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In the morning I went ashore to pick up Siwa, the villager who is an occasional dive master at a nearby resort. There is a manta ray spot nearby that the village at Buliya charges $40 per head to visit. This is a lot of money for something that is free elsewhere. Many of the cruisers here are keen to see the mantas and although we are willing to pay the $40 (on a no show no pay basis) we are trying to get a concession for the cruisers here. The thinking being that they are more likely to attract cruisers to the area (Naqara had none last year and one the year before, they say) if they can drop the price for us. The village elders were out so a decision could not be made on our request. Nevertheless, I took Sila over to the spot where the mantas show. We searched for a while, as did another pair of locals in their dinghy. Unfortunately, no mantas were there so our plan for the morning was scratched. Instead, Anne and John took the dinghy to go snorkeling nearby while Helen and I rested.
In the afternoon, we had hoped to go diving. All the good spots are on the west coast of Ono. Siwa had gone out with the Osso Blancos and Jacksters in the morning. They’d had a rough time in the area where the winds had shifted to the SW. He had decided that an afternoon dive would be untenable so that idea was scratched too.
However, the day wasn’t a complete washout. The weather was definitely improving. Although we had a few patched of rain, we did have more than a few patches of sunshine which warmed us up. In the evening, a beach party with bonfires and dancing had been planned by the villagers. We all prepared some snacks for the villagers and headed ashore at 7pm. Due to increased winds, the bonfire idea had been abandoned. We were taken to one of the nearby huts where the villagers were all set up. As we approached they fired up their instruments and went into song. I was asked to share the message that when each song started we could select one of the locals to dance with. And that we did.
Grog (cava) was freely flowing. Somehow we decided we would sing them a song in return. However we could not find a song for which we all knew the words. In the end we picked Let It Be. I went back to the boat to pick up some beer to give to the villagers (for which they were very well chuffed) and to print out some lyrics. Our eventual rendition went pretty well I think.
The evening ended with the now familiar Isa Lei being sung. By the time we returned to the boat it was 11pm – very late for us cruisers.
Weather permitting we’re going to have another try for the mantas this morning. We need to make the trip to Musket Cove either this afternoon or tomorrow afternoon. The trade winds are beginning to reestablish themselves so either day should work well for us. The ocean swell is looking better, in terms of being lower, tomorrow and the direction should improve. With the winds also expected to be more easterly I’m expecting it to be warmer. So I’m plumping for a Sunday/Monday overnight passage. The only question now is whether to leave from here or to sail somewhere a little further west this afternoon to improve our wind angle and shorten the distance. We’ll see.
At 9am a group of us (John: Sea Mist, Stuart: Imagine, Jo: Osso Blanco + all of us) headed ashore for our hike up to the top of the hill where the vodafone cellphone tower sits.
The hike took us through some very lush landscape taking us just over an hour to climb the 338m hill. At the top we were let into the vodafone tower complex and shown the equipment comprising a wind generator, a vast array of solar panels, a generator, some power/switch boxes and the tower itself. We were then offered the opportunity to climb the 25m tower which was quite a surprise. Jo, John (Sea Mist), Helen and myself took on the challenge reaching the top of the tower holding onto the lightening conductor for support. The climb was tricky as the tower became narrower and narrower as we reached the top making the space we were climbing in awkward. On the positive side it was good to have something at our back in case we needed to rest. The view from the very top was awesome.
By the time we made it back down and to the boat it was already 1pm. We ate lunch then had a brief nap before going snorkeling. Only it wasn’t so brief and and afternoon disappeared. Unfortunately, earlier hopes of a clearing sky failed to turn into reality. While this was good for the morning hike, we are all beginning to miss the sunshine. John and I prepared for a snorkel but it started to rain so we called it off.
At six, all the boats here headed ashore in our dinghies for a meke – a dance and music put on by the village. We met up in the community hall. Here we were given plates of food that had been prepared for us and some delicious lemon tea. The cava bowl had been broken out and the cava was flowing. We were first entertained by five of the younger men who performed an energetic dance largely sitting down.
After the dancing we mingled with the villagers in the room chatting with them while a group sang Fijian songs. The evening ended with the farewell song Isa Lei.
One surprising thing we learned was that last year the bay had no boats visit and the year before only one. This rare run of southerlies has now brought seven boats into the anchorage which is very rare.
There was mild panic at the end when reports of our dinghies drifting off started circulating. I’m not entirely sure what the problem ended up being. I think one had drifted a short distance. Ours ended up being stuck where we’d anchored it. Because the evening had gone on longer than we’d expected I had a bit of a wade out to it to bring it back to the beach. It had gone nowhere. I towed in Sea Mist’s dinghy who was in a similar spot.
Today we’re hoping to go swimming with the mantas and maybe go for a dive this afternoon. The weather continues to be a bit depressing and the forecasts are not overly encouraging. The villagers are planning to put on music and more dancing this evening so we’re looking forward to that.
by steve, on July 29th, 2011 ( Fiji, Jarana, Troutbridge) In the morning I went ashore leaving Helen aboard the boat to reverse some more entropy. My first stop was to check out the fuel dock. It was quite tucked away and shallow and I wanted to be sure we could make it in. After a discussion with the attendant we decided it would be best to come in the afternoon, a couple of hours before high tide, and to reverse in, but not all the way.
I next headed off to the Budget Car Rental place. On the way I spotted Peter from Troutbridge sitting in a cafe. Things are gradually turning around for him and he’s surprisingly upbeat about his misfortune arriving in Fiji. The really good news is that his children’s story book has been accepted for publication which should bring him some income to help him get back up onto his feet.
The car hire company didn’t have a lot of options. The best vehicle for our needs had been verbally booked. They have a 50/50 success rate with verbal bookings and they’ll know whether or not it is actually taken this afternoon.
Most of the morning had gone by the time I returned to the boat. I managed to upload the photos from Gau (active blog readers will need to go back a few entries to see them). We decided to get in our MacDonalds fix for the season so we walked back into town, casing out the remaining supermarkets that we’d failed to reconnoiter the prior day. I was disappointed they had no quarterpounders but two double cheeseburgers and fries went down very well as did Helen’s Big Mac.
Helen had selected the New World supermarket to visit so that we did pickup up our first round of provisions which we boxed and put into a taxi to return to the yacht club. At the club, before returning to the dinghy I asked about a berth for the weekend. It turns out they can shuffle some boats around and make us a space. I also talked to the fuel dock attendant to have the dock cleared of small boats so we could turn up in an hour.
After getting our provisions back to the boat we brought the boat into the fuel dock, spun it around and reversed in. All fueled up we headed back out to the anchorage where I changed the generator oil before quaffing a couple of well earned beers.
We met up with the Jaranas for our evening meal which we ate, quite deliciously, at a local cheapo Chinese cafe, the same one I bumped into Peter earlier in the morning.
by steve, on July 28th, 2011 ( Fiji, Jarana) The alarm went off at 5:45am, 45 minutes before sunrise. It was dark, overcast and spotting with rain. The recent ‘cold’ snap had not moved on. We’d both had a patchy nights sleep but keen to reach Suva before sunset or, better still, 4pm when the customs office closed, we got up and got ready. It didn’t take long before we were lifting the anchor in predawn twilight.
We followed our tracks out of the bay we were in and headed for the pass. We raised the main in the lee of the land. Even so the wind was already in the teens. We jibed through the pass just as the GPS beeped dawn unfurling the headsail as we turned for Suva.
Soon we were flying along at around 9 knots in the calm waters in the lee of the outlying reef. The main was already reefed from the night before and running down wind in just over 20 knots of apparent wind we were close to having to reef the headsail too. Before long we were into the unprotected ocean in 3m swells. Unfortunately, the swell was approaching from the SSW and not from the SE which would have been much more comfortable. This felt like passage making as normally we avoid the big seas when doing inter-island hops like this. In these big seas our speed dropped a little but not by much. We were still averaging over 8 knots. It was bumpy but wild.
We reached the main island of Vitu Levu far earlier than planned. I was able to grab a vodafone signal and download the weather forecasts that I couldn’t get earlier via the SSB (too early for propagation). The marine forecast was now calling for ‘very rough seas’. We had ’em. The rough seas caused us to debate my earlier plot of an early entrance behind the reef. We decided against going into the pass just west of the Nukulau Islet, 7nm east of the main port entrance. The promise of calm seas behind the reef were overridden by the unknown complications of a possible following sea into the tight turn at the pass followed by sailing in strong winds in a constrained channel. We stayed out for another hour sailing at the angle the boat felt comfortable.
As we frequently do we jibed a little early requiring us to go wing on wing to find the right angle to sail into Suva on a reach. For the short period of time necessary we managed to put in the concentration to make this work in those rough seas. As the gap between the reefs narrowed the waters calmed and we shot into Suva harbour sailing to within half a mile of our intended anchorage before dropping the sails. By 1pm we were on the hook. 55nm in under 7 hours, including all the sail raises / drops & anchoring. Our fastest ever passage.
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Now this may sound like we were beaten up badly. In fact, apart from Helen feeling a bit off colour early on, this was a fantastic ride. The swell did gradually clock round to be more in line with the wind. There may have been a time when seas like this would have scared the pants of us. But this one was totally manageable. We always had an easy entrance into Suva as an option so there really was nothing worrying about the passage.
Within an hour of arrival we were ashore to do our formalities and explore Suva. We first visited the Royal Suva Yacht Club office to declare our arrival before walking to the customs office at the wharf south of us. Once we’d cleared in we spent 2-3 hours wandering around town. There were a large number of supermarkets which, to Helen’s delight we visited most and to my delight we didn’t visit all.
We eventually ended up looking for somewhere to eat. I fancied somewhere a little more western. Avoid the temptation of MacDonald’s we ended up at the Bad Dog Cafe enjoying a decent meal and drinks for not a lot of $$$$.
After dinner we trekked back to the nearest, and one of the best, supermarkets and picked up a few essentials before picking up a suspensionless taxi back to the yacht club. There we bumped into Bill and Cathy from Jarana and stayed for a while sharing pitchers of beer and catching up. They’re stuck here waiting for a weather window to get down to the Astrolabe reef. This is our planned first stop when our friends arrive next week. We’ll need a plan B for this sort of weather as we’ll have limited time and won’t want to hang around here for too long.
That being said we’re now down to weather watching hoping for a near term improvement over the gray days we’ve been recently having and in the medium term some favourable weather for getting south. The skies this morning are certainly brighter and the 5 day forecast shows a period of low wind days early next week. Motoring all the way south is definitely an option we’d go for.
by KC2RIY, on July 20th, 2011 ( Dreamtime, Endless, Fiji, Jarana) I went ashore in the morning to take a look at the two DVD players that weren’t working.
First I took a look at Camili’s which was described as being in black and white only. Upon plugging it in this indeed was the case. On further inspection the disk tray wouldn’t open either so that was an additional problem. Opening it up and examining the tray revealed a problem with the mechanism which was readily fixed. I figured the black and white issue was something to do with setup for which I needed the remote control. Camili gave it to me but it didn’t work. I opened up the battery case and it was full of crud so I cleaned it out and replaced the batteries. Now the control was working but not all the keys.
The setup key worked but try as I might, using just the down and left arrow keys (the others didn’t work) I couldn’t find a setting that would control the colour. As I was trying this I was getting more and more irritated by tiny ants that were vacating the control. I looked like a few had made their home in there. I decided to try and make the rest of the control work so I squirted in some contact cleaner. This was the cue for the entire ants nest, which had settled inside the control, to vacate, eggs and all. This was a new one.
Once the ants were clear the control still didn’t work. I opened it up and tested the internal connections. There were some dry joints between some of the circuit board layers which needed fixing. This was a pain in the arse job to do with my limited tools as I had to run a new wire from one side of the board to the other and the only thing I could solder to was scraped off circuit board connections. I managed it and got the control working. One of the keys on the control was labeled P/S which toggled between PAL and SECAM. That did the trick.
I was less successful with the other DVD player. I span up ok and recognised the presence of disks so most of the circuitry was working. However, the disks couldn’t be properly read and it would give up. My best guess was a wobbly drive motor as it did make a rattle and the disks weren’t spinning smoothly and this I could not fix.
After returning to the boat and a bite to eat Helen and I went snorkeling. We first went to a tall coral head which was very interesting and festooned with fish. Two of the giant clams from the farm were nestled on the top. I managed to take a picture with one and with Helen in it to give a sense of size.
We also snorkeled a reef near the beach. Here there were many more giant clams although not so fully grown. There were also a number of old beds, presumably from the former leper colony.
While we were snorkeling Endless arrived and offered us beers when we popped by to say hello. We showered off and returned to Endless giving them the lowdown for the area over a couple of cans of NZ beer.
We separated for the afternoon. In the evening us, the Jarana’s and Endlesses all met up on Dreamtime for a pot luck dinner. There we learned that Petr from Endless had bought a pig that is now going to be cooked this afternoon by the villagers. That should be fun. Today we’re also going to pile onto Dreamtime to go around the corner for a dive or two. I’d better start getting things ready.
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