29/10/09 - 18.08S 178.25E - Viti Levu, Fiji

Flying Cloud
Julian Nichols
Thu 29 Oct 2009 21:11
At 8am in the morning Matt faithfully called Customs and arranged to be boarded.
We waited, and Customs, Immigration and Health paid us a visit by 10am.
All went well - as expected - other than we discovered that Fiji has a 48 hour pre-arrival notification requirement (like New Zealand), which we had failed to perform. However, unlike NZ this 48 hour pre-arrival notification is not in any of the guidebooks that we have and was not mentioned to us by anyone along the way. TAKE NOTE - if you are going to Fiji there is up to a $10,000 fine if you don't perform the 48hour pre-notification.

For us this meant that resolving Customs chewed up most of Thursday (today) and ran into the following Monday (when we planned to clear out). We did meet a boat that had been pleading with Customs for 11 days!

Other than some admin, minor repairs and re-fueling - we managed to hire a car and book a whitewater rafting trip down one of the great Fijian rivers - the upper Navua, and look around the main town of Suva (pass).

One thing is clear - Fijians are very happy and welcoming - even if you haven't given your 48hr pre-arrival notification!