Malolo Island, Fiji - with pictures
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Fri 4 Jul 2008 03:57
|
17:45.108S 177:09.000E
Pictures are attached to this version.
On Monday (6/30), we left Saweni Bay and made our
way in some pretty hefty winds down the coast of Viti Levu to Vuda Point, where
there is a marina with a fuel dock. Wow, what a concept - a
marina with a fuel dock. No crumbling concrete wharves, no swell, no
Mediterranean mooring (anchor down and stern to) no fuel trucks, no
customs paperwork. We didn't use that fuel coming from Tonga, but we
decided it was best to top up before leaving for Vanuatu on the
5th.
The marina and the fuel dock sounded
perfect....there was just one problem. With our inaccurate charts, we
couldn't tell where the entrance to the marina was. We slowed down
and approached the coast with binoculars in hand. There was a bunch
of oil tanker mooring buoys and some other markers near shore, but Fiji doesn't
seem to follow any standard coastal navigation buoy system. No red or
green navigation buoys. No yellow or black either. Once in a while
there is a stick visible above the water, but it's not clear just what it
is marking. In other places there are sticks with white and black small
triangles on top, but no indication as to what they mean. We inched closer
to where we thought the channel to the marina might be. We started to see
the outline of some sticks ahead. Then a power boat passed us by and wound
its way through the invisible marina channel. Excellent, an example to
follow. Don sped up and we headed for the sticks. As we got closer,
it became clearer. The sticks had white triangles on top and they marked
either side of an incredibly narrow and shallow channel leading into the marina
with reefs on either side. We had timed our arrival such that we were
coming in on a rising tide. Good thing as the water below the keel coming
through the channel was a bit scarce.
As we approached the marina, the captain sent me up
to the bow with the binoculars to figure out just where the fuel dock was and
then direct him to it. Sounds easy, but the fuel dock was hiding around a
corner and camouflaged as a giant rock with rows of tires strung on the side of
it. As we crept around the corner, I yelled over to what looked like fuel
dock guys who were working on hanging new tires on the fuel dock rock. 'Is
this the fuel dock?' I asked. They looked at me, probably
incredulous that I couldn't figure it out on my own, and finally answered,
'Yes!'. Very good. Don maneuvered the boat around and laid it
perfectly alongside the rock dock. The rock dock guys were very nice and
we fueled up in the nice and quiet marina with no trouble. Once finished,
we said good-bye to the rock dock guys, who went back to hanging the new tires
and we headed out the incredibly narrow and shallow channel to the relative
safety of open water.
Picture 1 is our view as we left the
marina and fuel dock behind us. The rock dock is hidden around the
corner to the right beyond the thatch-roof gazebo. Picture 2 is the
narrow and shallow trench ahead of us, leading out to open water with the
reef marked on either side by the sticks with white triangles on top. I
should note that our electronic chart showed us well up on land when we were
tied to the rock dock. Slightly inaccurate we would say - but what can you
do? Many of these electronic charts are based on the latest surveys, which
in some cases were done hundreds of years ago.
After our fueling experience, we headed northwest
about twenty miles to the island group of Malolo and Malolo Lailai.
Malolo and Malolo Lailai as well as a few other smaller islands are surrounded
by a single reef. The pass through the reef is narrow, not well marked
(big surprise) and strewn with coral heads here and there. All the
information we had read said not to make the approach in the dark or late in the
day when the sun is in your eyes and reflecting on the water such that coral
heads and reefs can't be seen. We, of course, approached the pass late in
the day with the sun in our eyes and reflecting on the water such that coral
heads and reefs couldn't be seen. We went slowly, and because this island
group houses a large number of resorts, there was plenty of boat traffic that we
generally followed through the pass and around the various black and white
triangle topped sticks that apparently marked the edge of the reef and various
coral heads.
All the rally boats were scheduled to meet in
Musket Cove, which is a resort on Malolo Lailai Island, on July 2. We
decided to spend our last night before meeting the group anchored off the coast
of Malolo Island, less than a mile away from Musket Cove. We wound our way
around the reefs in the lagoon while the sun sank lower and the wind picked
up. We arrived in the small bay, which was deep at about 60 feet, but
narrow with reefs all around (according to the chart there were reefs all around
anyway). We set the anchor and the wind started whistling up to a steady
twenty-three knots. We've seen worse, but usually associated with a
passing storm, when the duration of high wind is short. Not so that
night, the wind whistled and howled steadily from the time we arrived until
about three in the morning when I finally decided it was safe to go to bed
without having to worry about the anchor dragging and the boat landing on a
reef. Don slept well all night. He always has more confidence in the
security of our anchor than I do. Although after a year on the boat (yes,
July 1 was our one year living-on-the-boat anniversary), and successfully
anchoring several hundred times without dragging once, one would think I
would share his confidence by now, but I still worry anyway. I
think worrying is a family trait from my mother's side.
That same evening, Branec followed us into the bay,
anchored, and then decided the wind was too high and the reefs too close for
comfort, so they made their way back to Musket Cove where they picked up a
mooring. Picture 3 is our view of Branec in the bay before they decided to
weigh anchor and leave. Branec is definitely the most unique looking boat
in the rally (and boasts the least creature comforts with no refrigeration, no
oven, no kitchen to speak of except for a small sink and one burner, no bathroom
except for a toilet, etc.). Its truly a racing boat and very unlike most
of the floating condos the rest of us luxuriate in.
Anne |
