Underway Again

We have been watching the weather carefully over the last few days, trying to decide when to leave Savusavu, and the decision was made yesterday afternoon to leave today as conditions looked pretty good. We were up at 5.30am this morning, a still, sunny morning, and motored out the bay at 6.30am. The wind stayed light, between 3 and 7 knots and we enjoyed using the new big red reacher sail successfully, cruising along between 3 and 4 knots on flat seas. We are at the start of a 4-5 day cruise along the coasts of southern Vanua Levu and northern Viti Levu to the Lautoka region, anchoring in a different spot each night. We are currently anchored in Navatu Bay, a peaceful and sheltered spot behind the reefs and up near the mangroves. We have just had a visitor from the local village, a 13 year old lad on a bamboo raft, who was most interested in Katipo.

We found it hard to leave Savusavu. We so enjoyed our time there, an interesting place and very social. In between meals of Wahoo, we ate out at some great Indian restaurants with fellow yachties. We also spent quite a few fun evenings at the Savusavu yacht club watching some World Cup Rugby games while testing the Fiji Beers. Watching the All Blacks defeat the French was a particularly fun night - there were quite a few French yachties there as well as Kiwis and other nationalities - so some friendly rivalry.

We boarded the bus to Labasa at 7.30am one morning for the 2 1/2 journey over the mountains to the north coast of Vanua Levu. The craggy, jungle clad scenery was dramatic and we had plenty of time to admire it as the old bus ground up the hills in first gear! Labasa is centred in one of the main sugar cane areas of Fiji. It is harvest time at the moment and we saw dozens of trucks with huge loads making their way to the Sugar Mill in Labasa. At the mill itself, long lines of trucks were waiting to have their loads weighed and processed. Labasa has more Indo Fijians than Savusavu, making it a colourful place. We saw a couple of temples, one Hindu and one Sikh, and could not resist the Hare Krishna restaurant for morning tea and lunch. We tried some interesting delicacies such as spiced taro leaves, made into a flat patty and fried and Masala tea. We meandered through the fruit and veg and fish markets and also the general market, the air heavily laden with the scent of exotic spices. The return trip was even longer. The bus was full to overflowing with school children and workers heading home. It stopped often to drop off and collect passengers, an opportunity to see the mountain villages. It was very dark for the latter half of the journey and we were amazed to see people climb off the bus into what seemed very remote places - they disappeared into the blackness, no sign of habitation to be seen.

Tomorrow, we are heading through the Nasonisoni Passage, across Wainuni Bay to Coconut Point - we are hoping for a sunny day so that we can see our way through the coral heads.

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com