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