Yanuya and Monu

We left Musket cove on a blustery day, and en route we saw up to 28 kts. We wanted to go to the uninhabited island of Monu, and there was some confusion regarding if that was allowed, so we decided to stop at the village at the island of Yanuya to do sevusevu and ask permission to go to Monu. The anchorage at Yanuya was completely untenable as the only protection from the strong winds was a bit of reef and a lot of swell was coming through. We couldn’t take the dinghy to shore due to the reef and the tide level, so Tim and Alex hopped on paddle boards in the wind chop and took a bundle of Yaqona in a dry bag. They also took the head of the fish we caught on the way with them to give to the chief. According to Tim, they did sevusevu with a young guy who said he was the chief’s son. Or possibly we just gave the kava and the fish head to some kid in the village. Anyway, in return he gave us permission to anchor at Monu wherever we wanted, to go ashore, and to fish where we wanted. Hopefully his permission meant something, but we were never approached or challenged, so we’ll never know.

Tim and Alex paddling ashore to do sevusevu at Yanuya

The fish head? Well, it wasn’t just a head because we filleted the rest for ourselves, no… it was just a head because a shark took the rest of it before we reeled it in. It was pretty funny, the boys were reeling it in and I said, “what is it?” and Alex said, “It’s not a fish *pause for perfect comedic timing* It’s half a fish!” It was a smallish skipjack tuna that would have made a nice sushi afternoon snack, but instead it made a snack for a happy shark.

We caught half a fish! (You’re welcome, shark.)

So, we moved around to the north side of the island of Monu. It is an uninhabited island, but from what we’ve gathered it is owned or possibly just used by one of the resorts to bring honeymooners to a deserted island. The lady at the yacht club at Musket Cove said we couldn’t anchor here, which is why we went to the village to ask.

There was excellent protection from the wind chop but there were huge ocean swells coming in rocking us this way and that. Oh yeah, and we didn’t have internet. Oh well, at least we weren’t at musket cove!