Fiji - Suva
Questionable Logic
Ewan Briggs
Tue 25 Aug 2009 19:18
Position: 18:07.38S
178:25.52E
We've come to Suva
to experience Fiji's capital city, drop of Kirsten and Mark and to provision the
boat ready for our leg to New Caledonia. After three days we've just about
ticked them all off, just a few more formalities to do with Customs and
Immigration tomorrow, fill up with fuel and water and then we're
off.
Mairi did some great
work researching diving options here, and persuaded the rest of us to go on a
couple of shark dives today. We went with AquaTrek who've been doing some great
work reviving an area of reef off the south coast of Viti Levu towards Beqa. The
site is known as the Bistro (not sure why) but has been developed as a great
spot to see sharks in the wild. We did two dives, both involving feeding small
fish and the sharks (all part of encouraging the small fish back to help the
coral come back to life and rekindle the local ecosystem). As you can probably
imagine the food attracted both lots of fish - from small reef fish to some of
the larger sharks, and a pretty big grouper (about the size of a large pig). We
saw plenty of nurse sharks, bull sharks, a couple of lemon sharks, but the
highlight was a 4m tigershark which domiated our second dive (when she's around
the other smaller sharks don't really bother to turn up). We watched her feed
for probably about 20 mins, often coming within about a foot of us divers, and
being 'handled' by the dive guides! It is still sinking in to be honest - such a
stunning shark.
Other than that
we've been enjoying the laid back atmosphere of the Royal Suva Yacht Club and
experiencing some of the sights, sounds and tastes that Suva has to offer. We
are right in the middle of the Hibiscus festival at the moment, so there are
always lots of people out and about enjoying the 'fijian sunshine' (the weather
here has been a mixture of sunny days and cloudy days with some drizzle - it's
winter here and seems to be remarkably like a UK summer (or maybe I'm just
getting spoilt and soft!).
1700miles to go to
Sydney, just the two legs now - feels close, but 1700 miles is still a long way
to go at almost any pace - let alone at a max of about 9miles an
hour!
Mark concentrating
hard...
Engagement Bay
!!!!
Mairi hard at work scrubbing the
keel
In Suva celebrating the engagement!