Dodging the Reefs

Coordinates: 17 25 584S 17 44 874E

It was a brilliant, hot sunny day today. We have escaped the rains! Apparently this side of Viti Levu up to to the Yasawas is the driest part of Fiji. The prevailing winds tend to drop the rain on the south and east of this island. We were grateful for the sunlight to help navigate the many reefs on today's passage. When the sun is out the colours on the water are quite different over the submerged reefs. Deeper water is dark blue and water over the reefs is turquoise blue.

With favourable SE winds of 15 to 25 knots we sailed the whole way wending our way through reefs whilst hand steering. A couple of passages were quite narrow - you could not let your concentration lapse. We are following an 'inland' passage inside the outer reef surrounding the shores, which is well charted (some areas of Fiji are poorly charted) though one or two of the markers appeared to be missing. The waters are relatively flat making for pleasant sailing. It may be interesting for you to look up a google map of this area to understand the complexity of the reefs. It is always fascinating to sail along the coastline in new territory - there is always something of interest to spot. The journey today was very pretty, a mix of forested hills and craggy, dry hillsides, sandy beaches and mangrove fringed bays. We were surprised to see some large, luxurious looking houses scattered along some parts of the coast. We understand they are holiday homes for mainly rich Europeans.

We are are anchored in a small bay just past Vatia Wharf, just one more days hop and we should reach our destination of Saweni Bay, near Lautoka. The dinghy has been stowed upside down on the foredeck since we left Savusavu, so we have not been ashore for a few days. This is largely because it takes quite a lot of time and effort, using the spinnaker pole to winch the dinghy up and swing it out and lower it into the water and then we have to reverse the procedure when bringing it back on board Katipo. It has been good to relax once we put down anchor after our early starts.

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