Port Denarau
Aurora_b
Mike and Liz Downing
Wed 1 Aug 2012 08:22
|
The mooring buoys here are all in very shallow water, we had
no more than a few inches under the keel at low tide, and too close together.
Get two dissimilar boats that swing in different ways next to one another and
they're likely to clash. When we arrived we were told that two of the boats had
been up most of the night fending each other off. So it's not the place to leave
the boat unattended for any length of time. We did spend an afternoon in Nadi
(15 minute drive away) re-provisioning without a problem, but as we were hoping
to spend a couple of days out all day, we decided we should move into the
marina. It only has one pontoon, but it's quite a pontoon - full of quite big
yachts and even bigger superyachts. We managed to get a berth in with the
yachts, but after one night had to move in with the superyachts (it was the
only space available). We looked absolutely tiny next to them.
Nearly half the population of Fiji is of Indian decent, as a
result of us Brits bringing Indian workers over here to work on the sugar
cane plantations. Most of the shops and businesses are now owned by Indians and
Nadi appeared to be much more of an Indian city than a Fijian one. Our first
full day out was by taxi to Lautoka to submit our Australian visa
applications. There are heavy fines if arriving in Australia without a
visa, so we wanted to get the process underway to allow time to sort out any
problems. It takes several hours to complete the application form and get all
the supporting information required, and once submitted we have to wait a week
or so to find out if our application has been successful. So we're still waiting
with fingers crossed that it's all going to go through okay. (Wonder if the
Aussies have the same problem when coming to the UK?) The second day out was
aboard the Yasawa Flyer, but that, as they say, is another
story!
 The waterfront at Port Denarau - restaurants
of every variety.
 Just a nice picture of the boat with a
lovely blue sky. The buoy is attached on the port
cleat
rather than over one of the bow as one of
bow rollers, which never turned properly, was
wearing
thin and to our surprise we were
able to get a new one made here. So it was being changed
over
when this was
taken. The new roller
is slightly smaller and turns much better.
  A good place to come for milkshakes and
smoothies!
 As said, very touristy! A lot of the
restaurants and bars had live music most nights and
being
moored just in front, we didn't even have to
come ashore to listen to it (although we did get
a bit of a mix by the time it all got to
us).
 Gulliver's Travels or what?! Big
cleats or Liz's tiny feet, as we move in with the big
guys.
 Huge cleats and nice long pontoons made
getting in and out of the marina easy.
 Superyacht Aurora B! Above and below, some
of our closest neighbours.
    This one's 'Dr
No'
 Gosh - we've shrunk! (Must be all that rain
in New Zealand.)
|