Savusavu reminded me a little of both Neiafu, Tonga and La Cruz, Mexico, but without the expat buffer that both of those places had. I think it’s a little bigger than both those places, and it has better grocery stores and fresh food market. The people in Savusavu were friendly, but I think I had been hearing so many other cruisers raving about the Fijian people, that I wasn’t all that impressed. Many people said an unsolicited “Bula” as you walked down the street but just as many people didn’t. And just like everywhere we’ve been, if you reach out first with a smile and a hello, it always brings out the best in people.
There were four main grocery stores that I visited. There are MH grocery stores that have most of the standard Fijian supplies, one at either end of town. The one near the marinas has a slightly better selection of vegetables and dairy. There’s an Indian Store that has most of the same stuff as the MH stores plus a lot of expensive imported stuff. I even found a couple cannisters of Tim’s coffee creamer there. Lastly, there as a place called Sally’s Deli that had all imported items plus a decent wine selection. And it was air conditioned inside. I didn’t need much wine or specialty items, so I only browsed around long enough to cool off and bought a courtesy jar of guava jelly. In the same building as the Waitui Marina is Fiji Meats, and a lot of cruisers get meat and chicken there. Our freezer was still pretty stocked from New Zealand, so I didn’t pay a visit to Fiji Meats.
Even though we had heard such rave reviews of the Indian food, the only restaurant we went to while we were there was Surf and Turf at the far end of town. When we’ve been offshore for awhile, all four of us really crave a good burger. It’s a nice walk from the marinas, but you can also dinghy up the creek and tie off at a dock right behind the restaurant. They had excellent burgers, except that Alex really didn’t like that they put fresh mint on them. Spoiler alert: Four months later during our second visit to Savusavu, we found the burgers at Surf and Turf to have severely degraded in quality.
I aluded earlier to the good Indian food available in Savusavu, so I might as well explain that there’s a huge Indian population here and across Fiji. Almost 50% of the population. When both India and Fiji were part of the British Empire, they brough Indians here, basically as endentured servents, to do manual labor, and in the end many of the Indians decided to stay. There doesn’t seem to be much integration among the groups and a lot, if not all, of the political strife here in Fiji in our lifetime has been due to conflict, mostly peaceful, between these ethnic groups. I haven’t done sufficient research to say much more on the topic, but I’m just glad for the infusion of flavor into the food here, because to tell the truth, Pacific Island food is not really our thing after all.
I also aluded to the lack of an expat buffer here in Savusavu, but that’s not entirely accurate. While there isn’t a whole lot of expats living here clamoring over each other every morning on the VHF net to let all the cruisers know what services they can provide, there is this one guy, named Curly, and certainly, he is enough. As we were making our final approach to Savusavu that first morning, we were jolted to attention by the following call on VHF channel 16, “Goooooooood morning Saaaavusavu.” That was Curly announcing that his morning VHF net would soon be starting on channel 68. That first morning, I found the net informative regarding what services were available around Savusavu. However, after only two or three more days I couldn’t take it any more. It was just a repetitive stream of commercials and warnings about the weather. I stopped listening.
But before I make Curly sound like a huge bore, I need to point out that he makes things so much easier on cruisers when they arrive. He knows Fiji and can answer all of your questions. He gives a “chart marking” seminar every week or so for cruisers new to Fiji, for a cost of about $5-10 Fijian per person (I don’t exactly remember how much), so Tim and I went to one. It was held at The Surf and Turf Restaurant, and we attended with some of our buddy boats: Field Trip, Lumbaz, and Et Voila. It was extremely informative, and he handed out several hard copy chartlets of popular cruising areas with safe GPS waypoints included. The only problem was it lasted about 3 hours, and my brain filled up after about 1.5. I took notes and tried my best to stay focused. I said it was informative, and it absolutely was, but there was some misinformation sprinkled in there as well that we found out about along the way. Two examples were 1) He said to not even try to get all the way down to Fulaga in one jump. It’s best to start in Northern Lau and work your way down. Boats that try to jump all the way to Fulaga never make it. Of course, Lumbaz and Exodus both successfully and without drama made it all the way in one hop. 2) He said that the island of Yadua is off limits. It turns out this is not true. According to the 2015 Fiji Shores and Marinas Guide and the inhabitants of the island themselves, including the official park ranger, visiting Yadua is perfectly OK. It’s the small island next to it, Yandua Taba, that is off limits, because there is a rare, protected, crested iguana that lives there.
For about $20 extra (I think) Curly also offered an additional service of sending you more waypoints as you travel around Fiji. We paid for this, and we got waypoints from him for Fulaga, Koro, and Rabi. We emailed a request for waypoints to Matuku, but never got anything back, so it wasn’t a 100% guaranteed service. But all of the waypoints we got from Curly were 100% spot-on and we were glad to have them when we did. Especially for Fulaga since the waypoints made it obvious where you had to veer left in the pass to avoid what would later come to be known as “Nirvana Reef.” Most of us had Curly’s waypoints and knew to veer left. Nirvana did not. Story follows later.
If you are curious about Curly, you can search “Curly in Savusavu” in google to find his web page.
Gresham Family Exodus 