Gresham Family Exodus

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.

As we were approaching the Naigoro pass at Kadavu, we saw a boat that’s hard to mistake just on the inside. I got out the binoculars to confirm, and yes, it looked like a big metal ketch, and yes, it was Caminante! We hadn’t seen them since Savusavu because they had taken a different path and skipped the Lau group because they had guests to pick up on the big island. It’s one of those funny things out here that sometimes you say good-bye and never see someone again and sometimes you just have a random chance encounter. Unfortunately, we were a day too late this time, as Caminante was heading off that morning, but luckily, we will catch back up with them in Suva.

The overnight passage from Matuku to Kadavu was mostly pleasant with the exception of the variable winds which kept me changing heading and sail area throughout my watch (which started at 2am). We had a lot of squalls after the sun came up, which made timing our pass entry a bit challenging. We aborted our approach once as a squall overtook us, but we went through on the second try just a little after low slack water. We had about 1 kt of current flowing in, which meant we had wind and current in the SAME direction, which makes a huge difference. (Wind against current creates standing waves.) The pass water was flat calm, and entry was about as easy as it gets, even with 20kt wind and swell coming straight at the pass.

There is a write-up in one of the homemade cruisers guides we all use by someone who exited this pass with current and wind in opposite direction and had huge standing waves, and because of that single description everyone seems to think that this pass is crazy. More than one skeptical person retorted back to us, “you’re going through THAT pass?” However, in our experience, the same pass can be crazy difficult or totally easy, it all depends on your timing, and we nailed this one. A little bit of planning and a little bit of luck can make all the difference.

The reef we passed through is part of the famous Great Astrolabe Reef, and everything you hear and read about The Naigoro pass is that it is supposed to have amazing diving, “some of the best in the world.”

Tim, Hans, and Brenden snorkeled in the pass the next day. I’m sorry to say that they reported back that it was nothing special. Perhaps “best diving in the world” means “best diving that tour operators go to” and we are spoiled by places like Minerva Reef and more recently, Fulaga.

The best part of the Naigoro pass was that Nautilus caught two tunas on the way in so we had a huge steak and tuna feast on Exodus that night.