Category: Narrative

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.

Bellinis arrive. Our friends, the Bellini family arrived in Suva on Thurs, 9 July. They flew into Nadi the previous night, rented a car, stayed in a hotel, and the drove from Nadi to Suva to meet up with us. Tim and Marcus are childhood friends, and Tim’s known Robin since college also, so they all go way back. We used to charter Lagoon 380’s from Long Beach to Catalina Island every summer with them, and those were always really fun long weekends. They’ve also talked on and off with Tim over the years of wanting to go cruising themselves, so we thought giving them an authentic cruising vacation would be what they would want. However, I think they discovered quickly that cruising isn’t exactly the same as chartering for a long weekend, and I can only hope they didn’t totally regret their choice of how to spend their limited vacation time. We had Exodus mostly prepped to go, so once they arrived we had a quick dinner at the yacht club and then made a night departure to the Island of Gau.

Bellinis are here!

We will be raising anchor in just over an hour for a long day sail up to Suva. It’s still dark now, a full moon is setting, and the boat is quiet with the exception of the small swell hitting the beach. There is no road noise and there are no sounds of dogs or chickens. We are with just one other boat and there isn’t even a village on this island. It’s time to provision and I will be happy to have something, anything in the way of fresh vegetables (although we did thoroughly enjoy a cabbage salad last night. Who knew you could enjoy a cabbage salad.) However, we’ve had such a nice time in these more remote areas, especially Fulaga and Matuku, that I’m a little overwhelmed at the thought of heading to a city. Oh well, it is what it is, and we’ll adjust, just like we always do.

With nothing really to keep us tethered for too long to the little anchorage on Kadavu, we day sailed over to the uninhabited island of Namara. It was half a beautiful sail on flat water and half a bumpy upwind bash. That’s because as we left the anchorage and headed north up the east side of Kadavu we were inside the reef, sailing downwind on flat water. The charts weren’t exactly accurate, so we had to keep a vigilant lookout for bombies, but visibility was good, so there were no issues. After we went outside the north reef and turned more eastward, that’s where it got lumpy bumpy and then after heading back inside the reef more southward back towards Namara, that’s where it was an upwind bash. We had gone outside the reef to do some fishing, but there were no fish there.

Exodus on a day sail from Kadavu to Namara

On our approach to Namara we realized that we *really* weren’t in The Lau Group anymore when we saw a huge cruise ship parked nearby. I guess the nearby island of Dravuni is on the cruise ship circuit and the ship was there for the passengers to spend a couple hours on shore snapping photos of a Fijian village and buying handicrafts. We were slightly amused later when we learned that the villagers buy the handicrafts from Suva in order to sell them to the cruise shippers, probably at a decent mark up.

We’re not in the Lau Group anymore! Cruise ship near Namara

The anchorage off Namara wasn’t great. The bottom is quite filled with coral and we circled several times trying to find a good spot to drop the anchor, all the while Nautilus waited paitently for their turn. We found a decent spot tucked in out of the wind and swell and we floated the anchor chain to keep it off the coral. However, we found that being tucked in out of the wind meant being in somewhat swirly conditions so we didn’t lie nicely in one direction but rather circled and circled as the wind swirled which inevitably meant the floats on the chain would end up wrapped around our bridle.

Exodus anchored at Namara

Yes, Namara is uninhabited, but that doesn’t mean we can just make ourselves at home on shore upon arrival. It is owned and controlled by the nearby island of Dravuni, so convention mandates that we go there to present sevusevu and ask permission to visit Namara. The wind was still blowing pretty hard, so Tim and Hans went together in our dinghy upwind to Dravuni. They presented sevusevu to the chief and were given express permission to spearfish on the reef, and the chief told them they could use dive tanks if they wanted. He said it’s normally not allowed, but if they bring him some fish, they can use tanks. Nice protection of the reef. Tim and Hans also had tea and bread with some of the locals and told everyone who would listen that they wanted to spear some dogtooth tuna. They also visited the local store and when they got back to us, we all felt like celebrating when we saw the eggs, bread, and cabbage. It had been so long since we had such things!

Later, while the guys went spearfishing , without tanks, Katrein and I walked around the island. It was a beautiful beach and a nice walk, and when we got back to our side of the island a man and his wife were there. The wife was fishing near the shore and the man was gathering wood. They asked if our husbands were back with any fish yet, so even though they didn’t say it we could tell they were there to get fish from Tim and Hans after they had broadcast on Dravuni that they were going spearfishing. Fortunately, they hit the jackpot that day and came back with 7 fish, so everyone ate fish that night! Turns out the next day they went back to the same spot and came back with 3 more fish!

Spearfishing Jackpot!

The beach at Namara was great for walking but it was especially great for the kids to play on, since they hadn’t really had a beach since Fulaga. We had a couple of evening bonfires, and since we knew we would be heading next to the hustle and bustle of Suva we savored these relaxing evenings with good friends.

Beach bonfire at Namara

Our cruising reference calls this bay either Naigoro Bay or Matawalevu, but the only name I see on the Navionics chart is Naisogonikino. So, your guess at the actual name of the bay is as good as mine. After entering the pass, getting into the bay was straightforward, since all the reefs were marked. However, we find that sometimes the markers are not actually at the edge of the reef, so it’s best not to get too close, and even better to move around with good visibility so you can see the edges yourself. The chart shows an anchor icon on the south side of the bay, but there were already three or four boats there when we pulled up. We circled the small anchorage a couple of times, but it was a deep anchorage, and we couldn’t find a good spot with enough swing radius, so we decided to go up into the head of the bay in the shallows, closer to the village. It wasn’t a great spot since it was more exposed, but it was OK since weather conditions weren’t too bad.

Our lush green anchorage near Naigoro pass at Kadavu

There was a concrete seawall (with all the steel reinforcements sticking out this way and that) at the head of the bay at the village, but you could only get to it around high tide, because the bay dries out at low tide, so we took advantage of our arrival timing and jumped in the dinghy shortly after anchoring to go do our sevusevu. Here, we didn’t quite get the reception we had gotten used to in the Lau group, in fact it was mostly business as they immediately wanted to know if we wanted to buy any fresh items. We did our sevusevu quickly, and then they brought in a few things. I almost jumped out of my seat with excitement, when I saw huge leafy greens, so after so blatantly showing my hand, I wasn’t much good at the bargaining table. I bought the taro leaves, but when they wanted $2 each for coconuts, I passed on that. I had gotten too used to just sending Alex to shore to climb a palm tree for us. Since the tide was dropping, we didn’t stay long, only long enough to get permission to snorkel in the pass and walk around the island.

So, the next day while Tim, Hans, and Brenden dove in the pass, I went for a walk with Katrein, Fien, and Seppe. We walked up the hill over to the other side of the island. Katrien was hoping to be able to get some internet in order to email her father, but I was just along in order to get off the boat for a while. It turned out to be quite a wonderful walk. There was a narrow trail the whole way with little makeshift single plank bridges over small ravines. The most amazing part of the walk was all the pine trees. It felt like we had been transported out of Fiji and out of the tropics, and it was beautiful. We made it all the way to the periphery of a village on the other side, but being Sunday, we didn’t venture in.

Our walk over the hill at Kadavu

There was a precious moment as we were walking back and Seppe had gone on up ahead of us. We passed a local man going the other way, and he said to us, “oh, you must be Seppe’s mom.” We spoke to him a minute or two and learned that he had had quite the conversation with Seppe about where he’s from and what they are doing and where they are going. Katrein was so pleased that Seppe was comfortable having that conversation on his own with this man. Out here, those of us with somewhat reserved children, we are watching them come out of their shell, and it is such a joy to watch.