Tahina « Aboard Dignity (Lagoon 420) Blog

Back to Savusavu

by KC2RIY, on June 2nd, 2011 (Fiji, Tahina)

Wednesday was the day to pick up our friends Judy and Colin from Savusavu. About 8am we took the dinghy ashore to the creek where we first went ashore here. We found an alternate path to the road which was a little easier than the first we found and walked into the village of Bagasau to await the 9am bus. Not having a watch on us we don’t know if the bus was late but we waited awhile. However, without precise awareness of the time of day, time passes differently it seems and it was nice just to hang out and just wait for the bus. A few locals passed by and chatted. One lady offered us tea. We declined with thanks as we were waiting for the bus. Turned out we would have had time but we didn’t know. Another chap had a fish and some plants, the latter his mother had sent him to collect to help make medicine for his young child.

The bus eventually came. It was a fine air conditioned affair. Air conditioned in terms of it having no windows. Fine being a bit of an exaggeration. The road was more of a dirt track with potholes. The driver seemed to know all of them and avoided them deftly. The going was slow at best and descended to a crawl when climbing hills. At one point we stopped for 5-10 minutes where locals were selling food. Helen and I shared a warm potato roti.

It took two hours to get to Savusavu by the bus but we loved it as it gave us a chance to take in the local scenery. The majority of the journey was through very wild bush which gradually became more cultivated as we approached town. Towards the end we passed a number of small resorts no doubt accessed via the airport in Savusavu.

Judy and Colin had already arrived by the time we made it to the Copra Shed Marina where we’d agreed to meet. They’d had an uneventful journey over. We walked the high street and back before sitting down for lunch joined by Mike, Anne and their daughter from Callisto. After lunch we went shopping for fresh provisions. At the market we just about met everyone we knew still in Savusavu.

Back at the marina Judy and Colin sorted out their flight from Taveuni a week from now. I checked at the office and our Lau group permit had arrived. I had to pay for it and extend our coastal permit from customs. I ran down to the other end of the high street to the appropriate bank. As luck would have it one of the customs ladies (the one who originally cleared us in) was there and agreed to sort us out there and then. I paid in the permit fees and requested a copy which I gave to the customs lady. She agreed to add this to our permit and extend our time out. Now we are set to explore the Lau Group for 2-3 weeks. This works well as they are off to the east of us and we are heading that way right now. Being up wind it’s nice to avoid repeating the hard leg of the trip east.

By the time I returned our taxi to Bagasau had arrived. They tried to up the pre-agreed charge on me but I held my ground. Helen and I popped round the corner to a doctor to pick up some eye drops before returning to pick up Judy and Colin who now had their reservation.

All was set for our return trip to Bagasau. The trip back was quicker but not without event. At one point where there were roadworks and the road essentially mud, a truck had got stuck in the main mud of the road. The bus in front of us tried to go around it and also got stuck. The workers had to use a cable attached to a digger to haul the bus out and then the truck. Our taxi driver made it through the mud. Only just, it seemed. It all seemed quite normal though.

When we were eventually dropped off by our hole in the hedge which would lead to the dinghy the taxi driver got stuck turning the vehicle around. Judy, Colin and I helped by giving him a push. Unfortunately Judy got sprayed with mud. At that time we were joined by Wayne, one of the younger Pickerings returning from school. He thought it was hilarious, as it was if you can see the funny side.

Wayne joined us as we made our way over the barbed wire and through the wet grass to the dinghy chatting to Helen as we went. When we reached the dinghy we gave him some bread we’d picked up from town to take up to Sandra and Arthur. We managed to pile all of us and all the luggage into the dinghy and made our way back to the boat. The timing was good as the water was only just deep enough to get out. Any earlier and we may have had to wait.

On the boat Judy changed and we soon settled down to G&Ts and a relaxing evening with BBQ chicken for dinner. We were all tired well before cruisers midnight (9pm) and crashed for a good nights sleep.

Today we’ll go ashore one more time. We have a few extra things for Arthur and Sandra and we’ll take Judy and Colin to the hot pool. The Tahina’s are likely to come too. We’ll stay here for one more evening before moving somewhere further east.

Hot Spring

by KC2RIY, on June 1st, 2011 (Fiji, Gerimar, Tahina)

This time we went ashore in the kayak which, later, turned out to be a very good thing. We paddled our way into the cutting through the mangrove and tied the kayak to the mangroves where the water was shallow. We then waded through the mud to the dirt track that led out of the place. With all the recent rains I found myself sinking in from time to time resulting in very muddy feet.

We made our way back to Arthur and Sandra’s place where we were able to wash ourselves. We were invited in for tea again which we welcomed. We chatted for a while. Albert mentioned they may be going fishing that evening and I asked if could go along. That was ok. They asked if I had any small fish to use as bait. This was a good excuse to get my spear gun out so I offered to bag a few in the afternoon.

Next Arthur took us for a walk down through their land then up to some properties they look after for others which had some excellent views over the harbour. From there we walked back to their house then onto the hot springs some distance away at the other end of their land. This involved a 20 minute rock hopping walk up a river. The hot springs were a natural up welling of constantly bath water hot water coming out of the ground. Rocks had been placed to form a couple of pools which then emptied into the cold river. It was nice alternating from one to the other. When the hot pool overcame us we sat in the river which at first gave us a cold shock but was soon very refreshing. When the chill from the river set in the hot pool warmed us up nicely. Arthur left us here so we had the place to ourselves. We merged with nature. We finished off in the cold river which kept us deliciously cool for the return trip down the river.

We made our way back to Dignity to have a brief lunch and relax. We discover the tide was right out and had to lug the kayak out of the mangroves over the mud. Had we brought the dinghy in this would have been very hard work. By the time we were back on the boat we were quite exhausted.

I roused myself mid-afternoon to go and catch the fish I’d promised. I could have been quite happy to do nothing at that point but I felt I should follow through. The patch I chose was a little murky and the fish more than a little skittish. They all seemed to have an innate understanding of what a spear gun looked like and did. I eventually bagged one fish. I tried using that as bait to bring others in but that didn’t work. I stuck this small fish on the end of the gun to disguise it. That sort of worked allowing me to shoot two really small fish. With these three embarrassingly small trophies I headed home. While in the water Garimar had arrived in the anchorage and Tahina was on their way in. By the time I was showered and in my hammock to relax, Tahina passed our stern and we waved our greetings.

Later I popped over to Tahina to share what we learned about the shore access and what we’d done. While I was there I saw Arthur coming out on their fishing boat so I rushed back and collected my hand line, hooks and bait. In the boat with him was his niece Mona (who we’d briefly met earlier) and Laura from the next village. We ended up out on the reef handlining for fish for about two and half hours. We chatted at times and often cajoled the fish to take our bait. Mona caught two fish and Laura one which was small and used for more bait. Arthur and I had no luck. Laura spent about 10 minutes with a large fish on her line which she eventually lost. They blamed our poor luck on the weather which wasn’t good. We were drenched with rain on a couple of occasions and lightening flashed in the mountains from time to time. For some reason the fish don’t feed when it’s raining. Perhaps they don’t want to get wet.

This morning we’re taking the bus into Savusavu to meet our friends from Napier in NZ and bring them back to the boat this afternoon. They have no idea how they’re going to have to get to the boat. We think we’ll leave the dinghy where we first landed by the river and find a way through the nearby property. If that fails we’ll cross the same barbed wire fence that we did on our first day here.

Bazaar

by steve, on May 27th, 2011 (Dreamtime, Fiji, Kilkea II, Stray Kitty, Tahina)

After a bit of a lie in my first chore was to top up the starboard diesel tank. I emptied three jerry cans in then dinghied off to fill five leaving them on the deck to complete the fill later in the day. We’d heard from the Kilkeas that there was a bazaar in town with local dancing. We could see something had been set up ashore from the boat so we headed off to town with the Kilkeas to see what was up.

It turned out there was a fund raiser for a women’s community hall. Arts and crafts from villages around the island were on display and for sale. We were considered invited guests and given a shaded place to sit together. Frank from Tahina showed up as did the Dreamtimes and Stray Kitties. After some speeches we were taken to see the local craft work before sitting down again for a hot drink, cakes and to watch the dancing.

As we’ve crossed the Pacific the dancing has always very interesting, in particular how it has changed from region to region. Invariably the dancing is performed by young ladies and men. The male dancing is always warlike and the female dancing expressive and alluring. East of Tonga the dancing always involved a lot of vigourous bottom wiggling. In Tonga and NZ the female dancing was less vigorous and more nuanced. Today we were treated to toothless old ladies dancing randomly on their feet and a little more organized sitting down on a mat. However, they were hilarious at times making gestures that made the local crowd roar with infectious laughter and us in turn. The troup of senior citizens danced through intermittent rain and ended up inviting a few of us to dance with them.

Then the heavens opened big time turning the field into a pond. We sat through the deluge under our shelter. Once the skies cleared we went to the market to pick up some curios and some kava for future sevusevu ceremonies before heading back to the boat.

We relaxed for much of the afternoon. I spent a little while researching alternate advertising possibilities for the website and have kicked off a couple of new applications. For my regular readers here is my request. If you see ads reappear on the site, please only click on them if you have genuine interest in the product or service being advertised. The ad services are ultra sensitive to behaviors that may be construed as attempts to generate false revenue so clicking on ads to give us beer money will ultimately have the opposite effect. The good news is I’ve learned a little more about all this which can only be a good thing. Later in the afternoon I emptied another couple of gerry cans into the main tank before refilling those two and storing all the filled containers away.

In the evening we joined the Tahinas aboard Stray Kitty for grilled Mahi Mahi which they’d caught on the way in. We ended up staying quite late.

We’re beginning to feel very much partied out and are looking forward to taking a break from Savusavu. We’re looking at a Sunday departure so we’ll sort out our coastal clearance today.

Crew Departure

by KC2RIY, on May 25th, 2011 (Boree, Fiji, Kilkea II, Passages, Tahina)

It turned out Tuesday was to be Paul’s last day aboard. I’d promised him a ride up the mast and as I wanted to inspect my rigging and to untangle our shredded NZ courtesy flag we had an opportunity to kill a couple of proverbial birds. While I was up the mast I took a few pics of the area and Paul did the same. Soon, we’ll be posting pics again and we’ll include a few.

Next, Paul and I went ashore to do our various chores. I took an empty propane tank via Taxi to the Fiji Gas station out of town. It took a while for them to figure out how to fill our tank as their primary delivery device couldn’t fit past the plastic handles on our can. However, a means to cross fill from one of their other tanks and we were sorted. I took details of the taxi driver as we have a soon to be needed ride from Fawn Harbour to the east of us back into town.

Meeting up again with Paul we officially disembarked him from the boat and I paid our customs overtime fees. Paul was now officially, though not yet physically off the boat. Paul had sorted out his PADI course and had his books and DVDs to study. We went back to the boat to relax. At least Helen and I did. Paul got busy packing, cleaning his room then studying.

Just before 1pm I received a call from Albert from the Courts store in town who had a tech guy coming. He asked me to be at the Copra Shed in 10 minutes to sort out our internet connection as the tech guy was in town. I quickly packed my laptop and bit n pieces and was off. In the bar I met the Kilkeas who were also waiting for him. It turns out Albert had brought the tech guy over on his day off. Can’t imagine that ever happening at home. We soon had our USB stick working on the internet via the telecoms service. The main problem is that right now the data service is only GPRS which is incredibly slow. In a months time it should go 3G and we’ll see an immediate improvement. It’s incredibly painful using the internet at these speeds and everything takes time. But we’re rich in time right now so that’s less of an issue.

After testing the service by downloading my emails and a quick scan of the news (end of the world postponed and all that) I bought a chip off the guy there and then with the promise to do the official registration paperwork at the store today.

It was now time to take Paul ashore. I returned to the boat and dropped off my gear. Back ashore we walked with Paul to his hotel on the side of the hill as we wanted to explore a nearby path. From the hotel public balcony over the bay we had a great view of the anchorage. At this point Helen spotted something awry. Tahina was adrift and heading out of the channel. We could see folks going to the rescue. I was prepared to run down the hill and join in but it looked like I’d be too late to make a difference so instead I tried to contact Frank to let him know of the problem. It turns out he was in town trying to sort out his phone and had the chip out or something so he couldn’t be contacted. All was well in the end but apparently it was a close shave with a near miss on the reef. It was a fine example of the cruising community in action. We took some pictures from our vantage point which we’ll give to Frank and Karen later today.

After saying goodbye to Paul we set off to find the alleged path up to a viewpoint. We succeeded in wading through lots of long grass but didn’t get anywhere in particular so headed back into town.

Heading back to Dignity we ended up on Kilkea instead and were plied with G&Ts. By now the news of Tahina was spreading and was much the topic of discussion. We understood that the Borees were very much involved with the rescue. John and Pam from Passages soon joined us but eventually we had to tear ourselves away as we needed to shower then go ashore to eat.

Our plan for the evening was to eat at a nearby Chinese on our own. The Borees soon turned up with the same idea and we shared the table with them. The food turned out to be mediocre and the service lousy but the company great. Bert and Ingi persuaded us to come back to their boat for a while. We did not get back till very late.

Back on the boat we were tired but I could not resist catching up on some of our emails. We’d received a great message from Ben about his new job and wanted to reply to that. I’d also learned that our google ads account had been suspended due to inappropriate clicking. No details were provided and seeing as this happened on the day we arrived in Fiji it couldn’t have been anything we did as we were not connected. I filed an appeal.

In the mountain of email was some other rubbish crashing into our world which I need to sort out. It’ll get done but it was nice to be ignorant of all this for a while.

When we first arrived we were told by a few friends of a local salon who did a terrific massage for a very low cost. We’re both booked in on this for this morning. Looking forward to that.

Feet on the ground

by KC2RIY, on May 24th, 2011 (Boree, El Regalo, Fiji, Gerimar, Jackster, Kilkea II, Tahina)

First full day on land after a hefty passage is always a nice experience and Monday was no exception. Shortly after breakfast I dinghied over to the Jacksters who had arrived the evening before to say hello and give them the low down on greeting the officials. Once back on the boat, we gathered our things and we all dinghied ashore. Paul headed off to do his own thing and sort out his next steps.

Helen and I went to the Copra Shed office to announce ourselves and order our Fiji cruising permit. We then made our way down the high street (the only one of consequence) to explore Savusavu and find the various places we had to pay our bills. Helen, as usual, visited most of the Supermarkets to case out what foods are available and the prices. Most items are available at a very good price so once we’ve depleted our vast New Zealand stores we know we have plenty here.

We bought a SIM card for our phone so now we can make local calls. My phone is discharging it’s battery rather quickly so I may have to do something about that but for now it will do. Sorting out an internet connection became somewhat more awkward. The Fiji Vodafone website claims they have 3G services in a lot of places and 2G for a lot of the rest but this is not the case in Savusavu. I can’t use my phone to bridge data services and need a data card for the USB stick given to us in New Zealand. However, the store that sells the data cards wasn’t sure if the stick would work and asked us to wait for their tech guy who will be here Tuesday or Wednesday. No rush on getting connected is ok.

We bumped into Frank on Tahina who was also on similar errands to us and we walked together to the hospital to pay for the health inspection. We parted company with Frank when we reached town as we had different ideas about where to eat. Helen and I ended up eating at a restaurant quite close to the Copra Shed which served an excellent chicken curry. During lunch the heavens opened. May is usually the onset of the dry season and that hasn’t happened yet.

After lunch we explored the high street in the opposite direction before returning to the boat for the afternoon. Not long after, Paul was dropped off at the boat by John and Pam from Passages and we invited them aboard for a beer and a chat. Paul has now worked out his plans for the rest of his stay in Fiji. He’ll be leaving us on Wednesday to start a very well priced Scuba Certification course here in Savusavu before heading to the mainland on the Sunday night ferry. He’s going to sort out his flight today and once those details are ironed out we can officially disembark him from the boat.

Later in the afternoon I went back ashore with Paul to drop off some laundry. The services here are very cheap and we have many loads to do so we’re splitting the effort. It turned out our cruising permit was already prepared (we had been told it could take days) so I collected that and set about obtaining a permit to visit the Lau group to the east. As we were heading back to the dinghy I bumped into Bert from Boree who was not looking overly happy. He mentioned he was having trouble connecting his PC to his TV again (I’ve already helped him out once before with this) and I said I’d be happy to help out again. The real reason for his discontent is he’d just been given an outrageous price for a ventilation fan for his engine room to replace the one that had failed in passage. I looked at the spec sheet he had in his hand and gave him the good news. Ages ago I’d erroneously ordered a wrong sized fan for a spare and had exactly the part he needed. What a coincidence. He dinghied over to our boat to check it out and it was just the right thing. We did a deal which was good for both of us then headed over to Boree to fix his TV. It took about 10 seconds to find the problem.

By the time I was back at the boat it was time to head back to the Copra Shed to hang out. Brian and Jodon from El Regalo were there having just arrived and soon more piled in. After a couple of beers we all headed to the restaurant over the road where Helen and I had eaten earlier. We ended up joining all the tables in one section of the restaurant. Apart from us, we had the True Companions, El Regalos, Tahinas, Garimas, Jacksters and Kilkeas at the table.

The evening turned out cool and dry. Did we just witness the start of the dry season?

We’ll be here in Savusavu for a few more days to sort things out and recuperate from our passage. We need to fill a propane tank and there’s our internet to sort out. We also need to disembark Paul. If we stay too long we’ll get fat, particularly if we keep on eating two meals per day. If the weather stays good we’ll probably hike to the top of a nearby hill where there is supposed to be a good look out.

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Hot Spring

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Feet on the ground