Arrival in Fiji

Safiya
Harvey & Sue Death
Tue 5 Sep 2017 20:32
Arrival in Fiji
Thankfully our sail to Fiji was much kinder than our previous passage.
Grace was able to sunbathe without being thrown off the boat and we even
managed half a game of scrabble before one particularly lively wave knocked
all the letters off the board! It took us 2 days and we sailed within sight
of two other Oysters the whole way which inevitably turned our cruise into a
race!
We landed a lovely big Mahi Mahi which was duly gutted and filleted ready
for dinner upon arrival.
We arrived into the Lau group of islands which are the most easterly Fijian
islands. Oyster had arranged customers and immigration clearance especially
for us as it is not normally a port of entrance, therefore the islands are
not widely visited by yachties.
We anchored off an island called Vanua Balavu, by a tiny village. The
islands were badly hit by Cylone Winston in February 2016 and there is still
a lot of construction going on as most of the buildings were badly damaged.
The village was made up of a scattering of houses, no shops, banks,
restaurants etc, just a bakery where the oven consisted of an oil drum over
a wood fire, but the baker managed to turn out the most consistently
fantastic bread.
The village laid on a welcome party for us which commenced with the very
serious business of presenting kava to the chief of the village. Kava is a
root vegetable (not a Spanish sparking wine!), which is widely drunk in
Fiji. It is mildly narcotic and the locals drink it as we would drink
alcohol. Thus when you visit any village for the first time it is customary
to present the gift of Kava much as we would take a bottle of wine if we
were visiting friends. The root is boiled up and pressed through a cloth and
the end result is a very unappetising grey liquid which looks a bit like
dirty, dish water. I declined it, Grace tried some and she said it made her
mouth go numb!
Once the serious business was out of the way we were entertained with some
local singing and dancing followed by a feast which the ladies of the
village had cooked up which consisted of foods that were either grown,
farmed or fished locally.
We moved a little further to the north of the island to an area called the
Bay of Islands. We navigated around reefs and coral heads into a stunningly
beautiful anchorage dotted with small rocky outcrops. In between these tiny
islands were grottos and coves with azure blue water. There was a tiny
little white sand beach on one of the islands which inevitably became the
venue for an impromptu beach BBQ for the dozen or so Oysters anchored there.
Yesterday we went on a dingy safari, following a local guy in his boat he
lead us around the maze of islands stopping in beautiful grottos and caves
where we snorkelled and swam.
Immediately after the dingy safari we set off for our second stop in Fiji,
Savusavu where unfortunately Grace has to fly back from in a few days.

JPEG image

JPEG image

JPEG image

JPEG image

JPEG image

JPEG image

JPEG image