More About Savusavu 2.0

We had spent about 5 days in Savusavu at the very beginning of our Fiji adventure, and at that time we stayed on a Copra Shed mooring ball for no particular reason. This time as we were approaching the harbor I again radioed Copra Shed, because what can I say; I’m a creature of habit. Copra Shed didn’t answer, but Waitui Marina called back and the friendliest voice I’ve ever heard on the radio asked if she could help us in anyway. That was Jolene, and she hooked us up with a mooring for our entire 3 week stay this time in Savusavu. The Waitui facilities aren’t as posh as Copra Shed, but the price is less, and it always feels good to be patronizing an establishment with helpful people.

One of the first things I had to take care of in Savusavu was get our passports stamped for the visa extension I had paid for back in Nadi. So, I took our passports and the payment receipt to the immigration office and hoped for the best. Although there were two or three people in the office, I was told I would need to come back another day because, “the lady who stamps passports is sick.” Kind of funny that the function of stamping passports is a single point failure given that it is, after all, the immigration office. But there’s nothing you can do but smile and go along with it. When I came back a couple days later, the day our original visas were to expire, the “passport stamping” lady was well and in the office, so after about a half hour of making phone calls back to Nadi, she handed me our stamped passports and I was on my way.

We caught up with some friends we hadn’t seen in a long time… Eleutheria and Skabenga who we hadn’t seen since French Polynesia, and Hot Spur, who we hadn’t seen since, wow, Mexico. Everyone had their various adventure stories to tell about “how I spent the cyclone season” and it was fun to hang out and catch up. We also met a new kid boat, a French speaking family from Belgium on a boat called Sept a Vivre. They had kids just the right age to hang out with Alex and Brenden, but sadly they were only in Savusavu for a short time. We had hoped that we might run into them again later in The Marshall Islands, but, spoiler alert, that never quite panned out.

The sad good-byes were really getting old and now it was time for good-byes with Fluenta and True Blue V. Fluenta was going back to New Zealand for cyclone season and TBV was going to wait another season out in Fiji. TBV had been the ones to put the idea of going to The Marshalls in our heads, but in the end they decided they would stay in Fiji instead. I’m not going to get too sappy as I write about these good-byes, because spoiler alert: we will see Fluenta again at Taveuni before we leave Fiji, and in true cruiser fashion, TBV will change their plans again and join us heading north after all!