Pos 17:46.274S 177:22.927E

Port Denarau Marina again.

20130617 Monday

Having been ashore, paid our dues and bought ice, more Chardonnay, fly spray as well as paper towel. We slip our mooring turning north to the Yasawa group of islands of the coast some 30nm north west of Nadi

Our first call was to an anchorage in Yalobi Bay behind the reef that links Wayasewa also known as Wayalailai (Little Waya) and Waya islands. Two other yachts are in the bay as we drop anchor opposite the village of Nabaro and its long sandy beach.

               Nabaro village                                                                               A reef connects the two islands

On the hill above is the communications mast and we leap to our keyboards to connect, but there’s no signal. What is going on we wonder?

The sun is setting and after the usual customs are observed its time for dinner, Chicken wrapped in bacon with roasted vegetables and a quite night.

20130618 Tuesday

The Sun is up and so are we and having gathered ourselves together its time for a snorkel to explore the reefs by the village and then work our way across the barrier reef between the two islands

                          Different clownfish                                                                                  Beautiful corals

                           A pair of butterflies                                                                                         Brain as big as a planet

Though there is plenty of life on the reef the visibility deteriorates as we swim towards the barrier so we return along the shoreline in front of the village.  Somewhat disappointed we return to base and decide to move around to the next island looking for somewhere we can get a signal and hopefully a better reef.

                            Rock formation                                                                            looks a bit worm eaten closeup.  

Motoring to the next island presents the magnificent scenery of volcanic plugs that rise steeply to their cloud covered peaks and sandy, fringing beaches. Amazingly palm trees grow even at the top of these peaks and one ponders how they could have got there.

                  More rocks

We work our way through the reef very carefully. Neither chart agrees and with “Navionics” having thrown in the towel, showing reefs bulging out from the land all over the place, though we can see no sign of them as we sail over their green outlines on their chart.

I head to the bow on a reef watch and scan for the telltale light brown or greening seas that would indicate their presence or a breaking wave. Finally we drop anchor off the beach at the Octopus Resort which seems to be a very busy place.

From the yacht we watch as the catamaran ferry comes by, pausing for the armada of small boats that set out from the shore, to deposit baggage and departing guests and take off the new arrivals before it shoots off again heading for port Denarau and their transport to the airport at Nadi.

                          The ferry is being unloaded                                                         View from the bar

Venturing ashore Peter the manager greets us and tells us a $50 deposit, deductible from our final bill will get us and account. So it’s off to Office where we're signed in and then to the Bar to test its validity. There is half an hour of free wi-fi which we quickly consume so we cough up another $20 for 24 hour access.

                 Coconut bar                                                                                                            Main bar

Here we discover the cause of our comms problems; the system is run by Digitel here and not Vodaphone though they do operate the other side of the island.

A four course curry dinner is on offer and we return at 7 to take advantage of it and their adequate wine cellar.

                    Sandy diningroom                                                                                     Carving

20130619 Wednesday

When we dropped anchor we were pleasantly surprised to be able to see it lying on the bottom in 10 metres of water. Finning our way to the reef between us and the shore the visibility was around 10-15 metres, the best we had seen for some time

                      Spotty fish                                                                                                         Striped fish

It also turned out to be very beautiful reef with very little of the dead grey coral we had encountered previously, with a magnificent variety of colours and shapes only outdone by their resident fish.

               A black and white  Sergant Major

4pm we go ashore to check the dinner menu and emails. It four courses of fish Fijian style which we book in for, not noticing that it’s also quiz night.

The meal was excellent and then Dawnbreaker team of us two, a NZ couple of around our vintage and American family from LA, she like a slightly jaded starlet, husband and a pretty young daughter got stuck into the quiz.

                      The team                                                                                         Our American team member

The first round we did better than average, then it came to the music. This was provided by the two Compares whose singing abilities would make a Welshman cry, but despite this using the words as a guide we didn’t do to badly.

                        Singing duo.                                                                                        Harmony

The third part of the evening required each team to either sing or dance or perform in some way. As you can imagine this cleared most of the tables including ours as we slunk off to the dinghy and into the night!

              Talent performance                                                                        Jo-Jo the managers wife

As we settled down to a nightcap we could hear the noise from ashore and knew our departure had been a wise move.

                    Sunset from the beach. 

Bob the Blog