Our current position is anchored on the North West end of Taveuni off the town off Matei. 

Our anchorage is described as the pizza shop anchorage and yes we are anchored in front of the pizza place and a number of other resorts.  The current position is at 16:41.572S 179:53.733W

 

You will notice that we have now crossed the 180 degree Meridian Line and are now in the Western Hemisphere.  We found this is a bit like the Bermuda Triangle of Fiji as we lost GPS signal and many of the electronic charting systems just seem to stop here which can cause many issues especially when the charting is not great to start with.

 

Since our last blog we have been many places and travelled about 170NM.

 

After the night at Viti Levu Bay we travelled to the following places:

 

We spent a night at Naigani Island which is the jump off spot to head to the eastern islands of Fiji.

Naigani is a beautiful little island and a very nice spot to spend the night especially as we are in a patch of very calm weather at the moment which is a bit unseasonal.

 

 

 

We then travelled to the bay at the northern end of Koro which made a good overnight stop but not sure that we would be too interested in stopping there longer.

On the 6th June headed across to Vuna Bay which is at the southern end off Taveuni and picked up a mooring off Paradise Resort and it is pretty much like Paradise – they don’t call it the garden island for nothing – it is incredibly lush and green.

 

 

 

We spent 5 nights at Paradise.  We caught up with a cruising mate, Cheryl from the yacht Interlude 1X who is working at the resort for the next twelve months.  The yachties are very welcome here and we enjoyed their hospitality including laundry, fresh water, showers and a lovely meal or two at their restaurant.  We also enjoyed the company of the two resort dogs Brownie and Beethoven.

Their is some extensive farming down this end of the island with a couple of very large copra and beef farms. They even have an abattoir and butcher so have picked up some lovely fresh meat to enjoy over the next few nights. 

 

 

Yesterday we decided it was time to leave Paradise for a bit (sure we will be back before we leave Taveuni) and headed north.  We were hoping to anchor off the main town of Somosomo to get some provisions but found the anchorage a bit too deep for us at 25-30mts so decided to continue onto our current position off Matei.  This is also a lovely spot and is the main tourist end of the island so there seems to be plenty going on.  Paul from the yacht Looping has his yacht here and also runs a kiting resort so we are hoping that the wind may improve later in the week so that we can enjoy some kiting up here before we move on again.  After we arrived we did the obligatory “arrival  snorkel” on the anchor in 7mts of crystal clear water so not too taxing and also went and had a look at the nearby reefs which are some of the best snorkelling we have seen in Fiji with a great diversity of hard coral, lots of fishies and even saw a very large sea snake and eagle ray so were very pleased with our underwater explorations.

 

This morning we moved to Plan B re provisioning and hitched a ride into Somosomo early only to find the market (which consists of a few stalls along the main road) didn’t open till 8:30 so we went for a wander around town, had a cup of tea at the local cafe before heading back to the market to stock up with some lovely fresh produce.  Next was a taxi ride down to the local Max Value Supermarket to pick up a few more goods including a frozen chook which will be on the BBQ tomorrow night.

 

When we went off for explore this morning we weren’t aware of how much the tide effects the dinghy landing and when we got back to the dinghy found it high and dry with quite a bit of coral between us and the deep water of the bay but nothing we couldn’t handle but will definitely be more aware of this for further shore parties.

 

Over the next few days when we have some very sunny weather we are hoping to move up to the anchorage at the northern tip of the island which is only about 1NM away but is has a lot more protection from the swell and is also closer to the kite boarding location but is surrounded by reef so want to make sure we have good visibility before we head up there.

 

As we are anchored off the pizza joint we are thinking that it could be a good option for dinner tonight.  We may even be able to encourage our fellow Hunter Owners on Sky Blue Eyes who are anchored up right next door to join us for Beer and Pizza Night!