Savusavu, Fiji

Celebrating Paul's 70th

On the way in perfect conditions

After a sometimes fast, sometimes slow, but altogether pleasant passage from Minerva Reef up to Fiji, a distance of 468 nautical miles, we arrived safely at the village of Savusavu in the bay of the same name.  Savusavu is located on the southern side of Vanua Levu, Fiji’s second largest island.  There are, apparently, over 330 of them.

Our first day out was in perfect sailing conditions, flat sea with about 20 knots of breeze.  The wind died the next day but, due to concerns over fuel, we happily bobbed along slowly not wanting to motor.  Then we were subjected to howling winds where we were eventually forced to slow down in order to avoid arriving during the nighttime hours.  We looked quite comical sporting nothing other than the tiniest handkerchief of genoa and still moving along fairly rapidly.

The day of our arrival also happened to be a very special day aboard Calypso.  It was Paul’s 70^th birthday: yipes but I cannot believe I’m married to a seventy year old!  By the time we’d finished with all the immigration, customs and quarantine officials, we were simply too tired to consider going out on the town to celebrate so chose, rather, to get a good night’s sleep and make up for it the following day.

A group of ten of us did just that the next day when we had an excellent meal at a local restaurant.  The food was really good and very very reasonable after so many months of the heavy prices of New Zealand.

The Old Folks

Fiji has a huge Indian population, about half, so the food is heavily influenced towards curries which we absolutely love.  There also seems to be a small number of Chinese inhabitants which also influences the local cuisine.  Our budget doesn’t usually allow us too many occasions to eat out but we can certainly try a couple of times here.

Today is another very special day in my family as my dear mother back in Canada has turned 90.  I managed a very dismal phone call to her as we had a poor connection but at least I could send her our wishes and hear her voice.

The Dubiously 'safe' Ferris Wheel

At the moment, there's a local carnival taking place so we went off to investigate.  Lots of people, lots of music and noise (of the Indian variety), lots of interesting foodstuffs to savour and fun rides for the kids on extremely rickety contraptions.  All very backwoods by "Big Fair" standards, but good fun all the same.  The locals are loving it.

 

It’s early days here yet but we’ve seen that there’s a good local market and all the usual shops one would expect to find in an Indian influenced society.  The people appear to be incredibly friendly and hospitable as seems the case throughout most of the South Pacific.  Hard to believe that its early reputation was that of fierce cannibals, earning the group the name of the Cannibal Islands.

We’ll need to stay here for a short while in an attempt to sort out the usual maintenance issues.  Our water maker fan belt, the pressure pump and the release valve on the hot water cylinder, all gave up the ghost at the same time and Paul is tearing his hair out trying to find a suitable belt.  Of course, it has to be something so unusual that even a contact back in New Zealand has been unable to locate one just yet.  Hopefully something can be done so that we can get out to explore some of the outlying islands of which we’ve heard so much.

PHOTO GALLERY:

With Alison & Derek, Kalida

At  The Village Fair

Being a couple of kids for the fun of it!

Another SA Rugby  Supporter

Minerva in Colour

Taken from atop the mast

  
No photos can really do justice to Minerva.  Only on a satellite photo can you truly get an idea of how beautiful it is; a ring of reef that is barely emerging during low tide and totally hidden at high.

The two little dots on either side are Bronte & Helmke windsurfing

Glorious sunsets

Bronte and "THAT FISH"

At very low tide

Beautiful colours of a clam

Nada!  Not a single lobster

Bob, the boobie

Bob landed exhausted upon Cooee one morning.  He had obviously been flying for ever and finally found something solid to rest upon.  Sadly, after waddling around on very unsteady legs for a couple of days, he went to meet his big feathered maker in the sky despite efforts to feed and strengthen him.  Too tragic but he was so cute while around.

Bronte and Helmke

H's Amazing Sushi!

Nobody outside of the Japanese can do it so well.  H's sushi has always been more than just excellent and we should be following them just to get our regular sushi "fix".

Twins (yeah right!) in skirts

What a gift, thank you so much H.  She presented me with an amazing skirt, just like the one I'd always admired on her.  She has a much sexier figure but I just LOVE it and will wear it to death.

Farewell Cooee

As they head off north towards Tonga, we'll be on our way to Fiji further west.  One of the really great things about this cruising lifestyle is, everything is cast in jelly.  We may just change our minds and follow them northwards.

Picnic on "the beach"

 We were later  joined by a German couple and a Dutch boat so made the most of our tiny "beach" by having a few picnics and a few games of French boules.

The only bit of land (for a few minutes) for miles

Kerstin with goodies

Farewell, moving on

Our time here at Minerva has drawn to an end as we head off to Fiji. Unhappily, we have said a very sad farewell to Cooee. Their route will take them first to Tonga and then on to Wallis and Tuvalu further north. We've met up with them so regularly over the past years and hate to think that this could well be the last time. Sniff. Having despondently left Vagabond behind in New Zealand after a year and a half of shuffling across the Pacific with them, we'll be feeling rather lonely on this next leg. God how we're going to miss all of them with their camaraderie and much needed and appreciated help. Otto and Lilian are planning to stay on permanently in New Zealand - we wish them everything of the best as they settle into their new life as landlubbers again. They're going to love it there. Bronte and Helmke are on an 18-month journey that will eventually return them to New Zealand next year but our timing is just not in sync at this stage.

We haven't done all that much here, just relaxed and had many meals together - fish, fish and more fish - Helmke's fabulous sushi being the best treat. But, my how Cooee has set a new record in our eyes! On board Cooee, we moved closer to the pass so that the guys could do a bit of spear-fishing there. Helmke and I stayed on board to catch up with trading books and movies.

They hadn't been gone all that long when we heard them returning. Something must have gone wrong: quite the opposite. Lying In the dinghy was the most humungous sailfish literally flopping over the sides. We couldn't believe our eyes. They'd apparently just got into the water when Bronte spied this monster, shot it and then proceeded to try to haul it in calling for Paul to bring the dinghy in closer. However, this fish wasn't going to go quietly. As it went for an attack, he grabbed hold of the sword just in time to divert it away from his body, then got a lucky miss when it went for him again nicking his wetsuit, eventually managing to wrap his legs around it to stop the assault. Scary stuff.

Once the photo session was over (a very proud and grinning Bronte & his fish) the weigh-in was next. 42 kilograms and much taller than Bronte who is 6'3"! This was something he'd been dreaming of for a very long time. Hopefully, he's now got it out of his system as he came a tad too close to some serious injuries.

Happily, Paul is more into the 10 to 15 kilogram fish variety. What the hell does one do with 42 kilos of fish? Fried, grilled, pate, dip, sushi, sashimi, pickled, fish cakes and so on??. Needless to say, our freezer is chock-a-block full so there should be an hiatus on fishing for a while but knowing the guys, that's not going to happen.

 

Later on, we moved over to the southeast corner in the hopes of doing some snorkelling but, at first, the weather just wouldn't play ball. However, two perfect days followed so the guys went outside the reef again and actually swam with a couple of humpbacked whales. Damn, I missed that one. H and I walked along the reef at low tide which is quite an amazing experience when you realise that you're standing in absolutely the middle of nowhere in the great South Pacific Ocean! While snorkelling, we saw two of the largest crayfish we've ever set eyes on which would probably be like eating shoe leather had we been able to grab them.

Another yacht arrived with four guys who were really into their fishing and after a day's outing, came back with one and a half huge Wahoo (the sharks got the other half) as well as a yellow-fin tuna. It sounded as though the fish were literally flying out of the water around them with sharks everywhere. Sort of wish I'd gone along to see this. Anyway, Helmke's amazing sushi again that night - can't get enough of it.

We then endured two day of winds reaching almost 50 knots; the sublime to the ridiculous.

Cooee finally sailed off to Tonga in calm-ish seas yesterday morning and we followed that afternoon by which time the winds were up and the seas pounding. Halfway through the channel out from the reef, we realised that we were going to be punching into enormous waves against head-on winds so did a U-turn and re-anchored. No point getting thrashed around when we can just sit in these beautiful surroundings a bit longer. So, for now, here we will remain waiting for more pleasant conditions.