ourselves for a very long time we were all alone in this wonderful place called the Bay of Islands. Although the sun wasn’t really cooperating, the flora and colour of the water were still out of this world and cruising with the dinghy through the limestone island-scape really felt like no one was there since 8-8-92 …

In fact our stop over was not that illegal as there were no beaches near our anchorage and the steep and sharp limestone pinnacles prevented us from setting food on land.

We weighed anchor early the next morning and left the lagoon via the Qilaqila Pass in the north, with no channel markers in sight besides 2 lonely leading beacons disappearing in the glare of the rising sun.

The wind was still somewhat elusive, but the itinerary ruled and we had to do some motor assisted sailing. Dodging some more reefs we soon saw the outline of Taveuni Island at the horizon. At 0330h we crossed the charted east / west latitude line and 180 deg W became 180 deg E - from now on we are ‘on our way home’.

We were also blessed again with 2 great catches, a succulent tuna and an impressive mahi-mahi. We appreciate the gift of the seas.

We rounded the reef into SavuSavu Bay on the morning of Nov 1, right on time with our sailing plan. At 1100h we made fast at the dock of the Copra Shed marina and next was clearing in with the Fijian authorities, but that is another story …