Monday, June 17, 2019

Passage to Fiji

[Kyle]The first night after clearing out of Neiafu, the forecast was for no wind and a whole lot of rain. Rather than being subjected to that while underway, we popped back into the anchorage at Mala to wait it out on the hook.

I’m so glad we did. The rain was torrential, like standing under a waterfall. It hit the deck and splashed back up from every direction at once, making for an instant soaking when venturing outside, even under the bimini in the cockpit.

We didn’t really need any water. We still had ten days left in our tanks above our reserve level and enough in the cockpit buckets for a rinse should we decide to have a swim for some reason. In Fiji, we could fill up with as much as we wanted for five Fijian dollars, so there was no need to carry any extra weight there if we didn’t have to.

Still, our water catchment was all set up, so we left it that way. All three of our 40 liter buckets were overflowing within twenty minutes. I wanted to clean off all of the muddy footprints that were covering the deck from our clearing out process (the road to the offices is dirt), so I donned a pair of swim trunks, lathered up (might as well get a free shower out of it) and headed out with a deck brush and a bottle of soap. When I was done, I was able to splash tons of fresh water over the decks and upend a bucket over myself for good measure. The tubs refilled so fast, I was able to then turn the cockpit into a rapidly draining little kiddie pool, sending all of the accumulated salt and sand back to the sea.

Afterwards, it felt strange to sit there and watch all of that clean, fresh water go into the sea. We are so habituated to thinking about conserving our limited resources that it was like watching money fall out of an ATM onto the ground and standing there passively while the wind blows it all away.

It was still coming down in big, heavy sheets in the morning. By the time we were finished with breakfast, it had stopped. By the time the anchor was up, the clouds were rapidly turning into bright sunshine.

We had a few slow squiggles on our track as the wind filled in and swirled in the lee of Vava’u. Then we reached clear air and FOOM! We were off.

It was the best passage we have had in ages. The wind was from behind. The waves were, too, and they were slight enough that we barely felt the motion. We weren’t in a particular hurry because the distance was such that a daytime departure and a daytime arrival meant we could back off of the throttle a little bit, so to speak. We threw an extra reef in each sail, which kept us well protected from any unexpected gusts.

The air was warm and the skies were clear. My first night watch was the perfect mix of three hours of bright moonlight followed by three hours of moonless stargazing. Oh, if only all long sails could be this easy…

On the third day, just past the halfway point, we made it to the Lau group of islands. We had to pick our way through them to get to the Koro Sea, the relatively unobstructed gap between the Lau and Fiji’s main island of Vitu Levu. The Lau consists of about eighty islands, about half of which are inhabited. In addition, there are loads of reefs and atolls to worry about there as well. Much of the area hasn’t been surveyed since the 1800s, when longitude was difficult to pin down accurately. Reports from people we have met that have been there area say it’s not uncommon for charts to be as much as ½ mile in error in places. As a result, our route zigzagged across open water like we had been dodging a fishing fleet or something. We saw no other boats. We were just trying to keep at least a mile away from anything that might be land or even a shallow spot.

When we got to the Koro Sea, we had to turn even further downwind. This made our jib flog annoyingly in the turbulence behind the mainsail. We solved that problem by bringing down the main and zipping it up into its bag, since the jib is generally less work to operate. That made the sailing even easier.

On the morning of Day Four, we just managed to catch sight of Fiji’s second biggest island of Vanua Levu before losing it again in a wave of heavy rain reminiscent of our last night in Tonga.

It ended just as we rounded the corner into Savusavu Bay. The sun came out and the rain immediately began the process of steaming back into the sky, making it both hot and muggy. We announced our arrival to the Copra Shed Marina. They are the biggest of the three marinas in the harbor and seem to have been given the unofficial role of Harbor Control by the others. They assigned us the last of their mooring balls and then seamlessly put later arrivals in berths or on balls at the other two marinas. The whole time we were in Savusavu we detected no rivalry whatsoever between businesses there.

Once we were tied up, a launch came out with our first official, the Health Officer. The health inspection was in the same style as the one we got in Tonga; hand us the bill, see if our hearts hold up. He explained that he is always first in case we are actually sick. That way, he is the only official that gets exposed to anything we may have. Apart from that, he was very friendly. He told us the history of the town, explained where to go to get most of the things we might need. He emphasized that if we ever had any questions about anything at all, not just health related, we could pop into his office anytime to ask. Savusavu looked small enough to be easy to figure out. I asked him about the water at the marina. He said it was safe and potable. That was good to hear. Then he said it just wasn’t that way today. Huh‽

”When it has been raining too much, runoff can get into the drinking water supply. It’s best to wait until the rain has stopped for a while.”

I pressed him further. He said the water was currently safe to drink, but they put a lot of chlorine in after rains, so we probably wouldn’t like the taste. He said everything would be back to normal in a couple of days at the most.

Next were Customs, Immigration and Quarantine. They were quick and efficient. Fiji has a very paperwork-intensive process. There are thirteen pages of forms to fill out. They did all of the writing for us, all while simultaneously repeating the previous guy’s insistence that we pop in or grab them on the street if we need help or advice on anything.


Sights on passage - mostly fine sailing with a bit of rain towards the end

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