Fiji, June 24 - July 15, 2010

We had an uneventful three day passage from Tonga to Fiji. It was a bit uncomfortable at first because we had some big waves coming from right behind us which makes the boat rock quite a bit side to side. Nobody got much sleep the first night, but we recovered the next day just before one of our fan belts shredded itself to bits. This belt was for the intake water pump which cools the engine, so the engine immediately overheated, and we had to shut it off and wait for the engine to cool down before Fred and Jeff could begin attempting to fix it. We had the replacement belt, but it put up a fight going on, but eventually Fred and Jeff convinced it to cooperate it, which was good news because we were just a few miles away from a pass through the reefs that we did not want to negotiate under sail power alone. But all ended well, and we made it through the pass and arrived in Savusavu on Vanua Levu, the next day. We were very impressed with the efficiency and friendliness of the officials here. They all came out to the boat and we were cleared through in about a half hour, which is pretty amazing, especially considering that we arrived late in the afternoon.

We really enjoyed our time in Savusavu despite the fact that it was unbelievably hot while we were there. The anchorage in Savusavu is a little ways up a wide river,
backed by fairly steep hills, so the anchorage area is very protected. This is a nice feature when the wind is blowing, but makes it very hot when it's not. The river was also not very inviting for swimming, which is our usual method of cooling off. Fortunately, we were on a mooring at the Copra Shed Marina which is a very nice place with very friendly staff and free showers onshore. Onshore showers are a pretty big luxury since fresh water is always in short supply on the boat. We took many long, cooling showers ashore while we were in Savusavu.

Savusavu has one main road that follows the river with about six blocks of businesses along it. Both the town and the people who live there seemed much

livelier than Tonga. We found the people in Tonga to be very nice, but also very reserved. Not so in Fiji. You hear "Bula", the local greeting here, everywhere you go, even from strangers passing you on the street, and it's usually delivered with a big smile. One day, when I was walking by myself just to look around a bit, an Indian lady got out of her car and crossed the street just to ask if I needed a ride anywhere. Then after we chatted for a bit she invited us all out to see the sugar cane plantation she and her husband manage. I told her we would come if we rented a car one day (which we did not get around to doing) and she then assured me that if we had any car problems in Fiji we should just walk to the closest house and knock on the door. She told me that anyone would give us any assistance we needed from use of their phone, to food and drinks, and a place to stay for the night if we couldn't be rescued before then. Nice.

We also liked the food in Savusavu. There are a lot of people of Indian descent in Fiji. They are called Indo-Fijians, and luckily for us, some of them run restaurants. We became quite fond of Indian style curries while in New Zealand, and we've been looking forward to more since we left. Fred and Jeff particularly enjoy very spicy curry dishes, and it's rare that anyone not of Indian descent makes them hot enough. The Indians, however, seem to have no qualms. You tell them you want hot and head sweating hot is what you get. I have no idea how anyone can eat more than one bite of many of the meals they get, but those two seem to love it. We also had some very good Chinese food in Savusavu. They even had potstickers (fried dumplings) which are another God Spede favorite. And did I mention that the food is quite reasonably priced in Fiji? So much so that we rarely ate a meal on the boat while we were there. It just didn't seem practical. Woohoo, no dishes to do!

We went diving with KoroSun Divers while we were in Savusavu. They are not actually located in Savusavu, they operate out of the Koro Sun resort which is on the other side of the peninsula, but they came to the marina and picked us up, and then apologized for having to detour one of their homes along the way, but since it was at the top of a ridge with fantastic ocean views, we just figured we were getting a little extra bang for our buck - a driving tour in addition to the diving. We did two dives with them, one with lots of swim throughs and one near a pair of gigantic coral mouintains. The coral here was really amazing and we enjoyed ourselves very much. Colin, the owner and head dive guy, was also nice enough to tell us about a marine reserve that was too far away for him to take us to, but that we could dive ourselves if we went there on God Spede. He told us many of customers said this reserve was their favorite dive spot in all of Fiji, and he gave us GPS co-ordinates for a couple dives there, so we decided to make that our next stop.

This marine reserve is in the lagoon surrounding Namena island (sometimes called Namenalala) and located about 25 miles southwest of Savusavu. The island is surrounded by a huge stretch of reef that juts out from the mainland and encompasses Namena island. The island is private, with a small resort on it, and boaters are not welcome ashore, but the resort maintains a mooring ball that you can stay on for free, and it is off of a lovely beach with great snorkeling, so we didn't mind not going ashore too much. While snorkeling in the anchorage we saw a five foot long moray eel swimming out of it's hole, which was pretty cool.

We planned on staying there two nights with one full day of diving in between, but our first dive there was so spectacular, and we got some more co-ordinates to other dive spots in the reserve, so we decided to stay for three more days and dive as many of the spots as we could find. I'm really glad we did. This was some truly world class diving and our fee for diving it all was $25 per person which you pay to dive in the marine reserve. The only other people diving this huge area while we were there was one guy from National Geographic who was staying at the resort on the island, and some people on a big charter live-aboard dive boat. The dive boats guys were very nice about helping us find more dive spots and invited us to come aboard one evening, but they anchored very far away from us at night, so we never took them up on that offer. Every single dive we did near Namena was amazing. Some were big coral pinnacles and some were drift dives. The first pinnacle we dove was 65 feet deep at the bottom and the top was at about 15 feet, and it was about 30 feet across. We went down deep and then spiraled slowly back up. It was beautiful, and amazing how many different types of coral there were, how healthy it all was, and how much things changed with depth. We came spiraling up about 5 feet shallower each go round and some something different each time. The top of the pinnacle was like an underwater aquarium. The drift dives were also very cool and we saw white tip and black tip reef sharks as well as a turtle on one of them.


The only bad part of our time at Namena was that I managed to burn my leg on the dive compressor while we were trying to quickly fill our tanks so we could dive again the first day. The compressor shuts off after one tank is filled and then you have to disconnect and reconnect the hoses to the next tank you want to fill and then restart the compressor with the pull cord. When I pulled the cord I did it at a funny angle and the compressor tipped over onto my leg. I didn't think it was a big deal at first, but it turns out I cooked my leg a little. Not need to go the hospital cooked, but I did lose a bit of skin. It's healing up nicely now, and I'm well past the possible infection stage, but am still wearing a bandage for sun protection until it heals completely. The bandage also makes me look more piratey, which I like.

After Namena Island we made our way down to Lautoka on the big island of Viti Levu. This trip wasn't very far as the crow flies, but it took a few days since we had to wind our way around some of Fiji's many reefs. Looking at this place on a regular map is very deceptive. It looks like big stretches of open water between the islands, but in fact there are these huge reefs everywhere and you have to go miles out of your way to get to a pass through them. We did NOT want to travel at night
in these conditions, so it took us two and a half days to get to Lautoka. We caught another Blue Trevally along the way. Those fish are delicious!

At Lautoka we stopped just long enough to do some food shopping and some official paperwork before heading off for Musket Cove Resort which is west of Nadi on a small island called Malololailai. We had to thread our way through more reefs near the resort and as we rounded the corner we were amazed to see all the pleasure water craft that were buzzing around. There were kayaks and hobie cats, and windsurfers and jet skis and day sail boats and boats that had taken people out to an offshore sandbar for picnics and snorkeling. Since then we've also seen helicopter tours and parasailing. I know these are all normal activities at resorts in the US and the Caribbean, but it's NOT been the case in any other place we've been in the South Pacific. It's been ages since we've seen anything like this and it makes a great change! Things got even better when we found out that for a very small fee we could join the Musket Cove Yacht Club (you must have arrived on a boat from another country to be eligible) and then we were welcome to use all the resort amenities. Not necessarily for free, but we are welcome to use them. Oh, and also their are free onshore showers and a spa. Did I mention the spa? And a pool. And the special beach bar which is on a peninsula near the dinghy dock where they serve cheap drinks and have wood fired barbecues that the boaters are welcome to use for free. And they give you plates and wash them for you afterwards - heaven! Now, to be honest, I must admit that I think they built this bar special in the hopes that the rowdier boaters would stay out there and the resort guests wouldn't necessarily have to deal with them, but hey, whatever makes it so that I can have free reign of the place works for me!

After a few days of soaking up the resort ambiance, and a day of diving for the boys, we sadly left Musket Cove and headed back to the mainland to prepare for Tom
and Fred to fly back to the US. The marina at Vuda Point is where we went, and it's a bit strange, but I'll explain about it later, since Jeff and I will be back there next week also. On this first visit, Fred managed to co-ordinate some different people to do some repairs and engine maintenance starting next week.

On Fred and Tom's last night in Fiji we treated ourselves to a very nice dinner in Nadi and then went out to Ed's bar, which we were told was THE place to drink in Nadi. I can't speak to that, since we haven't tried anywhere else yet, but drink at Ed's we did. And then we drank some more. And then we had some shots. Great idea. I don't know what time Ed's closes, but I finally threw in the towel and convinced the boys to take me home at 3:30. Ed's was still going strong. When we got back we turned on the boat stereo, forgetting to fade out the outside speakers, and managed to wake up our neighbors who called security. Great. I woke up the next morning with the worst hangover I've had in a long, long time. Will I ever learn? The boys felt better than me to varying degrees, which is good, especially since two of them had big, big travel days ahead of them. Tom flew out in the early afternoon, then Fred left later that night, and now Jeff and I are on our own for a bit.

We did some mainland provisioning the next day and then brought the boat back out to Musket Cove Resort, where we have gone into serious relaxing mode. We'll stay here for a week, then we go back to Vuda Point Marina while the boat is being worked on which will probably take about a week. After that, maybe we'll come back out here, or maybe we'll rent a car and tour the main island some. A lot will depend on how long the boat work actually takes and whether or not Jeff will be returning to the US also, and if so, when. Maybe, if we tour with a car, we'll save money on hotels by showing up at people's houses late in the evening and telling them our car is broken down... we'll keep you posted.