Farewell Fiji

Current position: 26º 34'188 S

176º  01' 030 E

Vanaka and Moce (pronounced mō thé) Fiji

Thank you and farewell Fiji

It is well into the cyclone season and we are amongst the tail-end Charlies tempting the weather gods here in Fiji. Time to move on but it's hard to leave such a wonderful place and harder still to head towards the cooler climes of New Zealand. If last year is anything to go by, make that damned chilly climes.

As we bid farewell, we sneaked in a few extra days by hiding out in the southern group of islands known as Kadavu. A truly beautiful and untouched region that, seemingly, very few yachts visit. This is primarily because there is no port of entry down there forcing boats to travel up to Suva in order to check in first. It is then quite a trip to return to Kadavu so most would carry on visiting the islands east and west of Suva. It is also illegal to stop off anywhere once one has checked out so we pretended to be invisible and prepared for our long trip southwards in gorgeous surroundings, hoping to remain unnoticed.

We had planned to meet up there with our friends aboard Auspice who we'd last seen up in Savusavu but, after making the mistake of going too far west, we realised the battle it would be to get back eastwards. Regardless, we decided to give it a go after checking out of Lautoka on the west side of Viti Levu. One last week in idyllic surroundings was too tempting. Besides, Jim had given Paul the recipe for rice wine which he's been cultivating for the last month and we just had to get together to compare notes and tastes.

Prior to leaving Viti Levu, we stopped off at the tourist area of Musket Cove which is, indeed, very pretty but it reinforced our decision of spending most of our time in the remote islands to the east of Vanua Levu. A couple of nights at Denarau also stood to doubly enhance these thoughts as it was just like parking off the V & A Waterfront in Cape Town - nothing remotely Fijian about it at all. We were glad we had a glimpse of the 'other' Fiji for comparison purposes, confirming our desire not to return there but rather to stick to those places few tourists ever get to see. We did, however, visit an incredibly beautiful Hindu temple in Nadi, Fiji's second largest city, which was certainly worth the rickety bus trip in.

 Our first night out attempting to punch into heavy seas and head winds to get eastwards proved to be a bit of a disaster. For the first time ever, I got really seasick and was lying in bed bemoaning my lot in life when an almighty crash came from the companionway. Paul had fallen and hit his head. He was conscious but needed to stay still and a cursory inspection showed a little blood so I gave him a wet towel to hold there but half an hour later, he complained of a lot of 'jelly' around him. Another check found him surrounded in so much blood I didn't think it possible for him to still be alive! I know head wounds bleed but this was just too too much.

I patched him up as much as our first aid kit and conditions would allow with more towels around him and he lay the entire night without moving for fear of passing out. In all of this, we realised that we couldn't keep sailing in those conditions so he talked me through the procedure to heave to in order to sit out the night.

All's well that ends well. In the morning he was remarkably fine. I redid the dressings but couldn't really examine it in such boisterous seas. In hindsight, he should have had stitches but conditions simply didn't allow for such procedures, so we pressed on eastwards in choppy swells and waves arriving in Kadavu's protected atolls two and a half days later.

Here we happily met up with Auspice again, with Kim and Jim arriving at our boat that evening with heads wrapped in bandages as a show of solidarity. I used a lot of the time to make up pots of stew and chilli con carne to freeze so that I didn't have to worry about cooking the first few nights en route to New Zealand should they prove to be too uncomfortable. I'd also 'found' a mango tree while in Musket Cove so got busy bottling mango chutney that we love so much.

As I write this, we are almost half way along our journey and the trip, so far, has been some of the best sailing we've experienced. Long may it last as this journey is notorious for its violent conditions. Maybe Neptune is sparing us this time - we've certainly had our fair share of the nasties. It's times like this past experience when we have to say "Remind us why we're doing this!" and then the reminder comes in days like today.

PHOTO GALLERY:

Musket  Cove Resort

Inside the Temple

Market in Lautoka

All those wonderful curry spices

Relaxing Before the Long Haul South