Tuesday  May 21^st , South Coast of Viti Levu , Fiji  18:15S  177 38E 

Today’s Blog by David  (Time zone BST +11; UTC +12.00)

Suva is like most port towns in hot second world countries. Hot, dirty, polluted, smelly and reminiscent of my African past.  The traffic on Friday  -  as we decided to walk into town at circa 17.30  after eventually completing the first half of customs/immigration process – comprised the usual dilapidated HGVs, passenger coaches that looked like they had been purchased second hand  scrapped when already beyond use by the Indian Transport Authorities - and hundreds of taxis. These taxis are ordinary saloon cars, metered, and are extraordinarily cheap – quite probably because  they are not well maintained, appear to lack seatbelts and are driven by geriatric rally car enthusiasts with the same disregard for personal safety as  one terminally ill with pancreatic cancer!  But, as a town, Suva does appear to work, if you know where to look.

The customs process requires us to check into the country, to obtain clearances from customs, immigration, health and biosecurity and to be presented with various bits of paper of which two are invoices. These invoices have to be paid and evidence of settlement presented back to customs before we can be granted a Clearance to leave port. These invoices could not be settled until Monday and so reluctantly we found ourselves with time to do the sights of Suva properly.

The Royal Suva Yacht Club is reminiscent of Lagos Yacht Club with a colonial feel; it  is an oasis for yotties with a friendly staff and all amenities including a reasonably good restaurant (European food)  where we ate in Friday.   It is unfortunately based next door to the offices of the  Fijian Corrections Service and the concomitant Suva Corrections Centre (aka Federal penitentiary) over the road. This latter is a forbidding building with five foot high fences of coiled barbed wire on top of 12 foot high concrete walls with the obligatory Stalag Luft 15 style sentry towers with gun emplacements.  Its least attractive attribute was the air-raid siren style alarm that went off at 06.00 every morning.  We were very keen to put that far astern.

We took advice and -  on Saturday- Richard and Daryl having made a special excursion to the museum -  we ate at Henry’s Bar which is at the Suva Bowling Club and recommended to us for its Fijian Cuisine. Here the three of us ate well for the princely sum of £15 plus drinks. The wine list was uncompromisingly short, comprising only one, red, house wine but we did manage to accommodate it within our preferences. Here, Richard and Daryl ticked off Taro from the list of Fijian delicacies to experience (a staple carbohydrate, similar to and even more tasteless than cassava).

Sunday was a slow day at anchor in the primordial protoplasmic malodourous brown gloop that passes for water in the harbour there. We did not see the need to close the holding tanks – we felt our  effluent might add a certain fresh fragrance to the atmosphere around us!   We did have to collect the laundry but other than that we stayed aboard and pottered around talking about which culinary experience best suited our aspirations that evening. I was particularly keen to find some real Fijian food – particularly Kolkoda (raw fish marinated in lime juice and served with chopped spring onion, peppers tomatoes and chillies in Coconut milk).  For this, we lit upon Tico’s a floating fish restaurant renowned for its Surf and Turf experience, only to find that it is shut on Sunday. A rather nice Indian meal followed.

In addition to the paying invoices and port clearance, one other task remained for me Monday which was to obtain “Facilitation Letters” to allow my three new crew to enter Fiji without a return ticket –(‘cos they are leaving Fiji on the boat, Dumbo!)  While the customs person was able to “sign off” Richard and Daryl as from the 27^th, I needed to apply in person to the immigration offices in Suva, with a written request in duplicate, copy passports etc etc. The customs officer made it clear that it would be a long process and I would be much better advised to do this in Lautoka where it might be accomplished more speedily but two of my crew planned to travel to Fiji ahead of time for some sight seeking and are travelling today. So the day dawned with the prospect of another dull day in Suva while I sat around in some sticky office somewhere,  waiting for governmental l wheels to turn in their usual geological pace.

At about 7.40AM we received a call from our agent in Port Denarau to whom I had reached out in desperation on Sunday to see if she had any silver bullet. Not silver, but GOLDEN since she offered (for a fee) to take it off our hands ( she procured the letters in Lautoka and sent them  to us by 12.00). So thus heartened we paid the bills, obtained the Port Clearance and were underway by 11.15 AM.

We had been gagging to get out to sea and there proved to be a steady breeze – about 12 knots  from the East. The story of our day sail to the island of Yanuca could fill another few pages. But it won’t. Suffice it  to say that  it took us over an hour to properly rig and launch the Code Zero including at one stage having it upside down and having string in the wrong places at several stages.  Once up we had a pleasant sail – it came down without incident and we anchored in clear water off a sandy beach.

And then,  at last,  we went for a swim!

David Caukill

Yacht Serendipity

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