June 22, Wednesday
Motored out of Mana Is lagoon and up to Yanuya Is..only a village here, no resort, but across on the next island there is another resort.
The folk in this village seem to have some business with the resort. boats go back and forth occasionally. One arrived about 1200 with about 12 whiteys on board from the resort presumably having the Fijian Village
experience for about an hour then off back to the resort.
Met a man called Sulu who paddled past on his kayak...he'd been fishing and had 3 snappers...he'd picked up a broken paddle board that we'd seen floating off the beach. I was about to go and get when I saw Sulu paddling up ... he said the children play with it but they don't always pull it up the beach....he asked me where we came from and where were going...and with "Thank you for sharing", he paddled off.
This group is called Mamanuca-I-Cake and there’s a number of villages and a couple of resorts. No resort on Yanuya, but at the end of the day theres a lot of traffic between the big resort on the island opposite and the village here at Yanuya. Seems most of the villagers work at the resort and there’s a regular ferry service in small boats to take them to and fro.
Put a homebrew in the fridge to test..its been 10 days since bottling...well it nearly all fizzed out of the bottle, didn't smell good and tasted worse...so maybe the yeast was off, or the malt, or the drum not clean enough or.... i had this at the end of last year so i think its probably the ingredients...anyway never mind..I can leave it for another week and see what happens but i doubt it will improve !
June 23 Thursday
0700 the ferry service is running. One little whale boat brings children to Yanuya for school and then takes workers off to the resort. There were 4 boats taking workers..one biggish one with about 15 people on it and the rest small boats carrying 4-8.
Gas bottle ran out this morning…that’s 3 weeks since it was started…not bad a for a 2.2kg bottle !
Played the guitar for about an hour and half this morning..and now I’m not so rusty..but the strings are a bit !
Leaving to go back to Musket Cove at 1200..anchor was stuck when suddenly it broke free..whew !…motoring..the forecast here is always E->SE 10-15 knots..except when its NE and then it’s soon back to same,
well today we had E of max 5 knots !
Arrived at MusketCove at 1430 and of course as usual its full of boats…34 at last count..including two Amels many of them still here in the same spot when we were last here…and it just struck me that in all the time we’ve been in Fiji this season, we’ve hardly seen any other yachts except in Savusavu and here. There were two at Makongai, we passed two on the way north round Viti Levu. And in the last excursion we’ve seen two….Apogee from Cairns and Surreal a large charter cat from NZ… seems most folk just arrive at one spot and stay there forever !
A boat has just gone passed…Flashback from Marina del Ray, California …typically American…junk everywhere..you can spot them a mile away!...skipper with hawaian shorts and little moustache jiving away on the aft deck to some unknown American folk singer as he motored past…. Oh well, as long as he’s happy… and he certainly looked happy !
Friday June 24
Left Musket Cove about 1130 and motored out of the lagoon and north to check out the little islands between here and Vuda pt that I’ve never been to, while waiting for the tide at Vuda pt.
First island is Malamala..it has a sunken boat half on the beach and half in the water..we anchor in what was 12m and quickly became 5. A kayak comes out from the beach..young man introduces himself..Leone..informs us that this is a private island and we can’t come ashore..oh ok so who owns it ?..we do..my village he says and my boss the white man pays us to use it …
we can see a sort of shack on shore and about 20 whiteys who have been delivered there for the day…
Leone has to go because his kayak has a small hole in it and if he stays out too long it will sink !..but in parting he says…I look after this island ..I sleep here…you come back after 4 when the tourists have gone and you can come ashore…well that’s very nice, but we have to go to Vuda Pt marina today…ok he says no problem I will be here next week.
Another boat arrives..hails from Salzburg…didn’t know that was a port..anyway, they have some difficulty anchoring, and by the time they have it sorted we’re off to Vunivandra Island..its tiny and there’s a basic resort there that occupies just about the whole island..we slow down to take a look and some pictures, but then head off towards Vuda Pt.
1430 we’re back in the basin again, in the same spot we were in last time between two cats.
Went around the corner to the gas company to gewt my empty gas bottle filled
So, Hannah arrives on Sunday…we’re using the laundry facilities and will go market shopping on Monday before heading off to the Yasawas on Tuesday.
There’s a night market here tomorrow apparently….so that could be interesting.
Cheers all from Vuda Pt
Pics coming !!
Motored out of Mana Is lagoon and up to Yanuya Is..only a village here, no resort, but across on the next island there is another resort.
The folk in this village seem to have some business with the resort. boats go back and forth occasionally. One arrived about 1200 with about 12 whiteys on board from the resort presumably having the Fijian Village
experience for about an hour then off back to the resort.
Met a man called Sulu who paddled past on his kayak...he'd been fishing and had 3 snappers...he'd picked up a broken paddle board that we'd seen floating off the beach. I was about to go and get when I saw Sulu paddling up ... he said the children play with it but they don't always pull it up the beach....he asked me where we came from and where were going...and with "Thank you for sharing", he paddled off.
This group is called Mamanuca-I-Cake and there’s a number of villages and a couple of resorts. No resort on Yanuya, but at the end of the day theres a lot of traffic between the big resort on the island opposite and the village here at Yanuya. Seems most of the villagers work at the resort and there’s a regular ferry service in small boats to take them to and fro.
Put a homebrew in the fridge to test..its been 10 days since bottling...well it nearly all fizzed out of the bottle, didn't smell good and tasted worse...so maybe the yeast was off, or the malt, or the drum not clean enough or.... i had this at the end of last year so i think its probably the ingredients...anyway never mind..I can leave it for another week and see what happens but i doubt it will improve !
June 23 Thursday
0700 the ferry service is running. One little whale boat brings children to Yanuya for school and then takes workers off to the resort. There were 4 boats taking workers..one biggish one with about 15 people on it and the rest small boats carrying 4-8.
Gas bottle ran out this morning…that’s 3 weeks since it was started…not bad a for a 2.2kg bottle !
Played the guitar for about an hour and half this morning..and now I’m not so rusty..but the strings are a bit !
Leaving to go back to Musket Cove at 1200..anchor was stuck when suddenly it broke free..whew !…motoring..the forecast here is always E->SE 10-15 knots..except when its NE and then it’s soon back to same,
well today we had E of max 5 knots !
Arrived at MusketCove at 1430 and of course as usual its full of boats…34 at last count..including two Amels many of them still here in the same spot when we were last here…and it just struck me that in all the time we’ve been in Fiji this season, we’ve hardly seen any other yachts except in Savusavu and here. There were two at Makongai, we passed two on the way north round Viti Levu. And in the last excursion we’ve seen two….Apogee from Cairns and Surreal a large charter cat from NZ… seems most folk just arrive at one spot and stay there forever !
A boat has just gone passed…Flashback from Marina del Ray, California …typically American…junk everywhere..you can spot them a mile away!...skipper with hawaian shorts and little moustache jiving away on the aft deck to some unknown American folk singer as he motored past…. Oh well, as long as he’s happy… and he certainly looked happy !
Friday June 24
Left Musket Cove about 1130 and motored out of the lagoon and north to check out the little islands between here and Vuda pt that I’ve never been to, while waiting for the tide at Vuda pt.
First island is Malamala..it has a sunken boat half on the beach and half in the water..we anchor in what was 12m and quickly became 5. A kayak comes out from the beach..young man introduces himself..Leone..informs us that this is a private island and we can’t come ashore..oh ok so who owns it ?..we do..my village he says and my boss the white man pays us to use it …
we can see a sort of shack on shore and about 20 whiteys who have been delivered there for the day…
Leone has to go because his kayak has a small hole in it and if he stays out too long it will sink !..but in parting he says…I look after this island ..I sleep here…you come back after 4 when the tourists have gone and you can come ashore…well that’s very nice, but we have to go to Vuda Pt marina today…ok he says no problem I will be here next week.
Another boat arrives..hails from Salzburg…didn’t know that was a port..anyway, they have some difficulty anchoring, and by the time they have it sorted we’re off to Vunivandra Island..its tiny and there’s a basic resort there that occupies just about the whole island..we slow down to take a look and some pictures, but then head off towards Vuda Pt.
1430 we’re back in the basin again, in the same spot we were in last time between two cats.
Went around the corner to the gas company to gewt my empty gas bottle filled
So, Hannah arrives on Sunday…we’re using the laundry facilities and will go market shopping on Monday before heading off to the Yasawas on Tuesday.
There’s a night market here tomorrow apparently….so that could be interesting.
Cheers all from Vuda Pt
Pics coming !!