Yadua Island

[Kyle]Our sail from Navidamu westwards along the northern Vanua Levu coast started out well. We weighed anchor and ran northwestwards under double-reefed mainsail in winds that increased as we left the land behind. After about three miles, we cleared the extensive shoals to the south and west of the village and were finally able to turn across the wind to parallel the coast. We unrolled the jib and had fast, easy sailing in the flat water in the lee of the island.

Moving west along the north coast of Vanua Levu

That lasted for about fifteen miles or so, until our course, which had slowly been converging with the shore, finally got close enough that we were once again in the turbulence behind the mountains. Then the wind went through a cycle of five minutes on, which was just enough to make us think our woes were over, and fifteen minutes off, which made us think we would have to start a motor and spend the rest of the day like that. Eventually, after clearing the impressive headland at Naivaka (Sleepy Point), with its 500-meter peaks, we found ourselves in twenty-five knot headwinds for the remainder of our leg to the deep indentation at Nokanoka, just up the coast from the extreme western edge of Vanua Levu, the smaller of Fiji's two main islands.

Nokanoka is pretty, but is otherwise lacking in diversions. There is no village there and no beach. Most of the shore is hidden behind a band of mangroves. There is some coral around the edges of the inlet, but generally speaking, it is heavily silted over, which makes sense in the murky water.

Thus, we were able to have a couple of guilt-free days, where we didn't feel compelled to leave the boat. Even better, the steep valley at Nokanoka was aligned with the prevailing winds, which rumbled down the valley to meet us. For the first time in a while, we were able to wake up each morning to a battery bank that had been kept completely full all night long by our wind turbine. With it and our solar panels able to put out more electricity than we could even use during the day, we had the luxury of being able to be somewhat indiscriminate with it.

On Day Three, the southeast winds backed slightly to the east-southeast and strengthened, which would give us a strong beam reach for the fifteen-mile leg from Nokanoka to Yadua Island. There are extensive reefs between Yadua and Vanua Levu, which put some zigzags in our track, but also helped tamp down the worst of the swell. After a few hours, we were rounding Yadua's northwest corner and turning into thirty knot headwinds for the last couple miles of motoring into Cukuvou Harbor. We found a spot in thirteen meters of depth alongside one other boat.

Yadua is well-known for having good snorkeling at Cukuvou, but the next few days were forecast to be in very strong winds, so our plan was to hunker through them aboard while crossing our fingers that the anchor holds.

Visitors to the boat
including Sevu (wearing his blue park ranger t-shirt)

Before they started in earnest, a local boat with two men arrived. We invited them aboard. They introduced themselves as Sevu, the Park Ranger, and Lua, the grandson of Yadua's chief. Sevu patrols the island. Lua spearfishes during breaks. We got the rundown of the island and were even able to give our kava to the men to take to the village, on the weather-beaten opposite side of the island, for a remote sevusevu ceremony. The anchorages on that side of Yadua are tenuous on a good day. This was definitely not one of those. There was no way we were going to be able to make the trip in the current conditions in our Portland Pudgy, so it was nice of them to handle it for us.

Before the wind picked up too far, we took the opportunity to go ashore the next day. Getting to the beach was a struggle, like a thirty-minute workout with the rowing machine on ‘high'. Once ashore in the protection of the trees, conditions seemed almost normal. With an aim to getting over the ridge to the beach on the opposite, windward side of the anchorage, we tried a couple of trails inland, but they eventually petered out on us. We were at least able to forage some fresh papayas for later.

Exploring ashore

We returned to the beach, walked to the other end, and then a little further over tidal rocks, before finally finding the correct trail over the ridge to the long beach on the windward side, called Talai. This beach was beautiful, with long views of southern Yadua, and completely exposed to the building wind. It was the kind you had to lean into while holding your hands over your eyes as protection from stinging grains of flying sand. Well, at least we were getting a walk in. We've been overdue for that.

After regaining the ridge on the way back to Cukuvou, we took a side trail that led us to a couple of high points on the cliffs edging the bay. There, we got nice views of the wind-streaked anchorage.

Just before dinner, we were visited by a local boat with four men in it, who said they were just starting an overnight stint of fishing. Only one of them was wearing anything waterproof. They told us that when they were finished fishing, they would take their catch to market on Vanua Levu in the morning.

When we told them about tomorrow's forecast of thirty-knot winds, with gusts to forty, which would be headwinds for them to Vanua Levu, they seemed concerned, but not deterred. We gave them hot coffee, wished them luck fishing tonight, but especially on the trip to market tomorrow. Then they headed to the beach to make camp.

When we emerged from our bed in the morning, the men were gone and the gusts coming through the anchorage felt like they were going to lift Begonia right out of the water, held aloft by her anchor chain like a kite. Maryanne shared with me the news that another local boat had gone missing, over in the Lau Group. It was the second this month. So far, there was no sign of them, and a big search was underway.

By the next afternoon, the wind had abated ever so slightly. We made a plan of doing a quick snorkel in Begonia's immediate vicinity, with the option of bailing out if the water is too churned up.

We started along the reefs along the southern shore of Cukuvou. There was plenty of variety there, with high proportions of vibrant healthy species, and plenty of fishes that were too small to be worth catching by Yaduans.

The water was still unseasonably cold, though. I had opted out of wearing a wetsuit for simplicity's sake, which meant I was soon tugging on Maryanne's fin to tell her I was going to give up and retreat to the warmth of home while she finished her swim.

The next day, having finally accepted that it would be worth the effort after all, I donned my full outfit, including the hood. That took temperature out of the endurance calculation, and Maryanne and I were able to have an hours-long swim to, and then around, the big patch of coral in the middle of the bay.

Some beautiful snorkelling along the reef walls at the entrance of the bay

That patch was even livelier than the one yesterday. That, in turn, made us go nuts the next day. We swam past the central patch to the large reef at the southern headland. Then we followed its edge all the way around to the wall on the outside, and then kept going until we had left the bay altogether and could no longer see Begonia.

The wall was just fantastic, with lots of bright corals and darting fishes. It plunges straight down into the black depths below. Occasionally, we would pass a little canyon along the way, which made for a pleasant detour with 360-degree views. Since I am pretty good at free diving, I would often follow the wall to the fifteen-meter range or so, where I was constantly surprised by how porous this giant coral structure above me was, with sunlight coming through holes and wide caverns that are big enough for a person to swim through if they were so inclined. I was not, as at those depths I am wary of putting myself in any situation that could prevent my buoyancy from returning me to the surface.

After a few hours of this, we were both starting to get worn out. Following about the fifth “just to the next canyon”, we finally agreed that we should start heading home in earnest this time. Our route was all just a marvelous as it had been on the way out, which kept us from having to think too much about the miles of water between us and Begonia's swim ladder. The upwind bash across the featureless portion between the edge of the coral and the boat seemed to take ages, though.

Visitors - Local fishermen

After several years in communication we finally meet up with fellow cruisers - Cate and David - from the boat Noeta (photos thanks to Cate)

---

Anchorage location >> On google maps

Navidamu, Vanua Levu

[Kyle]From the Labasa anchorage, we had a pleasant downwind sail further east along Vanua Levu's north coast to the village of Navidamu. It was mostly pleasant, anyway, until we got to the big turn at Muaituna Island, just north of the anchorage. At that point, our eight to twelve-knot tailwinds shifted to twenty-five knot headwinds, then thirty knots. We reefed and then needed to reef some more as soon as we were finished with each. Then one big gust convinced us that perhaps we would be better off stowing the sails completely and starting the engines a mile earlier than planned for the entry to the anchorage.

The village of Navidamu lies in the middle of the long arc of the bay with the same name. A few hundred meters off the shore, there is a very obvious mudbank that had us choosing a spot a little to the left of the village, along the adjacent sandy beach. Before we were less than half a mile from the beach, our depth sounder told us that we would need to go no further and anchor right there.

A while later, we were visited by Joe and his nephews, Joseph and Frank, on their way home from a day of fishing. We told them we were going to rest tonight, but planned to go into the village for sevusevu in the morning before the water gets too low. Joe gave us directions to his house, bid us farewell and said he would see us then.

In the morning, we were finally underway a little later than we had expected. It was full moon spring tides now, which is when the greatest difference between high and low occurs. The water had receded to the bottom of the sand on the beach, and then kept going until a wide band of mud was exposed further out. As I rowed, Maryanne guided us to the spot she thought would get us closest to the beach.

By the time we were halfway from Begonia to the sand, the oars were already hitting bottom. We were able to continue until about the two-thirds mark, when we finally mushed to a halt. We need to jettison some ballast...

I got out of the dinghy, expecting to be towing Maryanne for a while, but then she jumped out too, saying she knew she'd be in the water with me soon enough, and it wasn't like she was going to be able to get to the beach without getting covered with mud.

Without us in it, the dinghy made it about three lengths before it was aground again.

The mud was pretty awful stuff. We sank to our ankles, and every second or third step, we'd lose a shoe to it. It was a good thing we were holding onto the dinghy, because it kept us from falling into the mud. We'd pull for a bit, then rest for a bit, gradually closing on the beach.

As we were working our way through that part of our morning, a local boat was over by the village, going through the same thing on its way back from what appeared to be net casting on the mudbank. The local boats are fiberglass, almost as long as Begonia, and generally have forty horsepower outboards, which must make them weigh three or four times as much as our dinghy does. As the water was too shallow to use the outboard, it was lifted clear of the water, and the poor guy was alternately punting or dragging his boat toward the village, while the women with him walked alongside. That seems like a tough way to make a living.

Maryanne and I finally dragged the pudgy above the high tide line about the same time as the other guy got close enough to tie that boat to a stake. We were both covered with mud below our knees, which was further covered in sand. There was no way we could do sevusevu like that, so our first order of business was to find a place where we could rinse off, in order to make ourselves presentable for entering the village.

Arriving at low tide certainly complicates things

We entered the village and found our way to Joe's house. He wasn't there at the moment. His wife, Eta, said that he had taken the bus into Labasa for the day, and wouldn't be back until the afternoon. In the meantime, she took us into the village herself to help us find the Chief for sevusevu. Until we have completed the ceremony, custom says that we are considered visitors and must be escorted and introduced to the Chief first.

The Chief could not be found, nor anyone that would be authorized to act as his proxy. The lead candidate would be Livai, the Turaga ni Koro, or Headman, a position roughly analogous to Mayor, who performs all of the village's administrative duties. He was also in Labasa, and also expected to return on the afternoon bus.

Now Maryanne and I were in a pickle. Without going through sevusevu, we couldn't technically go wandering about the village introducing ourselves to people. The tide was even lower now than when we had landed, which made the two-way slog to go wait out the interval aboard Begonia undesirable. We had been expecting to kill the time to high tide in the village, but now we needed to find something else to do. We decided to walk along the road to Labasa for an hour and a half, then turn and head back to Navidamu in time to make it back before the bus did. Hopefully, we could at least get to see a view or two.

We took a walk out of town, up the hill to the logging forest area - a good dose of exercise

Leaving the village, the road climbed very steeply to the ridge above. There, we were able to join a different road to the next village to the west of Navidamu, called Nakalou. That road ran along the ridge, making for much easier going. During our entire walk, we saw maybe five vehicles. We were able to talk with one driver while he was stopped at the intersection. He worked for a logging company harvesting trees in the area. Another vehicle slowed to ask if we were okay, but we were surprised the rest went barreling by, leaving us in a cloud of dust. I mean, here we were, very obviously a couple of non-Fijians, a long way from the nearest anything, and dressed very formally by Fijian standards, and people were just swerving around us on their way to wherever they were going in a big hurry. I guess the last few anchorages of having every boat within sight come over to check on us and introduce themselves has skewed our expectations a bit. I suppose even the very end of a long road means you're going to find a few city people.

We made it back to Navidamu about an hour before the bus was scheduled to return. We popped in to see Eta and she invited us into her home to wait. We all chatted inside for a bit, and then Eta set up a mat outside for us to sit on while she built a fire so she could boil the kettle in anticipation of her daughter's return from school. She had a butane lighter, but it was still a long process for her to gather the wood and kindling, chop it all into the appropriate-sized pieces and coax the fire up to temperature. After a long while, the kettle boiled and she poured us both cups of lemon leaf tea.

We were so embarrassed. We hadn't realized until then that she had been going to all that trouble for us, not her daughter. Now it would be rude not to take the tea. Fortunately, lemon leaf tea is delicious, so it was no hardship at all. Then Eta disappeared and returned with a plate of scrumptious coconut cake to go with. That hit the spot after the long walk, but we would never have asked for or expected such unilateral kindness from a person who has already gone so far out of her way for us.

As we were enjoying our tea and cake, one of Eta's neighbors, another man named Joe, came over for a chat. After a while, he explained that some people were concerned about us because there are not a lot of visiting sailboats along the northern coast of Vanua Levu. The authorities, who are worried about the drug trafficking problem, have told people to be on the lookout for anything unusual, particularly sailboats going places they don't ordinarily frequent, presumably like half-price Happy Hour at yacht club bars or Jimmy Buffett look-a-like contests. If he had seen us come ashore, he would no doubt have known we were in no position to make a hasty getaway from the Narc Squad. Maryanne, who is always prepared, showed him copies of all our clearance paperwork that she keeps on her phone, while I did my best to hide the extensive collection of prison tattoos that I totally do not have. That seemed to satisfy Joe that we have been operating above board the whole time, allowing us to move onto other niceties for the remainder.

After a while, Eta announced that the man walking by along the road was the Turaga ni Koro (the title for the administrator of the village). She said it a couple of times before we understood what she meant. The man came over and introduced himself as Livai. He told us he would now be taking us to the Chief for sevusevu.

At the Chief's house, Livai coached on what to call out as we approached. Chief Waisea then invited us to enter his home and have a seat on the mat.

We presented our kava. Both Livai and Chief Waisea made long speeches – longer than other sevusevu speeches we have heard. Periodically, during these speeches, there are places when it is customary to clap or make some sort of response. Since Maryanne and I don't speak Fijian, we had to resort to the strategy of copying Livai, which had us always half a beat off-tempo.

Eventually, the incantations were finished and Chief Waisea switched to English for our benefit. After some small talk, he asked us when we had come ashore and where. When we confirmed that we were the ones with the little yellow dinghy, he told us that the other boat we had seen, the one with with its engine lifted out of the water as we were landing, had not been punting and dragging its way to shore because of the shallows. They had just left on an outbound fishing expedition from the village and then the engine had failed. After failing to restart it, they had to resort to returning to the village as we had seen them doing. The Chief explained that when they saw us, they had been hoping we would come and offer assistance. That was until they realized we had no engine ourselves and were also doing a long drag to get our boat ashore. Also, the Chief's wife was one of the people on that boat.

We were mortified. Honestly, we had no idea that anything unusual was happening. We just thought that their behavior was just what had to be done anytime they needed to arrive at the village at low tide. We exchanged smiles and one-armed, friendly waves with each other, but saw no signs of distress or urgency in anyone's manner. We certainly didn't want to give them something else to worry about.

Chief Waisea kept telling us it was okay, since it turned out we had no engine after all, but his measured Fijian politeness was hard for us to read.

He and Livai shared a few shells of kava with us and the conversation moved on, but Maryanne and I never completely got over feeling like we had spent the day making inadvertent social blunders.

Enjoy the hospitality of the locals: Eta made us tea, while we waited to perform our Sevusevu with the Livai (the Turaga ni Koro) and Waisea (the chief)

Livai walked us to our dinghy in the rapidly descending tropical darkness. High tide was in an hour or so and the water was just lapping at its stern. Livai asked us to visit again tomorrow, but we told him we thought it would be too difficult, with the tides being the way they were at the moment. We eventually agreed that he would try to visit Begonia once the tide was high enough in the afternoon.

That ended up never coming to pass. At the agreed time, the tide was still a bit too low to launch a boat from the village. Livai wanted to wait longer but, as Turaga ni Koro, he also had important duties at a big village fundraiser that afternoon. Eventually, nighttime fell and we knew he probably wasn't going to make it. {Maryanne: In hindsight I think thtere was a miscommunication at some point; we were expecting Livai to visit us wtih a local boat, and I think he assumed we were picking him up in our boat - oops!}

Late the next afternoon, just before sunset, we were visited by four members of a family returning from a day of fishing. One of them was a child having his second day ever on a boat. By that, they didn't mean a cruising sailboat, they meant any boat. That's why he had been so nervous about climbing from one to the other. We invited them aboard, gave them cups of tea and the tour. Then we spent half an hour talking and laughing before they said they needed to get home. The young boy (so new to boats and so nervious at the begninning seemed much more confident by the time he left).

No sooner had they left than a second boat arrived for more of the same with four new people. They hung out with us until it was clear the captain was starting to get anxious about making it back in the failing light.

That was nice. The spring tides had really not been helpful for visiting Navidamu, so it felt good to still be able to have a good chunk of the village come to us instead. They were all very friendly and it was good to have a chance to meet a cross section of them.

Visitors aboard Begonia at anchor off the village

---

Anchorage location >> On google maps

Labasa, Vanua Levu

[Kyle]The night before we left Blackjack/Bula Bay to sail to the Labasa anchorage ourselves, my back made one of those terrible pops it used to make way back when. Now I had two bad choices: collapse to the floor in agony, or remain standing in agony. I decided to compromise by slowly crawling down the adjacent wall to the floor in agony.

Oh, man! To the best of my knowledge, I haven't one of these back incidents in over five years. That's a pretty good run, but ow, not enough. This is my fault. We had a cinder block I was trying to get rid of by tossing it off the boat, like it was a discus. For some reason, I was still thinking I was young enough to hit the shore with it.

No! That's not what happened. What happened is that I did absolutely nothing at all that would be considered a test of any part of my body. I think I had just flexed a minor muscle in preparation for turning to pick up my toothbrush. I lift much heavier stuff all the time, and crank winches, and do pushups every morning, and walk virtually everywhere, and this is what gets me. How disheartening.

Maryanne wanted to postpone our sail to let me recover, but I managed to convince her that it would be better for me to convalesce at the next anchorage, where I promised to do nothing between our arrival and going into the city the day after next.

Fortunately, because of a lot of the stuff above, my recovery was quick. I was a little sore in the morning, but promised to let Maryanne do anything strenuous during the sail. The next day, I was basically fine again. The day after that, I was feeling as good as if the whole thing had never happened.

Time for a big day of provisioning.

Labasa, which of course, Fijians pronounce "Lambasa", is the only place along Vanua Levu's northern coastline where it is possible to do any more serious provisioning than picking up a few canned goods at a small shop. The more we thought about it, the less Maryanne and I were looking forward to our upcoming stop there. {Maryanne: The north coast of Vanua Levu is very remote and poorly inhabited, Labasa is a giant anomaly - providing the nearest good size town for so many people - with a giant market, and multiple large shopping complexes (electronics, hardware, supermarkets, etc) it is busy.

The problem is that Labasa is several miles up the shallow, tidal river from the mouth. The delta is also so shallow that it is necessary to anchor more than a mile out from the river mouth just to find enough depth.

Varying reports said it might just be possible to get Begonia up the river at high tide, but what if it's not? We eventually dismissed that idea on the basis that we didn't want to risk being the big news story for the week.

That left going in the dinghy as our remaining option. As anyone who has read this blog for a while knows, our Portland Pudgy is not fast. It's a displacement vessel (meaning not able to plane) with a hull speed of about two-and-a-half knots. With the electric outboard operating at a speed that will last the endurance of the round-trip, we would likely be a touch slower, particularly when weighed down on the return leg. Also, the Pudgy's bluff bow makes it pretty slow and wet when pushing into chop. The river itself would be fine, but the mile-and-a-half long upwind bash to get there was going to be pretty miserable for us. I estimated that the trip, hopefully with a little help from the current if timed right, would take about two hours each way. To get everything done in the top half of the tide, we would only end up with two hours in town to run around and get everything before we had to be back in the dinghy. Also, this whole expedition was going to have to be done in one load, so purchase wisely.

Plus, there was another problem: it was a full moon. It isn't werewolves we worry about; they're very friendly here. The problem is that during the full moon, high tide is at sunrise and sunset. That meant that to be in town at high tide, we would either have to go up the river before dawn or down the river after sunset, take your pick. Eventually, we chose an evening return, since the stores don't open that early, and also so our moonlit return would be our second time traversing the river's length.

When the day came, I decided we would be leaving at noon. That would get us to the river mouth at 1:00pm, which was still pretty low water, but on the flood tide, going up. If we grounded, we could wait for the tide to float us, and then continue so as to arrive in Labasa at the very first possible minute.

The day was looking pretty windy and choppy. I was just about to get up the motivation to drop the dinghy and start our long slog, when Maryanne decided to try her secret option.

Since Labasa is the only sizeable city that is accessible to the north coast, lots of the local villages and outlying islands get to town by periodically taking skiffs up the river. She was hoping she could flag one down and hitch a ride.

At the start of the afternoon tide, most of the boats we saw passed way too far from us to hail, as we were way out in the middle of the sound, and they were running closer to shore. Then we spotted a boat on the horizon coming right at us.

Maryanne waved like crazy and they stopped. Initially, they seemed to think we might have run aground or something and were asking for help. When Maryanne explained that we were hoping for a ride, the eight or so people aboard rearranged to make room for us.

In no time flat, we were zooming toward the river at fifteen knots, slicing and then effortlessly pushing aside the waves Maryanne and I had been fully expecting to be wearing not half an hour ago.

The boat was from the island of Kia, twenty miles to the northwest. The first fifteen miles of their journey was in big cross-swells and headwinds in the open ocean. Now they were in the flat water of the lagoon and looking forward to the glassy water of the Labasa River. Everybody was really nice and seemed to enjoy the novelty of picking us up and riding along with them. Nobody could remember ever doing that before. It was certainly nice to chat away with these lovely people as Captain Reuben navigated us up the river. They told us that on most days, two or three boats a day make the trip from Kia to Labasa, so that the islanders can do their shopping. Forty minutes after picking us up, we were all dropped off along the riverbank in town.

Looking back, we probably could have got Begonia all the way to town, provided we had followed a local boat instead of the channel. The problem then would be that there is nowhere to moor to shore and not enough room to anchor out of the way of the traffic. I liked this way much better. The ride was fast and smooth and we got to meet some really nice people.

We snagged a Kia Island village boat that happened to be going into town for the ride up the river (and back). Each of the 3 villages on Kia Island run a taxi-like service for the locals to shuttle between the mainland or do a shopping run several times a week (but not every day).

{Maryanne:The villagers were as interested in us as we were about them, and the young girl on the right of one of the pictures also happend to be called MaryAnn. She was a keen history student and shared how the village of Yaro on Kia Island was considered to have invented tatooing (although that might not be fully correct, they certainly had a long history of tatooing). Here tatoos were limited to virgin girls; the art known as Veiqia (or weniqia) involved distinctive geometric body markings applied to adolescent girls and women around the pubic area, hips, and thighs by specialized female practitioners called dauveiqia. The arrival of Chiristinity instantly put a stop to that! Christianity has so much to answer for.}

Most of the other passengers had loose return plans. Some were staying with family overnight, some were not. Almost everyone told us they would "get the next boat". Maryanne and I obviously don't have family in town, so we were a little more anxious about not getting stranded than they were. In the end, Maryanne pressed Rueben (the captain) on exactly when he was going back, and then declared that we now had to do all our shopping so as to be back by then with time to spare.

This plan was foiled almost immediately as we stepped into the first store.

Usually, when provisioning, even in a big city like Whangārei, New Zealand, we end up having to spend all day trudging across town from store to store to fill the holes left in our big list from the previous stores.

Here, in Labasa, we walked two blocks from the boat to the Extra Supermarket and found EVERYTHING. Not just that, but lots and lots of everything. Do you want peppers? What kind? Bell? Jalapeño? Serrano? Green? Yellow? Red? How about plant milk? Oat, almond, or soy? Sweetened or unsweetened? The whole store was like that. The only thing we ended up not being able to find was tofu. They were sold out. After we checked out, Maryanne left me in charge of our bulging cart and hiked over to New World Supermarket to find some. There was none there, either. What kind of a backwater is this?

Between the busy market and the giant "Extra" supermarket - we returned well provisioned. The only thing I couldn't find was tofu (and even the nearby New World supermarket was out of that). On the fresh produce front, we both excited to puchase the first broccoli, mushrooms, cauliflower, etc that we'd seen for months!

Now we had a problem we had not expected: We had loads of time to kill before meeting up with Reuben later. Maryanne did an exploratory walk around and returned saying that she had found a place in a kind of food court, within shopping cart range, where we could have lunch. Our Indian meal turned out to be uninspiring and very greasy.

After a relaxed lunch, we pushed our cartful of provisions back to Extra, transferred everything to our own bags, and shouldered them for the walk back to the boat landing. We arrived with an hour still to spare. Looking at our pile, it seems like it would have been a tight fit for our dinghy. We would have been riding home perched on top.

While we were sitting there, enjoying some local people watching, Sabe introduced himself. He was another Captain, also from Kia, who was in the next boat to leave. Maryanne I would have liked a chance to get home earlier, but we felt like we made an agreement with Captain Reuben. We didn't want to miss out on a chance to give him the promised gas money, both for picking us up earlier, and for the ride home, so we decided to stay put. While we were waiting, a few people from the inbound boat recognized us and stopped to chat, assuring us that Rueben was around here somewhere.

At the appointed time, he did show up, recognizable in his bright yellow shirt. We loaded up our stuff, bucket brigade-style, and climbed in. Then Rueben took us the short distance under the bridge to the fuel dock.

There, he told me to hold onto the dock, then grabbed a couple of jugs and headed for the pump. It did not escape my notice that the only thing mooring the boat and its contents to the dock was my left arm. Uh, Reuben...

Then it got better. Other passengers arrived. The boat was away from the ladder and too far down for those above a certain age to be expected to jump. One woman started handing me down her bundles of shopping, which I had to stand on tiptoes on my seat to reach. I handed them down to Maryanne, who placed them on the floor of the boat. Periodically, I had to ask the woman to wait a second so I could pull on the dock. I was still the boat's only connection to it. Then came a big flat of eggs. Eggs, yeesh! Careful with that one! When they made it to Maryanne's hands, just as quickly as if it were the next package, she picked up the child clinging to her skirt and dangled her in the air for me to take.

I'm pretty sure virtually every mother in the world would characterize her child as the most important, beloved thing in their whole entire world. This woman took her BABY and handed it to ME, a man she met twenty seconds ago, hasn't ever said a word to, and who has only communicated with her in an exchange of polite smiles. What am I going to do?

I got on my tippy toes, reached up, and took her baby, of course, as if she were as fragile as... eggs? I kept thinking this would be a really bad time to lose my balance and end up in the river, floating away with a baby. I'm the same guy who did a faceplant on the rocks of the riverbank less than an hour ago while trying to get myself on the boat. Did I not mention that earlier? That was supposed to be a secret. I'm just fine.

Also, who is supposed to be holding onto the dock? Still me...

You could imagine my relief when Captain Rueben appeared on the dock above and told me it was time for me to pull the boat around to the ladder so that he and the rest of the passengers could board.

Since the tide was higher now, Reuben didn't bother to slow down for any of the river's shallow sections on the way out. We exited the river, skipped over the chop in a tailwind, and in no time at all, we were pulling up to Begonia. Sunset was way off. Maryanne and I thought we would just be making our way back to the dinghy for the dark ride home by now.

Reuben was keen to get to Kia before dark, but assured us when we offered that he had enough time to come aboard for a look. We gave him some money to help with the fuel, as well as a bunch of kava, for his kindness. Once Reuben was aboard, everyone else decided they also wanted to see. Most said they hadn't been on a sailboat before and were really happy to step aboard (Amelting Heart happened to be at Kia at the moment, maybe a different village).

Much later, I was remembering the visit. I was thinking in particular about the mate and I going to some trouble to make sure the bow line was properly secured to Begonia before he came aboard as the last person. Then I remembered that none of the people I helped aboard earlier had been carrying a baby. We assume she was probably fast asleep under a tarp, and they didn't want to disturb her. Fiji is so laid back.

Update: Not about the above boat. This is something else. Days later, a local boat, the same basic type as above, that was carrying six medical workers on a 2 hour passage, was swamped and lost engine power somewhere between Oneata, Moce and Lakeba Islands, in the Lau Group. Unable to restart the engine, the Captain left the boat and swam for MILES to get help (to the nearby Aiwa where he could get a phone signal). After an extensive search, the passengers were all found the next day. The boat had capsized and they were all in the water clinging for 36 hours to whatever floats. Most local boats carry little safety equipment (no radios, few life jackets, etc), so any incident is a serious threat to the lives of the occupants. Thankfully this particular story had a happy ending.

---

Anchorage location at the Labasa delta/river entrance >> On google maps

Blackjack Bay (aka Bula Bay)

[Kyle]From Nubu, we had an easy, downwind sail to the Sau Sau Passage, where we transited the fringing reef to Blackjack/Bula Bay, on the east side of the entrance to the Wainikoro River.

A pleasant sail to a small anchorage

Blackjack is uninhabited, but as we were anchoring, four men emerged from the jungle there, waded out to their anchored boat, and headed for Begonia. They were four fishermen from the nearby Druadrua Island, about six miles to the northeast, having a midday break while waiting on low tide. We made them some tea, gave them the tour, and accepted the captain's phone for charging while they did their afternoon rounds. As a trade, Maryanne was able to convince one of the men, Soni, to show us the technique the locals use to sharpen their machetes with a metal file by having a go at our rusty, less heavily used one. Word got out and soon, we were visited for a few minutes over tea and cookies by every passing boat on its way to or from the main supply store a few miles up the Wainkoro River.

At low tide we could walk on the beach, and scramble around the beautiful rocky shoreline

A day later, on a lull between visits, Maryanne and I were out on a beach walk/jungle bash/rock skipping session when we could see a sail approaching. It turned out to be Amelting Heart again.

Unlike the last time we met, they were not planning to stay the night. They were in a hurry to get a few miles further on to Labasa, Venua Levu's second-largest city, before dark. Both Andrew needed to extend his visas, but the Fiji Government's website was foiling him at the part where it came time to pay the fee, so they eventually resigned themselves to going to the city, where they could hand cash to an official in person to get the problem resolved. As they were going by, they saw our AIS target and decided to see if they could stop and borrow our internet in the hopes of solving the problem and saving themselves the second half of the trip. If it worked, we could hang out again for the evening.

An hour later, they were weighing anchor and chasing the sun toward the horizon. They stayed in the shipping channel and arrived at the Labasa anchorage well after dark. They messaged us the next day to say they had gone in and managed to sort everything out.

And of course we managed a bit of snorkelling (mainly among the mangrove roots)

On our last night another cruising boat arrived in the bay - it was Ian and Ann of the boat Tourterelles, and they kindly invited us over for sundowners.

For being at an uninhabited anchorage, we sure got a lot of visitors!

A host of friendly visitors in a surprisingly busy "quiet" anchorage: Local fishermen, Amelting Heart, and Ian and Ann (from Tourterelles)

---

Anchorage location >> On google maps