Volivoli, Fiji - 4th October

Mustang Sally Cruising
Mark Lawrence & Dianne Jackson
Tue 3 Oct 2017 19:46

Our current position is anchored off Volivoli resort on the northern coast of Vitu Levu in Fiji

17:18.84S 178:10.32E

 

We arrived back at Savusavu, Fiji about 10days ago and the plan all went well.  We arrived on a Sunday and were not able to clear in however, we moved into one of the floating berths at the Copra Shed marina early on Monday morning and were cleared back into Fiji shortly after.  This is our first time to Savusavu and so far like it a lot and are looking forward to spending more time in this area next season however, this year there is no dawdling so we applied and received our Cruising Permit (which allows you to travel around the various islands of Fiji) in a couple of days, did a bit of re-provisioning, some laundry and were on our way again by Wednesday 27th Sept.  We did however have enough time to enjoy a catch up with some cruising buddies which was great.

 

To get back to Vuda Marina, which is where Sally is spending the cyclone season again, takes a few days as much of the 150NM passage is spent negotiating reefs so must be done in daylight hours.  We departed from Savusavu early on the Wednesday and were joined by our good friends on SV Whistler for the 45NM trek down to Makogai which is a small island which just happens to be a very convenient distance from Savusavu for a day sail so is the standard stop over spot for yachts heading across.  We had an interesting day sailing with plenty of cloud and a few rain squalls in the morning but ended up with a lovely afternoon arriving at the Makogai entrance in good light.

 

Thursday was a light wind day so rather than motoring decided to spend the day exploring. 

We went in for a visit to the small village of Dalice which was badly damaged last year in TC Winston but is now showing signs of recovery.  This used to be a leper colony and the young lads from the family living here were kind enough to take us on a tour of the village and the remains of the old leper colony including a walk to the old cemetery.

 

                                                                                   Makogai Cemetery

 

 

It is up early again on Friday for the passage over to Nananu-I-Cake. 

Monty and Margy from SV Whistler were kind enough to send us the waypoints for a ‘short cut’ which takes a couple of hours off the normal route and although you are travelling through a couple of reef systems was all quite easy and worked out well for us which meant we had the anchor down by 15:00H which also meant Monty had enough time to get out for a kite board in the arvo.

 

Nananu- I-Cake is well known for its kiteboarding so we quickly arranged a couple of lessons with Warren from the Safari Island Lodge.  

The yachties have kept him a bit busy the last few days as all three yachts in the anchorage (Sally, ViVa and Whistler) are all at various stages of learning to kite.

After our first lesson on Saturday we did a quick pack up and did a quick trip around to the Volivoli resort for dinner as they were televising the AFL Grand Final (well done to Richmond) and also to celebrate Margy’s birthday which was lots of fun.

 

 

We had a couple of great lessons with Warren and good progress is being made.  We are now able to do a little bit of upwind riding (from time to time) and even managed to get in a couple of turns so he has given us plenty of guidance and now have lots of new stuff to work on.  Big thanks to Margy for the great shots below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The wind is pretty strong for the next couple of days so we have headed back across to Volivoli where we had lunch at the resort yesterday and are heading into RakiRaki this morning to get a few fresh provisions.

 

Hopefully the wind will be down a bit tomorrow, as per the forecast, so that we can head back and get in a couple of more kiting sessions and work on kiting retrieval technique from the dinghy before the final leg back to Vuda.

 

At this stage the plan is to spend a few more days in this area and then slowly start making our way back to Vuda arriving somewhere around the 12th – 14th October to get the boat ready for haul out on the 23rd and then we fly home on the 2nd November…. Not long to go now…