Aboard Dignity (Lagoon 420) Blog

Our plan had been to reach Namouta Island and rest here a couple of days before heading to Denarau. We’d heard it was a nice anchorage with good holding. As expected, there was little to no wind so we motored here from Mana. We arrived at low tide. The anchorage was indeed calm and we found a good spot to anchor in sand.

We had our lunch and then after a brief rest went snorkeling. The reef here wasn’t as alive as elsewhere but there were plenty of fish and we saw our first moray eel here in Fiji.

We whiled away the rest of the afternoon.

As we settled in for the evening the anchorage become more and more rolly. As we approached high tide (and that’s a spring tide following a recent full moon) the waves made it over the nearby reef protecting us from the ocean swell. The current from the pass turned us broadside to the wind and swell. For a few hours the boat was pretty bouncy.

It is much worse this morning. Enough so that we wont stay here. We’ll wait until things calm down and do a second wash (one done already this morning). We’ll try anchoring outside Denarau for the night. We’ve seen boats out there before. Perhaps they can tap into free internet from one of the hotels there. We’ll give it a go.

8am has now become our favourite departure time. As we travel south it’s just right in terms of improving visibility. So by 8am we were again off. This time we had about 14nm to travel. We managed to sail, albeit very slowly, most of the way to Waya but ended up motoring once we encountered the wind shadow from Waya and then the winds on the nose that curled around behind it. As we crossed the passage north of Waya we saw plenty of wildlife. We saw a school of tuna-like fish leaping out of the water, not just once, but frequently. We saw a frothing, gyrating patch of water which presumably was a ball of smaller fish being chased into ever decreasing circles by predators. To Helen’s delight she spotted a sea snake.

We also passed by Dreamtime who were heading north. We ended up chatting with Claudia on the radio for a while. Perhaps we’ll see them when we’re back in the Yasawas with our friends.

Along the way we were able to pick up a Vodafone signal and connect to the internet for a while. My photos of the mantas are now online and linked to our last blog entry. When we arrived and anchored off the village of Namara we had no signal.

The anchorage is quite pretty. Waya from all sides looks quite impressive being the tallest and most rugged of the Yasawas. At low tide a sandy bridge joins Waya to Wayasewa (little Waya) to the south and just south of the bridge is the village of Namara.

We ate lunch soon after arriving. Not long after, one of the village representatives, Jerry, and his sone Erimasi paddled over on an dilapidated ex-resort canoe using a paddle made of a stick and two tiny pieces of wood nailed onto the stick. We invited them aboard and gave them some biscuits and something to drink. We chatted for a while and in the conversation asked if there was a path up the hill behind the village. There was indeed one and it was agreed that Erimasi would take us up later in the day. We also talked about where I might be able to find and shoot some lobsters. Erimasi was keen to take me out for that too after dusk. They were keen to look around the boat so we gave them a tour.

By now it was later in the day so we all went ashore together. Helen and I took the kayak which easily outpaced the locals even though we weren’t trying to. Ashore we gave sevusevu to Jerry accompanied by a Frenchman, Jan, and his three children who’d also just arrived and given sevusevu to one of the others in the village. They’d heard about the hike up the hill and were in on it too. Before we left for the walk we chatted with Jerry’s wife who was from a village near Daliconi in Vanua Mbalavu. She knew some of the people we’d got to know while we were there even though it’s been 15 years since she left and has not been back.

Erimasi and his smaller brother took us up the hill. We needed their guidance as at times there were numerous paths leading off to patches of land where the locals grew food. We roughly followed a fertile patch in a cleft of an otherwise dry grassy hill. Once we left the shade of the trees and were in the grass the sun beat down on us making for a very sweaty climb. Our destination was not the summit but a rocky outcrop looking over the village and to Waya in the north. Great views.

After refreshing ourselves with the water we’d brought and taking some pictures we made our way back down to the village. The French kids had gotten down ahead of us and were showing the Eri and Ili card tricks in their home. Here we gave Eri and Ili a couple of flying propeller toys for a thank you for taking us up the hill which they were very pleased with.

Agreeing to pick up Eri at dusk for the lobstering, Helen and I paddled back to Dignity for a rest. We didn’t get much as shortly after Eri paddled over with an older girl from the village who was keen to see the boat. As it turned out they were on a mission from the village to ask for diesel. Up in Sawa-i-Lau we’d given the village a can of diesel as we knew they had none for their village and we were there for a few days and had gotten to know them. Here, being asked for some after just a few hours, seemed too much for us so we declined the request. Then we were asked for money to which we simply responded that we’d been in Fiji for over three months and this was the first time we’ve been asked for money. It’s a shame really. I recall a conversation we had with the plantation owner in Vanua Mbalavu, David, who said that in some villages the tenancy has been simply to get into asking for stuff rather than making an effort of providing services and trading. This began to feel a little more like the the former rather than the latter. We really believe people are better off when there is some form of honest work involved rather than simply living off and growing dependant on the charity of others. Perhaps, because so many more boats visit here than most of the other places we’ve been, this has become more of the norm here.

I ended up taking Eri ashore in the dinghy while Joanna paddled. The French had agreed to go out fishing with Jerry and his wife while I got another young worker on our dinghy called Bill. The others needed some bait and I had some spare. Bill was also a bit cold (perhaps part of a ruse …) so I went back to Dignity to get some bait for the others and an old tee-shirt for Bill. We dinghied round to the east side of Wayasewa over the sand bridge which was now covered. Everyone had said tonight would be a good night as the moon was nearly full. Eri and I got in the water and looked in earnest. I’d said that if I caught any fish I’d give them to the village. I managed to shoot a pretty large squid which promptly dumped it’s entire ink reserves to no avail. I later managed to spear a pretty decent sized grouper. There were other fish around but they were all pretty small.

As the night progressed lots of small shrimp came out. Their red eyes would shine in the torchlight. Eri gave up, after a while, having got too cold. I carried on being in the water for nearly 90 minutes. Regular blog readers will probably have an inkling by now as to how many lobsters I caught. All I can say is that it was sausages for dinner that night.

For a thank you, I gave the boys some glow sticks which I bought in Panama but have rarely used and another pack of biscuits. Bill got to keep the tee-shirt. I left them on the French boat with the two older daughters as the parents were just behind us and would go ashore all together.

Today we need to move on again. I’ve picked up a bit of a bug and am not feeling particularly brilliant. I need some rest but here is not the best place. Overnight we’ve not had the wind shift we wanted to sail south so we may end up motoring. As this goes out, our forecasts will come in and we’ll make our decisions as to where we’ll try and get to.

The weather forecasts were telling us that a front and a low pressure system were going to turn the winds round to the west followed by rain then who knew what. As the morning progressed the winds were already coming from the north. Although we were positioned well where we were we also needed to make our way south and these northerlies may have been our last chance to sail for as while. So after a short debate and another look at the weather we decided to pull the anchor and sail south to the village of Gunu where we had would have good all round protection but particularly from the west and south.

The winds stayed around 8-9 knots all the way down so it was quite slow going. We could not have sailed in these conditions with our old sails but the new ones kept us going at 3.5 to 4 knots. We could have gone faster by raising the code zero but we weren’t in a rush. By the time we arrived the wind was more westerly and our last run to the anchorage was close to the wind. One other boat, Safari, was in the anchorage. We don’t know them but have seen it around. It’s a family boat with a few kids aboard. We picked a spot with plenty of room to swing not knowing what the winds would really do. Our experience with these fronts has been that the winds get quite light as they pass but one should never generalize and make assumptions.

With dark clouds off to the west we quickly dinghied ashore to do our sevusevu. The village chief had a child with him who burst into tears during the ceremony causing them the speed it up and at the end the chief left with the child, presumably to calm him down. We were left with another man from the village who we chatted with for a while before returning to the boat.

Not long after the rains came. We stayed inside for the rest of the afternoon. It was quite hot and muggy. By the time the rains had passed the wind was now coming from the SSW and was now a shade cooler than before giving us a pleasant evening.

Overnight the wind has dropped to zero. What we do over the next few days is now entirely down to the weather and our need to generally keep moving. The water is dead calm at the moment so it could be pretty good for snorkeling here today. We’ll see. We have no internet at this location so I’ll have to wait until we get good propagation to download the weather forecasts via the sideband radio.