It has been 3 ½ years since the last time I was on Interlude
in Roatan. Since then Karen and Cheryl have sailed the thousands of miles
across the Pacific to Fiji. Some people talk about sailing the Caribbean or the
South Pacific, but very few people actually do it. Just having a chance to go
for 2 weeks is a great opportunity so I couldn’t miss it. On the 11 hour flight
from Los Angeles I thought how long it would take to do this trip by boat, the
flight took long enough.
After arriving in Nadi I had another flight to Taveuni and a
short drive to Paradise Resort on the south end of the island where Interlude
was moored. Karen and Cheryl were there playing volleyball with the other yachties.
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| Interlude at Paradise |
We went to Savusavu the next day. The ocean swells looked
large to me, but Karen and Cheryl didn’t think they were that bad, they had
seen worse. They caught a large Mahi Mahi on the way, so we had fish for the
next few meals.
In Savusavu we moored in a calm port and met with people on
a boat called Monkey Fist that night. The next day we walked around the small
town. I arranged to do a shark dive for the next day. I did see some sharks,
but they were hard to get close to, the sharks stayed away from divers.
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| Look closely maybe you can see his teeth!! |
We then went to the north end of the Yasawa Islands. We did
a 120 mile, 24 hour passage. This was
timed to go through the reefs during daylight and open water in the dark. We
each did 3 hour shifts to watch out for things. This auto pilot did the
steering. I thought the waves at night were large, but Cheryl and Karen thought
the water was calm, again they had seen worse. A large group of dolphins swam
with the boat for a while just before dark.
We stopped at the north end on the Yasawa Islands where we
went ashore to do the Kava presentation to the chief of the village. There were
no roads in this village, only footpaths from one house to another. The anchorage got rough by the end of the day
so we moved to another site the next day.
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| North Yasawa beach |
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| Yup Will had to wear a Sulu aka a skirt to do the Kava presentation |
We then went to “Blue Lagoon” anchorage, near a large
resort. This was very scenic and protected as well. The water was very calm and
you wouldn’t know that you were on a boat. We did some snorkeling and saw several
pipe fish and other reef fish.
The next day we anchored in Waya where everyone from the
other yachts came to Interlude for a few drinks and food. It was a good party
and the other boats commented on it on the radio the next day. The second day
we did some snorkeling on the reef and then went ashore later in the afternoon.
For the last day of the trip we went to Denarau on the main
island of Fiji, about 30 miles away. This was a resort area with a new marina
and several high end hotels, not the “real Fiji”. We had dinner at a nice
restaurant on the edge of the water.
This marina has some large mega yachts that must be 150 feet long or
more.
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| 3 sailors enjoying some local grog |
From Denarau it is a taxi ride to the Nada airport, we went
to the Nadi town and to a rum store for a tasting before I needed to leave to
the airport.
We sailed a total of 236 miles while I was there. I keep telling Karen and Cheryl to keep notes
and write a book when they come back to Canada, but they would have a lot of
material and it could be a long time yet before this trip is over.
