Thursday June 15
Finally left Lautoka and motored down to Saweni Bay to wait for the tide to get into Vuda pt marina..they say its 2.5 m at LAT but its not…last time I came in there the depth sounder was reading 0.00.
Terry told me when they came in about two hours before we did, they hit the bottom just outside the Sunset bar ! So tied up in the basin, nose in between two catamarans…thanks goodness for lots of fenders !
Had dinner at the First Landing Resort with Terry and Amanda…they have a special accommodation rate for yachties who are working on their boats and/ or boat is out of the water..F$75/night !
Friday June 16
Went to the Marina office this morning to sort out everything....paid F$779.41 being 2 nights at $20/night and $637 deposit on the booking for the hurricane hole in the yard from end November....so the boat will be in the water until then be lifted out and put in the hole. If i decide I want to go back in the water in the summer, 'cos the weather's good..its no problem...and i pay just for the time used.
Had a coffee in the café and had an interesting chat with a small Fijian parrot that was standing on a chair at the next table…nice guy !
So all good....we'll leave here tomorrow morning and be back probably Friday in preparation for Hannah's
arrival.
At 6/16/2011 10:14 AM (utc) our position was 17°40.82'S 177°23.18'E
Saturday June 17
Preparing to leave vuda pt...went along to see Terry and Amanda with the charts..they said last night they would show us some good places to go for snorkeling and anchoring etc.
When we arrived, Amanda said "have you guys had breakfast?"..No..."do you want some eggs and bacon ? ..we've got to use it or chuck it..."..SURE ! so we had sort of omelette scrambled eggs with cheese and bacon bits (more like chunks!) on toast with coffee..very good...
Did the chart thing and then we had to take potatoes, onions, garlic, cottage cheese...as they're flying out tomorrow...so quite profitable really !
Left the dock and went to the fuel dock and took on 84 litres of diesel...F$200 approx...so that's about A$1.20 / litre...cheap !
Set off motoring towards Musket Cove...breeze cam up a bit and we're reaching at 6 knots..nice
There’s a container ship approaching us from Lautoka..he’s heading for Suva, we see him on the AIS, call him up on Ch16, he sees us and is altering his course to starboard…and announces it with his horn, we alter
course to port and we pass without incident…the hull on that boat must very efficient, there was hardly any wake as he went past ……
....fishing line went zzzzzzzzzz...a fish !...well as seems to be the norm...he got away as I was pulling him in ... one day !!
Navigating through the marks on the reefs to get into Musket Cove and all my notes from last time are wrong...the buoys have been replaced with sticks that have little green flags on them !!...much better.... maybe
that was for the race ?
On the way in we passed an Amel Super Maramu on the way out...looked nice and was sailing well with main and jib, no mizzen, close hauled doing 6.5 knots (AIS info)...took some video of it going past.
At 6/16/2011 01:14 AM (utc) our position was 17°46.37'S 177°11.15'E
Sunday June 18
All the lights were on in Musket Cove last night as usual..
This morning big black clouds came over and it bucketed down for about 2 hours !!
The wind direction changed to NW and then to NE..then back to NW..and then it was all over.
We picked up the anchor and motored up to Castaway Is..it has a Fijian name Qalito ..anyway..there's Castaway Is Resort there so everyone calls it Castaway.
We're anchored just on the SW end of the island away from the resort.
Opposite on Malolo Is there's another 3 resorts...one with bures on stilts in the water...and a tiny little island, shown on the chart as a reef only, with 4 houses on it and the obligatory "Private property" sign...
Its very calm and quiet here...except when the seaplane or the helicopter arrives ferrying resort guests to and from (Nadi I suppose)...will go up a bit further to Mana Is tomorrow and see what that's like...still haven't caught any fish...BUT I dived under the boat today and got my Wahoo lure back...it was wrapped around the propellor shaft...the line is still there, but I managed to untangle and cut off the wire trace with the lure on it
intact ...so thats good..got some gear back !
I'm doing fried rice for dinner after the 1800 Russell Radio sched...
At 6/19/2011 12:59 AM (utc) our position was 17°46.36'S 177°11.15'E
Monday June 20
Quiet night at Castaway Is..... this morning Gunilla went for a snorkel on the nearby reef...wasn't very interesting apart from the small fishes.
Left Castaway at 1030 and motored up to Mana Is.....resorts here too but one of them is a backpackers and it certainly looks pretty down market !
Observed that the chart plotter is out here by about half a mile S and the same W. I noticed that 2 days ago at Musket cove...we were anchored on the reef according to the plotter...and today we apparently motored over a
reef...we didn't of course...but its the original charts that the electronic ones are derived from that are out..and you'd think well why don't they just adjust them...well the problem is that the error is not constant over the area, so everything would need adjusting individually and that would be a mammoth task .
Anyway the anchorage here is a bit rolly with all the little boats zooming in and out, but we'll go ashore and take a look around, and it should be calmer this evening when all the "activities" stop.
Lunchtime and its already calmer..there’s at least two backpacker hostel thingos here with bar and “restaurant” most of the guests seem to be young Brits and Americans.
the main resort at the W end of the beach says Welcome !..and then bona fide guests only, trespassers prosecuted…nice and friendly !!
At 6/19/2011 7:40 PM (utc) our position was 17°44.31'S 177°08.07'E
In the afternoon another yacht comes in, its Apogee from Cairns, Steve and Rachel, last seen in Vav’au June 2010…Steve dinghies over to say gidday and tells us a shocking tale about a woman that went missing from a launch in the Blue Lagoon… it seems she decided to go for a skinny dip at 0200 and never came back…she was the wife of the launch’s owner. The skipper organised all the neighbouring boats to do a sea search in the bay, Steve went ashore to see if she was there..but no sign..they organised a helicopter to do an aerial search…nothing…then got some divers to dive down …and they found her body on the bottom. Police were called and came in Fijian time, but were delayed because they had to investigate the possible theft of $50 from
the bar till at the resort !!!!
Had dinner at the backpackers restaurant on the shore…wasn’t great but not bad for the price..they have internet there too for F$10 / hr..the backpackers have a package that includes meals so when the bell rings at 1830, they all rush in and queue for their rations.
Tuesday June 21
Went ashore with snorkelling gear and crossed through the (no trespassers) resort to the other side of the island where the snorkelling was, we were told, very good. Well it wasn’t really, the reefs here have no colour and there aren’t that many fish around.
But the beach is beautiful and there was hardly anyone there…so there’s some pictures of that in the next post which will be photos from the market in Lautoka, Vuda Pt then Musket Cove, Castaway Island and Mana Is.
Making yoghurt today…its really good. Plan is to stay here today..go in later for cheap beer and internet to post All this and catch up on other stuff, then tomorrow to go to Yanula Is just north of here…then head back to Vuda Pt over the next 2 days
So cheers from Mana Is !!!!
Finally left Lautoka and motored down to Saweni Bay to wait for the tide to get into Vuda pt marina..they say its 2.5 m at LAT but its not…last time I came in there the depth sounder was reading 0.00.
Terry told me when they came in about two hours before we did, they hit the bottom just outside the Sunset bar ! So tied up in the basin, nose in between two catamarans…thanks goodness for lots of fenders !
Had dinner at the First Landing Resort with Terry and Amanda…they have a special accommodation rate for yachties who are working on their boats and/ or boat is out of the water..F$75/night !
Friday June 16
Went to the Marina office this morning to sort out everything....paid F$779.41 being 2 nights at $20/night and $637 deposit on the booking for the hurricane hole in the yard from end November....so the boat will be in the water until then be lifted out and put in the hole. If i decide I want to go back in the water in the summer, 'cos the weather's good..its no problem...and i pay just for the time used.
Had a coffee in the café and had an interesting chat with a small Fijian parrot that was standing on a chair at the next table…nice guy !
So all good....we'll leave here tomorrow morning and be back probably Friday in preparation for Hannah's
arrival.
At 6/16/2011 10:14 AM (utc) our position was 17°40.82'S 177°23.18'E
Saturday June 17
Preparing to leave vuda pt...went along to see Terry and Amanda with the charts..they said last night they would show us some good places to go for snorkeling and anchoring etc.
When we arrived, Amanda said "have you guys had breakfast?"..No..."do you want some eggs and bacon ? ..we've got to use it or chuck it..."..SURE ! so we had sort of omelette scrambled eggs with cheese and bacon bits (more like chunks!) on toast with coffee..very good...
Did the chart thing and then we had to take potatoes, onions, garlic, cottage cheese...as they're flying out tomorrow...so quite profitable really !
Left the dock and went to the fuel dock and took on 84 litres of diesel...F$200 approx...so that's about A$1.20 / litre...cheap !
Set off motoring towards Musket Cove...breeze cam up a bit and we're reaching at 6 knots..nice
There’s a container ship approaching us from Lautoka..he’s heading for Suva, we see him on the AIS, call him up on Ch16, he sees us and is altering his course to starboard…and announces it with his horn, we alter
course to port and we pass without incident…the hull on that boat must very efficient, there was hardly any wake as he went past ……
....fishing line went zzzzzzzzzz...a fish !...well as seems to be the norm...he got away as I was pulling him in ... one day !!
Navigating through the marks on the reefs to get into Musket Cove and all my notes from last time are wrong...the buoys have been replaced with sticks that have little green flags on them !!...much better.... maybe
that was for the race ?
On the way in we passed an Amel Super Maramu on the way out...looked nice and was sailing well with main and jib, no mizzen, close hauled doing 6.5 knots (AIS info)...took some video of it going past.
At 6/16/2011 01:14 AM (utc) our position was 17°46.37'S 177°11.15'E
Sunday June 18
All the lights were on in Musket Cove last night as usual..
This morning big black clouds came over and it bucketed down for about 2 hours !!
The wind direction changed to NW and then to NE..then back to NW..and then it was all over.
We picked up the anchor and motored up to Castaway Is..it has a Fijian name Qalito ..anyway..there's Castaway Is Resort there so everyone calls it Castaway.
We're anchored just on the SW end of the island away from the resort.
Opposite on Malolo Is there's another 3 resorts...one with bures on stilts in the water...and a tiny little island, shown on the chart as a reef only, with 4 houses on it and the obligatory "Private property" sign...
Its very calm and quiet here...except when the seaplane or the helicopter arrives ferrying resort guests to and from (Nadi I suppose)...will go up a bit further to Mana Is tomorrow and see what that's like...still haven't caught any fish...BUT I dived under the boat today and got my Wahoo lure back...it was wrapped around the propellor shaft...the line is still there, but I managed to untangle and cut off the wire trace with the lure on it
intact ...so thats good..got some gear back !
I'm doing fried rice for dinner after the 1800 Russell Radio sched...
At 6/19/2011 12:59 AM (utc) our position was 17°46.36'S 177°11.15'E
Monday June 20
Quiet night at Castaway Is..... this morning Gunilla went for a snorkel on the nearby reef...wasn't very interesting apart from the small fishes.
Left Castaway at 1030 and motored up to Mana Is.....resorts here too but one of them is a backpackers and it certainly looks pretty down market !
Observed that the chart plotter is out here by about half a mile S and the same W. I noticed that 2 days ago at Musket cove...we were anchored on the reef according to the plotter...and today we apparently motored over a
reef...we didn't of course...but its the original charts that the electronic ones are derived from that are out..and you'd think well why don't they just adjust them...well the problem is that the error is not constant over the area, so everything would need adjusting individually and that would be a mammoth task .
Anyway the anchorage here is a bit rolly with all the little boats zooming in and out, but we'll go ashore and take a look around, and it should be calmer this evening when all the "activities" stop.
Lunchtime and its already calmer..there’s at least two backpacker hostel thingos here with bar and “restaurant” most of the guests seem to be young Brits and Americans.
the main resort at the W end of the beach says Welcome !..and then bona fide guests only, trespassers prosecuted…nice and friendly !!
At 6/19/2011 7:40 PM (utc) our position was 17°44.31'S 177°08.07'E
In the afternoon another yacht comes in, its Apogee from Cairns, Steve and Rachel, last seen in Vav’au June 2010…Steve dinghies over to say gidday and tells us a shocking tale about a woman that went missing from a launch in the Blue Lagoon… it seems she decided to go for a skinny dip at 0200 and never came back…she was the wife of the launch’s owner. The skipper organised all the neighbouring boats to do a sea search in the bay, Steve went ashore to see if she was there..but no sign..they organised a helicopter to do an aerial search…nothing…then got some divers to dive down …and they found her body on the bottom. Police were called and came in Fijian time, but were delayed because they had to investigate the possible theft of $50 from
the bar till at the resort !!!!
Had dinner at the backpackers restaurant on the shore…wasn’t great but not bad for the price..they have internet there too for F$10 / hr..the backpackers have a package that includes meals so when the bell rings at 1830, they all rush in and queue for their rations.
Tuesday June 21
Went ashore with snorkelling gear and crossed through the (no trespassers) resort to the other side of the island where the snorkelling was, we were told, very good. Well it wasn’t really, the reefs here have no colour and there aren’t that many fish around.
But the beach is beautiful and there was hardly anyone there…so there’s some pictures of that in the next post which will be photos from the market in Lautoka, Vuda Pt then Musket Cove, Castaway Island and Mana Is.
Making yoghurt today…its really good. Plan is to stay here today..go in later for cheap beer and internet to post All this and catch up on other stuff, then tomorrow to go to Yanula Is just north of here…then head back to Vuda Pt over the next 2 days
So cheers from Mana Is !!!!