We woke up at dawn as normal and soon were off. We’d left the boat ready to go so it didn’t take long before we had the anchor up and were motoring away from our anchorage and off to round the point. We’d heard Imagine and Callisto chatting on the radio and called them both. They’d both sailed overnight from Suva. Hopefully we’ll see them around and about soon.
We had a light south east wind which was sailable but at too tight an angle. Therefore, having rounded the point, we motor sailed south on an over tight port tack to build a better angle. 5nm south of the point we tacked and turned off the power. We were sailing. But not for long. Within half an hour the wind strength dropped right off to about 5 knots and stayed there. We had to motor all the way to Fawn Harbour.
The entrance to Fawn Harbour was a little tricky. We’d timed it to have the sun high but as the sun was to our north we still had it ahead of us which makes reading the reef ahead of us hard. There were markers set into the reef but first time in one cannot trust anything so a lot of care was required. In the end staying well clear of the markers kept us in very deep water as we made the passage through the reef. We eventually anchored in 35ft of water in what feels like a sandy bottom.
For this trip and the previous we have had no recurrence of our shaft seal leak. This is good news indeed. I didn’t want to mention it after our short trip out of Savusavu but now, after a longer motor, I feel as though we won’t jinx it by celebrating this fix. I must have finally got a good seal of grease in there. No need to beach the boat for now.
After settling down I set about transmitting our position. This resulted in the discovery that we have no internet here whatsoever. Yay. When we have it, there’s always a reason to access it. When we don’t have it, we feel free. Back to the sideband radio.
Soon we went ashore. Now that we’re out in rural Fiji we felt we should honour the custom of sevusevu to obtain permission to anchor in the bay and walk in the village. We took one of our wrapped bunches of kava and dinghied ashore. We found a small creek and tied the dinghy to a post there. We managed to find our way to the road but realized this may not be the best way ashore. After climbing over a barbed wire fence we walked up the road hoping to find the village chief / head mans house. We asked a few folks and were eventually led up to the right house by Mike, the headman’s nephew.
There we were introduced to Arthur and Sandra Pickering (see photo) and invited into their house. We took off our flips flops and entered. We gave our kava to Arthur and he welcomed us offering us friendship and access to the village. We stayed with them for about an hour. We learned that the Pickering name came from Arthur’s great grandfather, Thomas, who came to Fiji from England. Apparently he disappeared while visiting one of the other islands – perhaps to be eaten. They gave us tea and biscuits and we learned about their family and how they live their lives. Among other things, they make copra, harvest kava, fish and hunt wild boar with dogs, spears and knives. We’ve been invited back. We are due to meet them at 9 this morning for a walk up the hill and to be shown the natural hot springs on their property. Tomorrow, when our friends will be with us, we’ve been invited to be shown how kava (grog) is prepared and no doubt quaff some.
It turned out that we had used the wrong place to come ashore. Arthur came down to the dinghy with us to show us the correct place. We brought him back to the boat and shared a beer each with him. Before leaving we gave Arthur some of our mahi mahi caught on passage. I took him ashore where he showed me the correct place to come ashore in the dinghy through a tunnel through the mangroves.
This was a fantastic day for us. Meeting the locals and learning a little about them is far better than the best resort and fancy shows. We finished the day with a meal and a movie and even spent some time on the foredeck gazing at the stars.