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While at Koro Island we noticed the temperature starting to rise. It became obvious that summer was just around the corner. For example, I could only do yoga in the very early morning and eggs and veggies not kept in the fridge started to spoil much faster. Although at that point it wasn’t “summer in Mexico” or “Marquesas” hot yet, we knew it wouldn’t be long, and it really started to drive home the reality that we were going towards the equator this year. Are we really prepared for the sweaty, sleepless nights again? (Spoiler alert: ready or not, those nights are coming!)

No, I’m not talking about the weather. I’m talking about our friends on a boat called “Breeze.” We had last said good-bye back at The Blue Lagoon in The Yasawas, and we had absolutely no idea they were in the vicinity, nor did they even know we were still in Fiji. I was standing at the galley chopping some vegetables for a salad for lunch when I looked up and saw Breeze right off our stern. “No way!” I shouted. This was such a nice surprise, because we had been alone in Dere Bay for a couple days and the weather wasn’t turning as quickly as we had hoped for us to head north to Taveuni.

We first met Breeze way back in Papeete. Their boat was on the hard getting repaired from an encounter with a whale, while we were just blowing through Papeete as quickly as we could. So, at that point who knew if our paths would ever cross again. Well, it turns out that they did, several times more as we were together off and on in Tonga, New Zealand, and Fiji. But the thing is that we were always with a group of kid boats, and even though Tim and Per share a passion for spear fishing, it seemed that we hadn’t really gotten to know Per and Sabina all that well. So, that makes this visit in Koro all the more special as we spent pretty much every evening together: drinks on Exodus, drinks on Breeze, drinks on shore… we shared rum, good stories, and even ventured into a little political talk as we shared observations about our countries (good and bad) and we got to learn a little bit more about Sweden.

Alex and Brenden had sadly accepted that they would be without their kid boat buddies for a while, so they were glad for another chance to hang out. Ella is right in their age group, and she and Alex share a lack of passion for the cruising lifestyle, so I was glad that they all had a little fun together, even if a lot of it was video game playing and trying to get internet on shore. They were being typical teenagers together, and sometimes that’s just what they really need.

We had heard from some of the local expats that the resort restaurant serves dinner sometimes if you make arrangements ahead of time. It was a bit of a challenge finding someone to make such arrangements with, but we managed to sort it out and one of our last evenings there we had a pleasant dinner on shore, although it was a bit strange since the resort continued to have that deserted feel and there was only one other table of customers at the restaurant. The curry I had was good if nothing special but the best parts of dinner ashore was the company and, as always, that I didn’t have to cook!

Koro Island is approximately 30 nmi south of Savusavu, making it a very manageable day trip. Since our ultimate goal was to depart Fiji and head north, it may seem strange that we would start out by going due south, but there is, in fact, some method to our madness, and as usual it has something to do with weather. Basically, in order to go north we would have to first get around the big island of Vanua Levu, which meant a long stretch going due east toward the island of Taveuni. Since the trade winds blow anywhere from SE to E, as you can imagine, trying to go due East presents a bit of a challenge. So, we basically used the island of Koro as an intermediate waypoint on a long tack. The strategy was to leave Savusavu and go south to Koro when the trades are blowing more from the east, and then after a couple days when the switch back to the SE we could easily head NE from Koro to Taveuni. This mostly played out according to our strategy, only we had to stay at Koro six days rather than just a couple.

The sail itself from Savusavu to Koro turned out to be a very pleasant day sail with light winds on the beam. We went to Dere Bay on the northwest side of the island, which is the usual place cruisers go for protection from the trade winds. When we arrived there were no other boats there, but that wasn’t much of a surprise given how late it was getting in the season. We picked up one of the mooring balls and then went straight away to shore. Dere Bay has a ridiculously long pier extending out over the shallow coral so there’s a suitable place to tie up small boats. We made our way up to a resort, which had a nice deck and bar/restaurant area, but it was totally deserted. There was a woman in a small office, so we talked to her about paying for the mooring and which way we should go to the nearest village to do sevusevu.

So, we ended up walking about 30 min partly along a trail and partly along a dirt road down to the nearest village to the south, which is called Nabasobi. This was our final sevusevu in Fiji, and it turned out to be lucky number 13. Each one is different depending on what’s going on in the village at the moment and on the personality of each chief. Lucky number 13 was the first time the chief did the sevusevu wearing shorts (not a sulu) and it was also the first time the chief sat around chatting with us afterwards. We ended up hanging out for about an hour. This one was also the first time we were served cold drinks (Fanta orange, Brenden’s favorite), and on a hot day, it was like magic.

Everyone said there were lobsters at Koro, so I had high hopes that we would get some of these, as Carolina used to call them, butter delivery vehicles. Tim tried his best and went diving at night while Brenden drove the dinghy for him, but unfortunately he only found very small ones. Not wanting to decimate the lobster population of Koro, of course he left those alone.

At the south side of the anchorage there was a sand spit that dried at low tide. I spotted just the tip of it at high tide when I was out for a morning paddle, so we decided to turn it into an afternoon family outing. We threw a beach umbrella, some drinks, and the bocce ball set into the dinghy and headed over at low tide and played some serious games of bocce. Well, as serious as anything gets with Brenden around.

Our days at Koro were memorable for a few reasons, but for Brenden, it all has to do with his spearfishing “firsts.” He had two milestones, and the first was being able to load his speargun without help. The rubber bands that propel the spear forward when fired are quite strong, and until now Brenden had to pass his gun off to Tim after he took a shot in order to reload it. However, I guess all of those pullups he’s been doing have paid off. But the real memorable milestone is that he speared his first dogtooth tuna! The dogtooth is a prize among spearfishermen, so Brenden was so happy, absolutely beaming. He wanted to be sure to tell Jack (Iguana) and Hans (Nautilus) as soon as we had internet again. We were all quite happy with his accomplishment, actually, because dogtooth is very tasty sashimi indeed.

October 18 – November 7, 2015

With a functioning watermaker and a boat full to the brim of provisions, we departed Savusavu on Sunday 18 Oct and stayed one night out at the Cousteau anchorage to be poised for an early morning departure. A day sail took us down to Koro Island, and although we thought we would stay only one or two days, we ended up staying six. Then we had a fast day sail up to the town of Somosomo on Taveuni where we stayed one night in order to top off our fresh provisions and say a sad good-bye to our friends on Fluenta. After that it was off to the island of Rabi where we stayed one night at Katherine Bay on the south end of the island. Then we made our way up the western side of the island and after a day stop at the main village of Nuka, we went up to the northwest side of the island to Albert Cove.

We departed Albert Cove in the evening on Halloween and had a downwind two day passage up to the northern most island in Fiji, the island of Rotuma. After five days at Rotuma we departed in the early morning on Saturday 7 Nov bound for Funafuti, Tuvalu.

(Savusavu) –> Koro Island –> Somosomo (Taveuni) –> Katherine Bay (Rabi) –> Nuku (Rabi) –> Albert Cove (Rabi) –> Rotuma –> (Funafuti, Tuvalu)

The next installment will be the last one for Fiji as we visit the islands of Koro, Rabi, and Rotuma. Then it was time to press north in order to be out of the cyclone belt for cyclone season.

Link to Part 1

The watermaker issue wasn’t getting any better on its own so by the time we got back to Savusavu we knew action would need to be taken. We couldn’t head north through the remote islands of Tuvalu and Kiribati with a watermaker that can’t produce safe drinking water. Before biting the bullet and ordering a new membrane, we tried running a cleaning solution through the one we had. Our friends on TBV had the solution we needed and luckily, they let us buy it from them. Tim went to every place that might even have a small chance of having it, but no luck. So, we took Exodus out in the bay to do the procedure. We carefully followed all the instructions, and the only tricky part was that the water needed to be within a specific temperature range to be effective, but we sorted out a way to do that, and we kept our hopes up that this would solve our problem. Yeah, no. It made absolutely no difference in our salinity readings, so we went ahead and ordered the new membrane. Tim had quite the time sorting out the shipping instructions with the company he ordered from. We used DHL, because we had been told that is the only reliable way to get something shipped to Fiji, and the Waitui Marina is the DHL hub.

It took about another week to arrive, and sure enough, that was the problem. The new membrane produced much, much lower salinity readings. So, our conclusion is we must have destroyed our membrane by filling our water tank with dock water in New Zealand. Since the water maker uses tank water to flush itself after it’s been run or at 5-day intervals if it isn’t run, it’s important for the tank water to be chlorine free. Chlorine in the water can damage the membrane, and even though we thought we properly filtered the dock water, perhaps not.

In any case we were quite relieved to be leaving Fiji with a functioning watermaker and we just couldn’t get enough of looking at those low salinity readings.

We were leaving Savusavu mid-October, and we wouldn’t be arriving in The Marshall Islands until late January, early February. Since I had no idea what provisioning would be like along the way in Tuvalu and Kiribati, I decided I would stock Exodus with four months’ worth of food. This would have been much better to do in Suva, but I managed to get the job done in Savusavu.

The first step was making the list, well actually the first step was taking inventory. I keep an inventory spreadsheet, and I try to keep it more or less up to date, but since we were low on provisions and lockers were relatively empty, I figured it was a good time to go through and see exactly what we already had. And clean the lockers while I’m at it. Then, in order to make the list I went through my spreadsheet and tried to estimate how much of each item we would need for four months and subtracted what we already had to see how much I needed to buy. OK, truth be told I actually was much more of a nerd and added all kinds of functionality to the spreadsheet, but I won’t go into it so as not to be too much of a bore. Actually, this whole topic of provisioning is boring me, and I’m the one who lived it, so I think I’ll move on.

We celebrated Brenden’s 13th birthday while in Savusavu, as well as Jonathon’s and Victoria’s, so it was fun that all the kids got to be together this year. Last year for his 12th birthday Brenden was brooding over the fact that Lady Carolina had left us in Tonga, so I’m really glad it worked out that Fluenta stayed in Savusavu. Brenden’s request for his birthday was, “Pizza, pasta, cookies, and ice cream.” And we were able to deliver on all accounts.

It’s hard to believe that “baby B” is now a teenager, although at the same time it’s not. As with every year, he seems to be right where he should be.

We hadn’t gotten Alex a 14th birthday present yet even though it was well over a month since we celebrated it, so Tim went all out and got the boys a surfboad and a kite for kitesurfing (purchased from our friends on Eleutheria.) The surfboard is a big improvement for dinghy surfing over their other foam Costco boards, but they still haven’t dedicated the time to master the kite.

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!

Originally posted by cruisingrunner

We’ve been in Savusavu going on three weeks now, and that’s by far the longest we’ve stayed put somewhere since… La Cruz, Mexico, maybe? We didn’t plan to stay here this long, but Exodus had her own idea this time. Thinking back though, we have seldom been stuck somewhere or had to change plans, I mean intentions, due to boat issues. In fact, the only other time I can think of is way back in La Paz, Mexico when we realized we needed a bigger anchor and had to order one. I smile when I think of this, though, because that delay in La Paz allowed us to be in the right place at the right time to meet our first pack of kid boats and then cruise with them around the southern Sea of Cortez. Coincidentally, two and a half years later, this current delay has allowed us the opportunity to spend some more time this season with one of those same kid boats, Fluenta.

This time the delay is due to the watermaker. We are getting consistently higher salinity readings than we used to, and sometimes the watermaker has to run for quite awhile before the salinity drops to safe levels and water starts going to our tank. We’ve ordered a new membrane, and it should be here soon, but in the meantime we’ve gotten to enjoy a little bit more of Savusavu, but in all honesty, not as much as you’d think.

First of all, the running. It has been absolutely amazing to be somewhere that I can dinghy ashore and run each morning. I haven’t been going far, and I don’t even wear my Garmin, because who wants to be brought down with the knowledge of exactly how slow you’re running, right?. It’s just nice to get out and move. I can usually get a run in before breakfast. I head west from the dinghy dock because that leads me out of town rather than right through it. It’s a flat road, asphalt for the first mile and a half and then dirt after that, which means that the first rainy week we were here it was muddy, but since then it’s been dry and dusty. It’s a beautiful stretch of road, though, right along the water. Nevermind that the locals look at you like your crazy running along, but they are still friendly as ever, belting out the hearfelt, “Bula!” as I go past. If I go before 8:00 then I get the added treat of running among all the kids walking to school or waiting for school buses. I think I get the strangest looks from them.

We are on a mooring at Waitui Marina, and the facilities are pretty run down. But they have the nicest staff I’ve ever met at a marina, so I’m OK with the fact that I’m scared to use their showers on shore. They have a spacious dinghy dock, laundry, a cheap restaurant, and did I mention the nicest staff ever? Not only nice, but highly competent too. Also, Fiji Meats is right there in the building, so stocking up the freezer has been easy.

Since we’ve been here almost three weeks you’re probably thinking we’ve gotten out and seen a lot, maybe even toured a bit more of Vanua Levu, the island on which Savusavu is located, right? Surprisingly, no. Since we are preparing to be well off the beaten path for awhile, Tim’s been focusing on boat projects, and I’ve been focused on research and provisioning. Research because we may not have very good internet, if at all, after we leave Fiji, so I want to have all the information we might need for our next few destinations all saved up on my hard drive. Also, this year is supposed to be like the worst El Nino year EVER! So, that presents a bit of a weather wild card, which has required it’s own research as well. Provisioning because I want to be stocked up for four months when we leave here. Think about it. Family of four with two teenagers. That’s A LOT of food. So, we haven’t done much here, but even still, here are a few interesting, or maybe not-so-interesting, tid-bits about Savusavu.

1. There are hot springs in town that drain into the harbor where you can see the steam. Apparently, there’s at least one hot spring that is really hot. The locals cook in it, and apparently someone has even fallen in and died. No, we haven’t been.

2. You can take a cheap 3 hour bus ride around the island to the larger city of Labasa. We haven’t been, and I don’t know why you’d want to.

3. There are several hardware stores in town, and they never have what Tim needs.

4. Surf and Turf restaurant went from serving excellent cheeseburgers to serving a pile of grisel on a bun in our four months between visits.

5. After a strong rain the water from the taps at Waitui will run brown and the laundry lady will close for the day.

6. You can get excellent, I mean excellent, cheap Indian food here. We are frequent diners at Hidden Taste of Paradise. The last time we went there the power was out in the dining room, and they were so apologetic that we had to dine by candlelight. But we really enjoyed it.

7. Savusavu reminds me a bit of Neiafu, Tonga but without all the simultaneously helpful and annoying expats. Except for Curly, the ex-cruiser savusavu resident from New Zealand who is simultaneously more helpful and more annoying than Neiafu’s entire expat community.

8. The fresh market here isn’t nearly as big as Suva or Nadi, but it has all the same stuff. Do you really need 100 tables selling bok choy or is 20 enough?

9. The grocery stores are small but there’s a few of them, and I can tell you exactly where to find what in each of them.

10. And last but not least, I think I could live here. Seriously. There aren’t many places along the way that I could say that about, but Savusavu is one of those places. It’s beautiful, the people are friendly, it’s a small town but big enough to have most of what you need, and I just love the vibe. Don’t worry mom, we’re still planning to come back to the U.S., but if we didn’t, this place is definitely on the short list.