Author: cruisingrunner

Yanuca is a tiny island inside the Beqa lagoon, west of the larger island of Beqa. Our passage from Gau was a very nice, slow, downwind sail. On my watch our max speed was about 4 kts, but it was quiet, and no one was seasick, so there was certainly nothing to complain about. It was a clear, starry sky and I spent the first couple hours of my watch monitoring a large vessel visually and on radar. I’m not sure why they weren’t transmitting AIS. Anyway, they were stationary for a long time, and I was going to pass it about 2 miles away, but then, of course, it started moving right towards our track, probably on its way back to Suva. I changed course slightly to give it a little more room, and we passed about 0.75 miles away. They did not answer the radio.

The anchorage on the west side of Yanuca was beautiful, and we had a nice walk across the island to the village. We went up a hill through the woods, and as we came out of the woods were were at the school at the top of the hill overlooking the village and had a beautiful view of the Beqa lagoon. We talked to a couple of the teachers at the school, and they were pretty passionate in their support of our choices to homeschool. They didn’t have a very high opinion of government having so much control over education.

We made our way down through the village, one of the cleanest, and had a quick impersonal sevusevu and were sent on our way.

On our way sailing into the anchorage, we noticed a small islet nearby, and Tim decided to turn it into an adventure with the kids. He took them to the “deserted, desert island” for an afternoon, although Alex and I opted to stay behind for some peace and quiet on the boat.

A deserted island getaway

Fluenta and Nirvana arrived on our last day there, and the kids all had a great day together playing in the water. It was time for us to depart for the western side of Viti Levu in order for the Bellinis to catch their flight home. We departed Yanuca on Mon, 20 July for one last overnight passage with the Bellinis. This time we left before dark and enjoyed a lovely evening sail into the sunset.

How many cruising kids can fit on a kayak before it tips? Turns out to be 6.

Our last dinner aboard Exodus with The Bellinis (This photo was actually taken on passage from Yanuca to Musket Cove)

Sadly, this time, baby duck didn’t follow.

We left Herald Bay hoping to anchor down near the southern end of the island in order to have easier access to dive/snorkel/spearfish the southern pass, called Ningali pass on Open CPN. We couldn’t find a suitable spot to anchor, because it was deep right up to the coral shelf, so we would have had to anchor in 60 ft of water without the swing room to avoid the reef should the wind shift to an unfavorable direction. So, we ended up just plopping down on a shoal right at the southern pass. The weather was pretty benign, so we figured it would make an OK day anchorage. We spent the day playing and snorkeling in the pass, but then concerned over the conditions if we stayed anchored in such an exposed spot, we moved over near the village of Waikama for the night with Lumbaz. We thought it would be better protected, but it was pretty rolly itself, so the next day we went back out to the pass and just ended up staying out there the next night.

The general consensus was the the pass diving and snorkeling was pretty amazing. I only snorkeled once, and I have to say that I didn’t think it was anything special, except for the huge school of circling barracudas and the giant grouper. We’ve certainly seen much, much better coral.

Our next stop was just a short overnight downwind passage away, so we decided to depart after dark, through the Ningali pass. Yikes! Tim had dove it several times, and he also took the iPad out in the dinghy to record a GPS track to use but exiting a narrow pass like that at night: Yikes. Nautilus was coming with us, but they were having none of this nighttime pass exiting stuff, in fact they didn’t even want to go through Ningali pass in the daytime, and they left early and went back up to the pass we had come in through. Everyone said we were “brave” which really meant “crazy” or even “stupid.” Needless to say, Tim was at the helm, and I think this is one of the very few times I’d ever seen him get rattled. He didn’t actually show it at the time, but he talked about it after. Right about the time he thought we were just clear of the pass he got disoriented by some lights and somehow thought we had gotten turned around and were heading back towards the other boats still at anchor. Luckily, he kept his cool and trusted his instruments and didn’t hastily turn around or anything. That nighttime departure through that pass is one of the few things we’ve done that Tim says he probably wouldn’t do again.

If my memory serves me correctly, we started having watermaker issues back in Fulaga, however it was here in Gau where it first pops up in the log. “High salinity.” The issue was that when running the watermaker it was taking longer and longer for the salinity level to come down to safe drinking levels, and sometimes we would have to run the generator to get the voltage up in order to increase the pump pressure in order for the salinity to come down. It definitely got worse in Gau, which was pretty poor timing considering we had 5 extra people on board. But we ended up living with it for a couple of months until we got back to Savusavu. (Spoiler alert: it was the membrane.)

If the sandspit in Fulanga was kid village 1.0 then Gau was 2.0. The kids all slept on shore, and the Bellini kids fit right in with all of them. They gave strict instructions that no grown-ups were allowed, and seriously, Tim and Marcus were pretty much chased from the beach with pitchforks when they went to the beach in the morning.

Sadly, there is no photo evidence of Kid Village 2.0, because the Lord of the Flies rules did not allow photography.

On the island of Gau on our first day we walked through the mud and rain to the village of Sawaieke for sevusevu. I guess that muddy walk just wasn’t enough, so we decided to top it with an ultra-muddy hike. Nautilus arrived the day after us, and when they went in to do their sevusevu, Tim asked them to try to arrange a guided hike for us, which, of course they succeeded in doing. It was all set up for the following morning, but after it rained all night and wasn’t showing much sign permanently letting up, Tim wanted to abort the hike and tried to raise a faction of hike dissenters. For some reason, I was pretty intent on getting off the boat and going for a hike, rain and mud or no rain and mud, so I tried to raise a counter faction of hike supporters. Tim radioed Nautilus, and the hike supporters were backed by Hans, who has tremendous influence over his spearfishing bro-friend, and Tim relented, and the hike was on. And once again at the end of the day I wondered if the Bellinis were regretting spending their vacation with us!

The path was steep and *ridiculously* muddy. I mean, I’m pretty sure our guide thought we were the craziest bunch of Palagis she’d ever met wanting to go on this hike. Most of the kids kept smiles on their faces, and a few took advantage of the conditions to get really good and dirty. We stopped twice before finally aborting and coming back down before even getting high enough for any good views.

After the hike, Tim and Marcus went spearfishing, all the kids went over to Fluenta to play, and all the moms came over to Exodus to drink wine.

Fortunately, the next day the sun came out and snorkeling fun was had by all, and the day of the muddy hike lives in our memories as one of those camaraderie building experiences, something you didn’t really enjoy too much but you’re glad you did.

Muddy hike but most of the kids are still smiling!

We had been told that there is a trail from the beach at our anchorage up to a road that would lead to the village, so figured we could find it. We did find it, but we later realized we took the long path up to the road. It was a damp and muddy walk, about 30 min, to the village, but once we got there, we found the people of the village to be very nice. After we presented sevusevu they invited us to stay right then for some Kava. It seems we tried to beg out of it by saying we wouldn’t be able to stay long because we wanted to walk back before dark, but they didn’t take that to mean no kava, they naturally took it to man not *much* kava. This is actually a rare treat; you don’t often get to drink kava with the chief right then and there after the sevusevu. So, I was glad for Marcus and Robin and kids getting to experience this aspect of traditional village life. The kids were all bored, though, and we were all grateful when one of the women brought in bananas for them to eat. The village kids were all very curious about us but very, very shy. Carine, the youngest daughter on Caminante broke the ice and had a great time running around and playing with them. And as usual, 1 year old Benjamin from Fluenta stole everyone’s hearts.

Kids in the doorway during our sevusevu

Group photo in Gau

For some reason after the bumpy passage and then walking an hour in the rain to and from the village to do sevusevu, and then after having to carry dingies over the coral and rocks because the tide had receded so much, the Bellini’s still looked like they were having fun. They really were getting the real deal with their cruising vacation, that’s for sure.

We raised anchor in Suva at about 9pm and navigated by sight around all the boats in the harbor. Then, we followed our track all the way out of the harbor, and once outside, it was a difficult upwind bash until we could clear the corner of the Viti Levu (the big island where Suva is) and head more NE towards Gau. There were Bellini family members piled all around the cockpit trying to get some sleep, but as far as I know, no one got too sick. Tim, the boys, and I stood our normal watches, and it was a tired crew that entered the lagoon at Gau the next morning.

There are three passes throught the reef on the NW side of Gau, and we went through the middle one, which is unlabled on our Navionics charts. The pass was easy and we dropped anchor in Herald Bay, south of the village of Sawaieke.

Fluenta and Caminante made the passage with us, while Nautilus came the next night, and Lumbaz a couple nights after. Caminante caught 3 Dorado just outside the pass, and they generously gave one to us, which fed our entire crew of 9 for two nights.