Viani Bay and Rabi Island

Apologies all around, I just re-read my last blog and the spelling and grammar could have been proof read a lot better. Hope you got the drift anyway.

Sooo, we met some boaters on our last night in Savusavu, three couples from New Zealand. Sat with them in the yacht club for a beer before dinner. They have traveled in Fiji for many seasons and provided us with a wealth of information regarding what to do and where to go. Sometimes it is interesting finding out what fellow boaters did for work in their "old life". We've come across many people who have been in the computer business - in one form or another, a financier, a dentist, a freighter captain, construction company owners (we fit in here), a pilot for Swiss Air (he was also an Italian Duke!) and now we've met a past dairy farmer. It is very interesting to discover other cruiser's reasons for being on the blue ocean, discovering new places and people.

From Savusavu we make our way to Viani Bay on the east side of Vanua Levu. We prefer to call it Jack's Bay as Jack Fisher is an old timer here who is re-known for showing off the best dive sites in his Fiji. We spend 5 days here and dive every day, sometimes twice a day. The "white wall" is surreal dive site at a depth of 100 feet. We drop into the clear blue water and swim down through a tunnel in the reef that opens from a sheer rock wall into the deep blue of the wide open ocean. We are suspended in blue. To our left on the face of the deep ocean wall is the most amazing display of perfectly set snow white soft coral. The ocean current gently nudges us along the wall so we can marvel at the breathtaking beauty of it all and then the current deposits us on top of the reef again where the multitudes of colorful fishes and other stunningly beautiful corals are found. This is a rather rough description of a fabulous dive experience. The diving here in Jack's Bay tops everything. I won't bore everyone with details, just let it be known that this spot is World Class Diving. On one of our evenings here, Jack's family puts on a dinner for all of the boats in the bay (oooh another social event) and we met several new groups of people. The dinner was a delicious mixture of Indian and Fijian foods with the best tortillas I have ever tasted - even better than Mexico.

Our next place of discovery is Albert Cove on Rabi Island, which is to the east of Vanua Levu. Rabi Island was purchased for the people of Ocean Island in 1945. They are from Banaba and are of Micronesian descent. So not really Fijians, though they are now citizens of Fiji. Very nice people. The families of the cove were happy to talk to us and arranged to get us some bananas and green coconuts. We keep asking the fishermen for lobster, but as yet none have had any luck finding some for us. We have seen the lobsters on our dives, but we keep their locations secret (we would really rather look at them underwater than eat them). Once again, the winds and weather are going to invade our beautiful anchorage so after only one night we have to move to a different bay on the island. But this is not a problem, as it is a new village and group of people for us to meet. There is a large Methodist church perched on the hill of the village, overlooking the bay. We visit this building during our walk on shore. A cyclone in April 2010 really did a lot of damage to it, but the villagers are slowly putting it back together. While we are walking, an engaging young woman invited us to a fund raiser for the church that they were putting on that evening. The ladies of the church do this - a traditional dance show with coconut refreshments (right out of the shell) - when ever they get a collection of boats in their bay. Today, there are five boats. What fun, they really put a lot of energy into the dancing.

Weather, weather, weather! We have to move again. The weather has been sunny and very warm, so no complaints there, it is just the wind that keeps switching around which makes certain anchorages not so comfortable to be in. We will head back to Jack's Bay. If we have to be stuck someplace, we may as well be stuck with awesome diving.

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Makogai to Savusavu

Well I guess we have to work sometimes on the boat, so on the morning of our next day at Makogai Glen and I dive the underside of the boat to clean things up a bit and replace zincs (so the salt water doesn't eat our propellers and such). In the afternoon, Cameli has told us that it is a very nice walk from the bay where we are anchored to the village on the other side of the island. He made it sound like a short easy walk. So we head off with our bag full of candies for the children and some scribblers and pencils for the local school, taking a leisurley pace. We walked and walked, spotting ruins in the forest from the days of the leper colony. People from many of the south pacific islands were sent here and they were all housed in segregation from any other countries people. Finally we almost decided that we should turn back as the sun goes down at 5:30 and we don't want to be hiking in the bush in the dark. Only a little way further, we finally break onto the beach on the other side and visit the school teacher and hand candies to all of the children. Glen feels like Santa. They are all so nice and friendly. Our walk back, done at a much brisker pace gets us back to the boat before dark. we'd still be wandering amlessly about otherwise. It is time to say goodbye to Cameli as there is weather coming in the next few days and we want to be in Savusavu before it comes. Such is the never ending story of living on the water - always watching the weather.

The trip to Savusavu is easy - only 6 hours at sea and the water is pretty calm. It is a lovely sunny day - these seems few and far between here. Everybody says this is unusual for this time of year, it should be sunny and dry, not overcast and rainy. well at least it is gloriously warm. Savusavu is a small town on a large bay at the south east corner of Vanua Levu, the second largest island of Fiji's group. It is kind of an ex-pat place so there are lots of restaurants and a few little bars and good provisioning. The marina has mooring balls to tie too and we are enjoying being only a two second dingy ride from the dock. dinner out the last few nights to break the monotony of my own cooking which we will be having to endure for the better part of the next month as we head out into less populated areas. Excellent Indian food here! We're finding the social scene a little quieter this season compared to last. All of the boats that we befriended seem to be making the reverse trip around Fiji to what we are and the boats we've been meeting..... wait, there haven't been any other boats yet. Crazy, but cruising boats are pretty rare in these areas that we are in. Hence another reason we are liking our visit to Savusavu. We did a car trip around the island today, up to the only other major town - Labasa - it is a busy place and no (and I mean NO) tourists. It is the sugar cane hub of commerce. We did a hike in the forest preserve and marveled at all the different types of vegetation. We discovered some very interesting fresh water shrimp/crayfish in a waterfall stream. And finally we checked out some of the exclusive resorts in the area. Jean Michelle Cousteau has a resort here - diving is the draw - nice place. Our boat still suits us fine though.

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Suva to Makogai

We said good bye to Cassie in Suva. The ninety mile run back to Nadi by boat just wasn't appealing (for any of us). Options were, rent a car (What! Are your crazy? says Romina the Royal Suva Yacht Club assistant manager)- the roads and drivers make that a NO!, hire a taxi from Suva to Nadi - too expensive, take a coach - very good alternative - you can see lots of country side and don't have to do the driving - but the schedule was too close to her flight time to allow for any hiccups, so she caught a flight from Suva to Nadi and we were all happy. She has confirmed her safe arrival to Calgary. I think she had a good time. She got to see Fiji by land and sea, drink kava with the Fijians, eat some great Indian food (Mom's cooking was still the best - that's me!), do some fantastic diving and she even got a few days of sun. It was great to have her here.

Suva is a very un-glamorous port city. The yacht club is very welcoming and a nice "normal" place to hang out for a few days. We did find some awesome Indian restaurants and ate out as much as we could (Mystery Ship cook took a holiday!). We stocked up on our fresh produce at the extensive open market and picked up some "give away gifts" for when we visit more villages from the multitudes of discount "knock-off" stores.

After an 8 hour cruise from Suva to the north east, we arrived at a lovely little island/reef called Makogai ("Makonguy"). We wove our way through the rocks of the reef and anchored off the small village on the west side. This was once the site of a leper colony - upwards of 5000 people, now they have an aqua-culture station for giant clams - very impressive. The "headman" Cameli, is charming and informative and was very happy to explain in English the blessing over the "sevusevu" (a gift of Kava roots from visitors to the village) and the "whys" of some of the village etiquette expected of visitors - skirts for men and women, no sunglasses or hats, no bags or gear slung over your shoulder - funny stuff like that but when explained make sense. The whole deal is much like taking a bottle of wine with you when you go to somebody's house for dinner. Just manners. He told us where we might find some good diving on the reef too. So once we were done with our formalities, off we went to dive and I must say - This the most fantastic diving we have done to date on our travels. I think I've said that before, but this is it, right here. There was so much underwater life - corals/fishes - that your head can't turn fast enough to take it all in. we dove twice in one day and if we get more days here, we'll go again and again. This is why we travel!

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So how IS Fiji???

Our trip to the outside of the reef for Robinson Crusoe Resort was smooth. The resort was a fun little anchorage with a rustic bar and outdoor restaurant. We arrived to see the guests in the middle of coconut jewelry making - kind of fun. The sun was dazzling. We had a hitch hiker from Musket Cove - a sea snake - quite poisonous. He was all curled up in the leg of the whaler's engine.  It certainly surprised Abbie when she noticed it. A brave young Fijian rescued us by taking the snake away. We have a funny picture to prove it all! Dinner was an "order in advance" affair and served in Family style which was interesting as we met all of the resort guests.

 

Kadavu  Group was an 8 hour cruise in slightly turbulent water - at least Cassie thought so - she ate our whole box of saltines. We parked up in Tavuki Bay. One custom that we are having a bit of difficulty with is that of "Sevu Sevu" .  This is where you go ashore to the closest village and offer a gift of Kava roots and ask permission to anchor in their water, dive, swim, walk on their beaches and maybe visit their village. Which is a rather polite thing to do, But… somehow they manage to make it a time consuming effort by having to find the Head Man of the village, then rounding up some of the Elders and the Chief, then they want you to sit around and join them for a bowl of  Kava. It definitely must be an "acquired" taste. We are so used to conducting business in a timely and efficient manner that we really have a tough time accepting that "Time" has no value for some places of the world.  Now if this was something that you did once or twice in your visit to the islands, it would come off as being a very quaint traditional practice. But every anchorage you go into, there is a village and you must do Sevu Sevu each time you come to a new village….. All we want to do is dive. Now! Do you think this will teach us patience? We only have about 20 more anchorages to do in the next few months. That's a lot of Kava drinking!!!

 

We moved on to Ono Island after three days at Tavuki and we met Ase when we went in to do our sevu sevu. He is a nice young man and offered to take us out to the reef for diving and for a day of hiking on his island. So we take him up on it. He introduced us to many of his village people and people in the adjoining village, took us on a beautiful 2 hour (one way) hike through the island fields. His wife made us tapioca squares and lemon leaf tea - quite a treat. His cousin Seewah showed us the best dive site we have found to date in our travels, we dove it several times. We gave candies to the village children and scribblers and pencils to the local school, traded a gallon of gasoline for four green coconuts and gave another gallon away for free to a fellow giving the village children a ride to their boarding school and we gave Ase's cousin a ride to Suva (6 hour boat ride) so he could attend his brother's funeral. We are involving ourselves.

 

The weather has been pretty awful - when you consider that it is supposed to be hot, sunny and calm this time of year. It has been cool, rainy and windy - quite the contrast.

Cassie will go home with out too much extra color on her tan and not much sleep as the boat does all kinds moving around in the waves and wind at night. But we have done some awesome diving and we have seen some "inside" views of Fiji with her, so all is good.