Bula!
We have enjoyed some fabulous sailing over the last week.
16 September- We finally dragged ourselves away from Paradise Taveuni Resort and went west to Namena Island. The anchorage was pleasant, but finding a clear sand patch in between coral was a little interesting! The island, like so many in the area, took a huge hit from cyclone Winston in 2016. The resort was wiped out, although it is being rebuilt. There are some great dive sites here, but sadly we were only here for one night.
17 September – We continued south west to the lovely Makogai island. What a jewel of a place! It is a former leper colony and was our first chance to do Sevusevu in Fiji. We met with Tiko who showed us around and we left him with our kava offering. The anchorage had beautiful, crystal clear water and lots of turtles. There are some great staff from the Fiji fisheries who are slowly rebuilding their settlement after hurricane Winston. They manage a clam hatchery and also were doing some research and tagging of the local turtle population. The perfect opportunity for a few turtle selfies!
20 September – We had a quick 20 NM sail over to Naigani island. Averaged 7 knots and only had the engines on to pick up and drop the anchor! The anchorage was lovely. Clear blue water and a nice beach walk.
21 September – The sail from Naigani to Nanau-I-Cake (pronounced Nanu-I-Thake) was awesome. We had great wind direction and speed, so made excellent time. We had really calm seas as we were inside the reef system, but took full advantage of the wind which meant we did not have engines on until the end of the day where we had to negotiate a bendy channel.
We have been hanging out for the last few days. We were going to be doing some diving out at Bligh water, but it looks like there is some big winds due. Because of this we think we will be a bit exposed up here, so tomorrow we are taking a few days to travel to Denerau where we can tuck in for the weekend.
September 2018.