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)

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Anchorage location >> On google maps

Nubu, Vanua Levu

[Kyle]As expected, our northbound leg to pass Udu Point on our way to the northern shore of Venua Levu was, uh, boisterous. As we left the flat water of Albert Cove/Motaua, the wind protection of the anchorage decreased. The fringing reef also receded to the northeast, which allowed more and more of the open ocean swell to get through. We eventually ended up going nice and fast, with hardly any sail up at all, across three-meter seas. The wind wasn't bad, because we were reefed down for even more, just in case. Beam seas like that can be especially annoying, though.

At about the halfway mark, on our transit of the gap between Rabi and Udu Point, a four-plus-meter wave broke right when it hit us. I was able to turn and duck away from it, but I still got hit in the back with a couple of buckets-worth of cold water, which also soaked the seat. The wave filled the cockpit to ankle-depth.

Since we were in the tropics, I was not dressed in foul weather gear. I was dressed for a picnic in the park. Technically, I was dressed like someone at the picnic who had been thrown in the pool as a prank. My reasoning is that it is warm outside and that stuff dries quickly. If it doesn't, it's easier to change.

The problem was that since the boat was continuously being coated in salt water, I didn't want to track the wet outside into the nice, dry inside to change outfits, particularly since I'm probably going to end up getting wet again anyway.

The temperature was in the high 20s Celsius, so it was nice and warm out, but the thirty-knot winds made for quite a windchill! I shivered my way through the next half hour until I was starting to feel dry again. Wham! Another bloody wave would resoak me! I know intellectually that waves don't have agency, but they totally do seem like they enjoy messing with me sometimes. After a few more wet/dry cycles, I was legitimately cold-soaked and shivering almost uncontrollably. Fun officially over, let's get this thing over with!

We rounded the reef three miles from Udu Point Light, which is as close as you can get, turned downwind, and had the reverse experience from leaving Rabi. In twenty minutes, we were sliding along a flat sea with only a quarter of the jib out.

We pulled into our planned anchorage at Nubu. It was exposed to the wind, which was coming along the coast. I was worried the anchorage would be uncomfortable, but it is surrounded so extensively by drying reefs that the deep basin had completely flat water.

Entering the pass into the protected waters at Nubu

Once we were settled, we got a message from Amelting Heart, asking about the anchorage. They had left Rabi a few hours after us and were hoping to make it to Nubu by nightfall.

They didn't make it. We spotted them on the eastern horizon just before sunset. Their sails were down and they were motoring into an anchorage there. In the middle of the subsequent dark, cloudy nights, their distant anchor light served as the best way to find Begonia's orientation.

Nubu is a convenient stop, but doesn't otherwise have too much in the way of tourist attractions. The two things to do are snorkel, which is hazy and meh, and go see the waterfall up the creek. My check on the anchor and Begonia's immediate vicinity satisfied the first to the degree that Maryanne was convinced to not bother getting wet in the first place.

Then there is the waterfall. The river is blocked by a mudbank at low tide, so we were up early for the morning high tide to have a look.

As a waterfall, it's not particularly impressive – just a brook pouring over a few meters of rock.

At the bottom, we left the dinghy and walked upriver along the banks. This was the best bit. A series of minor waterfalls made an interconnecting chain of deep swimming holes that would be a perfect place to spend the upper half of the tide on a sunny day. We certainly thought about it, but the chill of the early morning made us less than enthusiastic about the idea. Maryanne and I contented ourselves with rock-hopping our way up the creek until we were stopped by sheer faces on both sides. With the tide falling the entire time, we were aware we needed to keep it moving to avoid being stranded. We were back at Bagonia by noon.

Our trip up the river to the stream

A little while later, we could see Amelting Heart heading our way with sails up. We thought they would surely continue on, but Andrew called us on the radio to tell us they were planning on coming in for the night. After giving him the rundown, he and Isabelle said they would come over, but decided to try to make it up the river beforehand.

"Okay, you'd better get going, before the tide drops too much!"

They mostly made it. Just as we were starting to get worried that they might be stuck up there and were figuring out what we would be able to do about it, they appeared at the entrance. There were a couple of spots where Andrew had to lift his outboard and punt through the goo, but they made it to deep water after all. Then we were finally able to commence our planned evening of cards, drinks, and stories.

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Anchorage location at Nubu >> On google maps

Rabi Island

[Kyle]Since Begonia was on a mooring at Paradise Taveuni Resort, I had really been hoping to release the lines and depart under sail.

Just before sunset the previous night, a boat came in and picked up the one right behind us. The whole time we have been here, we haven't seen a mooring go unoccupied for more than eight hours. That boat was a little close to be confident we could gain steerageway before drifting into it, so we ended up using the engines after all.

Our sail started out well. Winds coming over Taveuni passed over the ridgeline and descended to the anchorage as a twenty-knot breeze. With lots of reefs tucked in, we shot northeastward towards our destination at Rabi Island.

That lasted for about an hour, until the terrain to windward got too high. Taveuni has some pretty high mountains (Taveuni is an elongated shield volcano, its peak reaches 1,241 m). Once we were in the lee of that part of the island, we got lots of wind, no wind, and backdrafts going completely the wrong direction. Eventually, to keep from arriving after dark, we had to resort to using an engine to keep moving.

Of course, as soon as the thing was warmed up, the wind returned. Then it picked up as we peeled away from Taveuni and headed through the gap between the Venua Levu mainland and Rabi Island.

We were expecting it to die off again in the lee of Rabi, but it never did completely. Instead, we had gusts and lulls that had Begonia's speed bouncing back and forth between four and nine knots. As we did, another boat, Amelting Heart, left an anchorage ahead of us and also headed for our planned two-boat anchorage at Albert Cove/Motaua, where there was already another boat at anchor. They were bouncing between three and six knots, which wouldn't be slow enough for us to beat them in.

The anchorage at Motaua is fairly large, but the sandy part is very deep, requiring all of our chain and thus a big swinging circle. The anchorage also has weird gusts arriving as downhill blasts from every direction, so it is not reasonable to assume all boats will swing in the same manner. The best thing to do is make sure there is no overlap whatsoever by being at least two hundred meters from the nearest vessel.

The original boat, Otama, had the best spot. Amelting Heart got the 'other' decent spot, which is deeper. That left us to try to fill remaining space or find another anchorage altogether.

We made our first attempt on the north side of Amelting Heart, between them and the reef. Maryanne let all our chain out and then we waited a bit to see how Begonia rode. It seemed fine, but if we swung too much, we might end up being uncomfortably too close to Amelting Heart or the reef. That wasn't going to be good for getting a restful night's sleep. After a while, Maryanne announced that she didn't like it and wanted to move.

We pulled everything back up and moved halfway between Amelting Heart and Otama, where Begonia would have no chance of encountering either. The only hazard in our circle was a shallow reef, helpfully marked by a buoy that was dead upwind of us at the far end of our circle. We dropped our anchor on the edge of a sand shelf at seventeen meters and set it. Begonia ended up sitting in thirty-five meters at the center of the basin, with a big loop of catenary in the chain for cushioning the load on the anchor.

With the current wind direction, our spot ended up being really good. The gusts hitting Begonia varied in direction by 180 degrees, but they generally didn't last long enough to move us around much. We pointed everywhere from northwest to southeast, but we never drifted more than twenty meters from our original spot. That was frustrating for getting the solar panels set right, but otherwise, very reassuring.

Amelting Heart, on the other hand, seemed to be anchored right in the middle of a permanent eddy formed between competing winds. Every time we looked at them, they would always be pointed a completely different direction from before. They seemed to go through a complete circle about ten times every hour. That made us even happier that we had moved.

Rabi (pronounced "Rambi" because, Fijian) has an interesting history. Unlike the rest of Fiji, where the main two demographic groups are ethnic Fijians and Indo-Fijians, Rabi is almost entirely populated by Banabans, descendants from Ocean Island, in Kiribati/Gilbert Islands. They arrived in two different waves.

The first was after the Second World War. The Japanese captured most of the Gilbert Islands, and the Banabans were taken to various internment camps for the duration. Once the war was over, they were released, but not allowed to go back to their home island, so the "helpful" British government purchased Rabi as a place for them to resettle, offering them land and houses. They made good on the land, but the houses turned out to be tents and only enough rations to survive for two months.

Many years later, in the 1970s, tremendously overzealous phosphate mining made Ocean Island uninhabitable and second wave of Banabans were removed to Rabi for resettlement.

Now, the primary language and culture on Rabi is Gilbertese. All residents have dual citizenship with Fiji.

Motaua does not have a permanent village, although we met one brother/sister pair who live there seasonally as farmers. It also seems to be a popular spot for picnics and overnight camping for locals from other villages that are looking for a getaway. When we arrived, a big group was having a church barbeque.

Heading ashore at Motawa (known to the cruisers as Albert Cove) on Rabi Island, we were greeted by some friendly local kids

We went ashore on the next morning's low tide for a walk. Maryanne and I had intended to join a trail that is reputed to go over the island to the bay opposite. None of the people we encountered knew much about it. We found a likely candidate path, but quickly lost it again in the thick jungle beyond the beach. Eventually, we gave up and decided to console ourselves with a beach walk.

Once we got to the end, we found that the tide was low enough that we could keep going for miles on the exposed, dead top of the fringing reef. We went as far as we dared, knowing the tide was starting to rise again, before turning back to the safety of the main beach. Then we filled out the rest of our time by walking the more accessible reef in the other direction.

There was plenty of beach/coast line to walk and explore at low tide Just at our turnaround point, we saw three people coming from the opposite direction. One of them turned out to be Andrew, the owner of Amelting Heart. He explained the spelling of the name by pointing out that his boat is built by Amel. Ah! With him was his crew, Isabelle, and a local man who had guided them over the trail Maryanne and I lost earlier. The tide was so low that they all decided to walk back by going around the intervening headland along the reef.

While the crew from Amelting Heart were off collecting useful flotsam and jetsam, the local visitors were having a grand game of volleyball

Andrew is an electrical engineer, originally from England, who recently bought his boat with an aim to work half the year in New Zealand, and spend the other half on the boat in Fiji. Isabelle, who is French, has been bopping around for years as crew on different boats.

Andrew admits to having a few compatibility missteps with crew, but he and Isabelle seem to have a good rapport. Maryanne and I had initially assumed they were a couple, since they finish each other's sentences and occasionally bicker over minor things. They both assured us that that was not the case, but neither of them seemed the least bit offended by our mistake.

The next day, Maryanne and I had a good, long snorkel of the huge tongue of reef forming one side of the entrance to the bay. There was plenty of variety to keep us entertained. Afterward, we were expecting to meet up with Amelting Heart, but their dinghy was gone.

A few hours later, Andrew invited everyone to the beach for a sunset picnic. Maryanne made some food and we were the first dinghy ashore. When Andrew did arrive, he dropped off some stuff and then returned to the boat to pick up Isabelle. When they returned, he announced his plan to try baking bread with cassava flour in a traditional earth oven, which he had never attempted before. This was news to everybody, but the local fishermen/farmers having an overnight campout on the beach took it in stride and started two fires – one for regular cooking and one for the oven. In the meantime, Andrew and Isabelle filled us in on their day ashore.

In what seemed like very Begonia-like fashion, they had originally set off for a quick stroll, intending to get back in an hour or so, so they could start cooking. Then they got lost and spent hours bushwacking their way through the jungle before coming across terrain that they decided was too treacherous for them to continue. Then they spent hours bushwacking their way back. They got to their dinghy half an hour before sunset, still fully intending to make it to the beach for dinner.

To their credit, the local guys adapted to Andrew's plan well. They were there not only to camp and fish, but also to harvest kava crops they have there to take to market. They pounded a big portion for everybody and then made space for us all in their clearing, where we could form a circle around the bowl to imbibe while we wait for the food.

An evening ashore - Kyle "helps" pound the Kava, and the cooking fire is prepared

Sarah, another American, who was there with her Australian husband, Hayden, on Otama, kept saying that Maryanne and I looked familiar to her. It did seem to us like we must have met her before, but when we started comparing histories, we could find no overlap at all. We must have two of those faces…

They bought Otama in 2021 and have spent most of the time since bouncing between Fiji and New Zealand, while Maryanne and I were nowhere near either place.

A long while later, while telling Andrew a story about something that happened to us in Australia, Sarah asked us where we had been there. I was going through the list when it hit her.

"You were the boat that came to Gove, in the Northern Territory, in 2020 during Covid!" She continued, "We didn't have a boat then, but I was the Manager at the Gove Boat Club."

That's when it hit us smack in the face. "Of course! That was you!" It all made sense now. We didn't recognize them, since we didn't recognize the BOAT.

Sarah had been so kind and generous during our visit to Gove. She kept saying she hoped she wasn't too rude to us then, she had a lot of stressful things going on in her life at once: Covid, an international move, searching for a boat…

"Are you kidding? You were the best!"

What must she be like on a good day?

More locals arrived later, until we ended up with over a dozen people sat around the kava bowl. One guy even sang us a song about his people crossing the sea to their new paradise home. It certainly seemed like it.

Maryanne and I stayed up as late as we could, but still didn't make it long enough to see how Andrew's bread fared. As we fell asleep, we could still hear music and laughter wafting its way in from the beach.

Not surprisingly, we were up late the next morning. We emerged to find the entire group of Banabans long gone already. Later, replacements came, and Begonia was visited by three very giggly young girls who were only partly in control of their kayak. They had a great time bouncing their way past us and ducking though the tunnel between our hulls. Maryanne handed them all lollipops, which only increased their delight.

We certainly would have enjoyed staying for more time, but our next leg to the north coast of Vanua Levu was going to be a long one. With a day of strong winds that were forecast to not be in too bad a direction, we would need to use them to move on.

A beautiful place to visit for us and the locals

And of course, some snorkelling

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Anchorage location at Albert Cove/Motawa, Rabi Island >> On google maps