The Yasawa Flyer

Aurora_b
Mike and Liz Downing
Wed 1 Aug 2012 08:30
It's a big fast catamaran, similar to those that go across to the Isle of Wight. It travels from Port Denarau to the main island resorts in the Yasawas, calling at all the resorts on the way up the islands and again on it's way back. It leaves at 08.30 and returns at 18.00 and is the main means of travel for tourists going to the resorts and going from resort to resort. It appears people spend a few days at several of the resorts so there's always a lot of people on the move. We thought it would be a good day out to see what the islands are like and many of them do have the palm fringed sand beaches with lovely blue or turquoise sea, just like you see in the brochures. It helped that it was a lovely sunny day. The resorts are quite a mix and many appear to have limited facilities and are for backpackers, so not as expensive as you might think. The Flyer is just like a train in that it drops people off and moves on to the next station, it's not a day cruise as such, but you can, as we did, buy a ticket to go for the ride and stay on the whole day. So it's a full day onboard the whole time and a bit of a busman's holiday for us! On the way up we stopped about 15 times at 12 islands, dropping people off at 26 different resorts, and the same on the way back. The furthest island we stopped at is about 60 miles to the northwest of Port Denarau. Needless to say we took lots of photos on the day - just over 300!        
 
 
The Yasawas are the string of islands to the left, going up to Yasawa Island itself. (The yellow
and pink markers around the main island are my waypoints used when going from the eastern
side of Fiji.) 
 
Day cruise boats and mini cruise ships leave Port Denarau daily.
 
The Yasawa Flyer
 
 
 
Two people in a kayak made it to this island. 
 
 
The Flyer never docks, it just stops and boats like this one converge on it from the resorts
in the area full of people. This looked like a local band coming from one of the resorts
to get on board ........
 
....... and then they leave a few islands up the chain on another local boat.
 
There were very few yachts in the islands - we only counted 10 all day.
 
 
 
 
A post marking a reef. You see these very rarely. The charts have them on and the pilot
book we have refers to them, but that was last updated in 1992 and they've virtually all gone now.
 
This area is referred to as the Blue Lagoon as it's where the film of that name was shot.
 
Wow! - 2 posts in one picture!
 
 
One of the higher islands.
 
 
 
 
The sun goes down as we arrive back at Port Denarau.