Beez Neez now Chy Whella

Batuva Bimble

Big Bear and Pepe Millard

Mon 13 Jul 2015 22:37

Batuva Bimble to See the View from the Top

We got up this morning and looked across the crowded harbour...........

Later we took a spuddle over to the far left of Batuva Harbour to see if there was anything exceptional we should snorkel over, there was rather too much dead coral, areas of algae and nothing new on the good bits. We made our way over to the little jetty to meet the Royals off Scott-Free to do our walk up to the view or top right of the picture.

We reached the impressive wooden staircase to be met with the record notice, Bear held it as this would be the only challenge he would personally present to Alex who set the record in 2010, no threat from me either. Bear adopted the correct pace we would be happy to manage.

The stairs turned out to be rather friendly, each landing had somewhere to sit and we were soon swapping looking up to looking down.

Very surprised to find such a flat area at the top, looking across a valley dotted with coconut trees.

Mushrooms, majestic buttress trees and coconuts with basking lizards kept us occupied along the way as Maj, in charge of navigation, led us toward the village we had to pass through.

Amazing how a plant has the opportunity to settle on good, flat and welcoming ground but seems to choose the hardest, most challenging base to set itself – through a rock.

Maj steered us toward a gate, a lady eventually came out to welcome us after she had finished on her mobile phone. She had us sign the Visitors Book, pointed to our onward route and we walked through the settlement. We passed neat houses and clearly ‘shopping’ had been delivered, all under the mottled shade of yet more coconut trees.

We all went wow at this, after a time taking in the view we sat to enjoy our banana cake and began the return bimble.

Incredible how plants literally ‘hang by a thread’.

Tree sculptures, hard fungus and the odd butterfly kept our interest up.

A lady guarding her tin and a handsome piece of kit were out as we reached the village.

On our return the village looked rather lovely.

The herd were resting in the shade, completely unbothered about us bimbling through.

Bear was lippy, knew he was and took his beating from Maj in a stoical fashion.

A smart toilet, through the final gate and minutes later we were back at the stairs.

Back on the jetty we met Geoff and Penny, chatting as yachties do, we learned this crew of Paws Time had extensive knowledge of the Yasawa Group, we were invited over this evening and told to bring notepad, pen and our chartlets. We did indeed go over later and as well as having a really nice time, got heaps of information and loads of waypoints.

We went to look at the yacht club – only used a couple of days a year when a rally comes through, same owner as the Copra Shed in Savusavu.

Before going home for showers we spuddled around the cul-de-sac in front of Beez. Despite the clear water we saw little evidence of decent coral – just a few little blue fish and more algae. We would learn later that a storm had come through and things had yet to recover. The books had told us that this was an excellent spot, shallow, warm and protected, hope it gets well soon.