Savusavu was chosen as our arrival port
because it has a relatively easy entrance, is yacht friendly and we had heard
great things about the market and facilities there.
After an ocean passage if only of 11 days
you find yourself looking forward to ‘facilities.’
We actually arrived at the mooring about
1045 but we had both been up for hours.
It’s
quite exciting making landfall. The grey lumps on the horizon materializing
into green, textured islands. The ships and other boats to keep an eye on. The
reefs around the entrance becoming clearer as we approached with the big lumps
of broken coral sat on top giving the reef a dangerous spiky sharp-toothed
look. The smell of the land or the reef as you get closer. The fact we had got
ourselves to a foreign land by ourselves.
As we followed the coast around into the
entrance of Savusavu we passed the Jean Michel Cousteau resort on the point and
noticed several yachts anchored off close into the white sand beach and palm
trees.
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| Coastline at the entrance to Savusavu inlet |
Friends of ours on the yacht Carpe Diem had
recommended Waitui Marina run by Jolene as the friendlier of the options for
mooring once in Savusavu. We called them
on channel 16 as we rounded the commercial ‘Dock’ into the mooring area. As a
foreign yacht clearing in we had no option but to pick up a mooring and wait
for the Customs, Immigration, Health, and Biosecurity officers to visit us onboard
replete with forms of one sort or another.
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| Waitui Marina building and dock |
Jolene sent out Daki the boatman in the
marina runabout to show us to our mooring, help us tie on and then we had but
to sit back and wait while he rounded up the officers and ferried them to us.
We had followed a tanker into the inlet and
therefore had to wait until they had cleared in before the officers of the
various departments could get to see us. Time for a cold beer and a sandwich
after our traditional tot of Rum toast to our new anchorage. Its soo good
having a fridge/freezer on board – Cold beer! Cold Cheese! Ice Cubes!
Shortly however the cockpit was full of
chatty, efficient and cheerful officials, it’s a small town and everyone knows
everyone else, they all seemed to enjoy the catch up while they passed myriad
forms, bills and other paperwork around the table to Phil and I for completion,
filing, etc.
As always with officials coming onboard I
offered them a drink, they all seemed to relish the cold lemon squash but they
weren’t as impressed as we were by the fact we could supply ICE CUBES!!
Once they had all been taken off to the
next boat by Daki we could lower our yellow Q flag and go ashore. We manhandled
the dinghy over the side from the foredeck where it has lain lashed down since
we were ready to leave Opua nearly 5 weeks prior.
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| Bruce and Snowbird under a double rainbow |
Our mooring was very close to the dock and
near a yacht called Snowbird from NZ that looked like it had seen better days,
as we rowed past we saw the skipper looking at a new sail in a heap on the
foredeck scratching his head. After we
had completed the formalities with Jolene in the Marina office we sat enjoying
our first cold beer ashore waiting for the ground to stop swaying. The old chap
who had been trying to make sense of his sail rowed ashore and sat down next to
us and introduced himself, after approximately 1 minute we had ascertained that
we had mutual friends in Opua, he had spent a lot of time sailing with Ian
Woods, I worked with Ian’s wife Dianne and they had both been to our house
shortly before we left for farewell drinks – it was a bit mind blowing that the
first yachtie we spoke to had close ties with people we knew from back home!
It transpired that Bruce had had a new
mainsail made nearly a year go but had only just got around to fitting it. Over
the course of the time we spent in Savusavu Phil gave him a hand, so did Daki
to get the new sail on, fitted, reefed down and the cover back over it. Every
day a little bit of progress but hard work on your own.
We had a few days to kill waiting for our
cruising permit so one day we took a bus trip over to Labasa on the other side
of the island. It is the main town on Vanua Levu and a lot drier that the south
and eastern side which catches all the rain from the tradewinds. Still couldn’t
find a thermometer to tell exactly how bloody hot it was, nor fuel filters.
It was good as they don’t get many tourists
over there, we took ages walking through the market as everybody wanted to talk
to us, especially as I had picked up a bit of sugar cane from the road and they
all wanted to know why I was carrying a stick around.
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| whats the stick for? |
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| I can't even - she's got a stick! |
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| spices at Labasa market |
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| Sugar cane on its way to the factory - where my stick came from :) |
When we initially checked in with Jolene in
the ‘Marina office’ we said we’d be there for about a week she looked up smiled
and said, OK but -– it’s a bit like the Hotel California here.
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| Hotel Waitui Marina California |
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| unprepossessing maybe |
Like many of the islands we’d been to in
the Caribbean it certainly attracts your ‘interesting’ types. Expats from
different countries trying to make a living in various levels of nefariousness,
‘professional Trip Advisor writers’ (really?) people caught in the net of
island life not really sure how they got snagged but not really sure how to
move on either.
Luckily we managed to get a spare set of
fuel filters DHL’d out to us, the customs clearance for cruising permit came
through and after about 10 days we could up and leave.
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| Multitasking Doctors |
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| Multitasking shops |
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| Supermarket!!! |
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| not what you'd expect to go bombing through the anchorage |
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| and this is my fish - caught on a handline and a bit of bread! |
Join us next time as we explore the Koro sea and islands.
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