The first 24 hours and it's raining hard

We left Levuka at local midday yesterday (00.00 UTC) and after a slightly bumpy start made good progress through the night. Our current position is:

 

Update at 00.00UTC Saturday 25th October:

 

Position: 19 degrees 33 mins south, 177 degrees, 17 mins east

Wind: Easterly 12-14 knots

Boat: 5.9 knots at 207 degrees true

Sea: 2m south-easterly swell

Pressure: 1014hPa

Cloud cover: 100% with rain and drizzle

Mileage covered in past 24 hours: 153nm

 

Unfortunately at about 9.00am local time this morning we sailed into the weather trough that's sitting just below Fiji and suddenly had very heavy rain (with a circle of visibility of no more than 200m radius ) and wind guts up to 30 knots. Lots of sail changes required but things have settled down again and we are making steady progress southward. The forecast suggests we'll get some light winds in a couple of days as we hit the centre of a passing high pressure system so we'll have to motor through that and then there's a weather front crossing below us that will bring more rain and adverse winds but nothing too unpleasant we hope.

 

As ever we are both adapting to the loss of sleep and constant motion of the boat but Maunie is revelling in the conditions.

Leaving Fiji - and Happy Diwali!

The weather window looks ok for a departure from Fiji tomorrow so we moved up to the port of Levuka yesterday and spent today getting ready for the off.

Levuka is a wonderful place. It was the first capital of Fiji and was the site of the first school, post office and bank in the country and it was the place where Fiji ceded to Great Britain in 1874; Prince Charles came here to hand the country back in 1970. Its expansion was limited by the high cliffs surrounding it so the capital moved to Suva and Levuka has remained mostly undeveloped ever since. It was accorded World Heritage Site status last year - see this website for more: http://levukatourism-com.webs.com/about-levuka

The anchorage just off the main street which runs along the seafront is ok but suffers from a few assaults on the senses. A huge, modern tuna-processing factory lies upwind of us (so the boat has a not unpleasant aroma of cooking fish around her), the town's very noisy diesel generator is also upwind of us and, for today especially, the cliffs have echoed with hundreds of loud explosions.

Fish cannery to the left, generators to the right, Maunie in between

The less industrial side of the town

The town is a bit like a wild-west street with clapboard shops and buildings. Today was a national holiday (and the reason for the explosions) so it was fairly deserted when we went for a walk around this morning.

Quay Street in the morning light

The first MH supermarket (the main brand in Fiji) now  the town's rather run-down museum

Quay Street

A great 'we sell everything' Indian shop, in the same family since 1934

Hopefully World Heritage status might lever some funds to maintain some of the decaying buildings 

Others are lovingly looked after

Above and below - Colonial churches

The Anglican church, built in 1904

 

Inside the church

One of many exampled of British involvement

As ever, we were stopped by friendly Fijians. They'd all worked out that we were the yacht crew and wanted to know about us. Here Dianne chats to Talley who has invited us to tea when we return next year!

The reason for the public holiday is that it's Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Light. Everyone, native Fijians particularly, seems to love the opportunity to buy industrial quantities of Chinese fireworks (of the 'light it and 25 rockets go up' variety) and so we've had prime seats for an amazing display. Some couldn't even wait for it to go dark!

Daytime fireworks!

So, assuming we get some sleep tonight, we'll go into the port to clear out with Customs and Immigration and leave at lunchtime. The forecast suggests a gentle start to the passage, then 3-4 days of good sailing; unfortunately we'll meet a weather front with adverse winds on Wednesday but hope we'll punch through that fairly quickly and, all being well, we'll be back in Opua on Sunday 1st. The temperature change will be a shock - were were melting in 32 degrees and no wind today whilst it's about 16 degrees in NZ!

We'll aim to update the blog each day of the voyage with a short story on our progress but, as ever, don't worry if there isn't an update as there's always the risk of computer or satellite phone problems. We'll be reporting in to the daily radio net so will have regular safety contact with other boats should our computer comms let us down.

Getting ready to head south

The two-day passage around the northern side of Viti Levu went pretty much to plan. As expected, we had quite a strong headwind to contend with so we motor-sailed (with the mainsail set to get the engine a little extra assistance) but, thanks to the protecting reef, the water was pretty flat and it wasn't too much of a chore. We are delighted to report that the propeller no longer rattles! Hurrah!

We've come to the east side of Viti Levu and taken a (free) mooring at a little island resort called Leleuvia. Here we are just 2 or 3 hours sail from the port of Levuka on Ovalau island, an official 'Port of Entry' which is where we will go through the process of clearing out of Fijian waters with the Customs and Immigration people. We're told that the process is reasonably hassle-free there so we'll see. Anyway the plan is to wait here at Leleuvia until we think we have a favourable weather window then move up to Levuka to clear out, though we may go a do a day-sail there tomorrow just to recce the place and get some more diesel to replace the 45 litres we burned on the way from Denarau.

Waiting at Leleuvia is certainly no hardship. It's a very attractive, laid-back resort catering to a lot of weekenders from the mainland as well as foreign tourists who want to get away from it all. The mooring is well sheltered and the water's great for a morning swim around the boat. We've been welcomed to use the bar and restaurant (the place is pretty quiet at the moment, we've only seen about a dozen guests who are currently outnumbered by staff).

Above and below: The bar and restaurant

The place is well set up for water sports so this morning Graham went for a brilliant dive with their divemaster, plus a boat driver and two new members of staff undergoing training. Highlights of the 'Wall' dive (a 25m vertical wall of brilliant coral) included a sleeping 6ft Zebra Shark in his favourite alcove in the wall and some energetic chasing of turtles. The dive team here is taking part in a government survey of turtles to tag them and monitor their travels but this involves trying to sneak up on them from behind and grab them. Today we weren't successful as, though we saw 5 turtles they skedaddled before we could nab them; they have quite a turn of speed when they need it. Good sport though! The cost of the dive, including pick-up from Maunie, hire of all the kit and the services of the excellent divemaster - about £35.

On to the weather and lots of boats are looking for a good time to head south. As mentioned before, it's a really hard passage to predict as the frequency of the high and low pressure systems rolling eastwards from southern Australia make it almost certain that we'll get some adverse conditions. A few boats left yesterday but one, Mystic Moon, just emailed us to say they were experiencing a horrible short wavelength swell which was throwing them about a lot. Mystic Moon is a 52ft heavy displacement trawler yacht with a 400HP engine and anti-roll stabilisers so we're glad we're not out there with them. 

Must dash - Happy Hour is about to start in the bar (half-price beers)!

A successful, if slightly surreal haul-out

Maunie has her bottom exposed for the first time in 12 months

Having your boat hauled out onto 'the hard', as it's known, is a necessary evil of boat ownership and isn't something that most crews enjoy. Back int Britain, many boats will be lifted out at the end of October and returned to their natural environment in March, giving their owners plenty of time to attend to maintenance work and apply a new coat of anti-fouling paint through the autumn and winter months. In reality, most leave it to the last minute, only to discover it's the coldest, wettest March since records began.

For us 'liveaboards', the boat is in the water for the full yet year with just a brief haul-out, to attend to things 'down below', once a year. We have the advantage of being able to pick a location and time of year where the warm sun is shining but it's usually a stressful, back-breaking and expensive few days. We hand our floating homes into the care of (we hope) skilled boatyard operators who crane them out and chock up them securely in the boatyard. However it;s seldom straightforward and we know of 2 boats that had disasters in reputable yards in New Zealand in the past year; one got the lifting strop of the crane in the wrong place so it bent the 40mm diameter propeller shaft, whilst another suffered huge damage when a prop failed and the 20 tonne, 4 year old 46ft yacht fell over onto the concrete resulting in a £300,000 repair.

So, in context. our unplanned haul-out in an unknown-to-us Fijian yard was potentially going to be fraught. The reason for our decision to do it was an unpleasant rattle from our expensive Brunton's Autoprop feathering propeller (only a year after we treated it to a full rebuild in New Zealand) and we just didn't want to wait until our return to NZ in case there was something seriously amiss. 

So, on Monday morning we arrived at the dock to meet Vinay the yard foreman, Avi the crane driver and Jonni the pressure-washer expert and general sage. It was slightly worrying to read the small print of the contract which stated that the yacht captain was entirely responsible for the positioning of the lifting slings under the boat and that, in the unlikely event of a disaster, the yard would accept absolutely no responsibility! Anyway the team of three were extremely attentive and we managed to get the slings in the right places for a smooth and safe lift. It was only once Maunie was safely propped up in the yard that Avi confided that he was nearly at the end of his three-month probation period so was still, technically, in training!

First stage of the project - take boat from water and place on land - successfully completed, we then set about investigating our rattling propeller and discovered that it had worked loose on the tapered propeller shaft. 

The propeller, cleaned and removed

The tapered section of the prop shaft with the brass 'key' visible. The spurs ahead of it are the Stripper rope cutter which we have, we have to admit, tested in anger!

There was no danger of if falling off, thankfully, but it became clear that someone (not us!) had made a mistake with the measurements when we ordered the propeller 5 years ago and, no matter how hard the securing nut was tightened, it wasn't securing the thing tightly onto the taper. It had held in place by friction and goodwill until a few weeks ago and the rattle we could hear could, if left unattended, have damaged the bronze propeller beyond repair.

Step forward another Vinay, this time the foreman of an onsite engineering business called Baobab Marine. He called his boss in and between us we decided a new spacing washer was required - the following morning a made-to-measure washer, machined from bronze, arrived from the workshop and the problem was solved.

What really impressed us was the interest and enthusiasm of all the guys we worked with in the yard. There was none of the usual 'seen it before' weariness that we have encountered elsewhere and they all wanted to know how the feathering propeller worked and what the rope cutter was for.

The slightly surreal aspect of the project was that the yard rules forbade us from living aboard Maunie (as we'd usually do) whilst she was out of the water so we found a wonderful alternative of a one-room apartment a few hundred yards away. This came with a proper kitchen, a washing machine and drier (which saw a lot of use!) a big TV and DVD player and a superb pool. So, we were able to escape back to luxury in between bouts of hard work and even managed to host a drinks party for the crews of three other boats who were as surprised as we were that a haul-out could be so easy!

The living room of our apartment

The propeller, serviced, refitted and coated with a non-stick coating called Propspeed which has done a very good job of keeping the barnacles at bay over the past year

Polished and ready to return to the water

Avi, the trainee Travel-lift driver, at work

Overall the project (including the cost of the apartment) cost about the same as we would have paid in NZ (with no luxury apartment and, of course, and we won't have to haul out there now) but it was infinitely more agreeable. The process is one of those expensive moments in sailing though - we spent about £500 all-in - which does make us focus on the costs of boat ownership. Again, Fiji scores highly, not just in labour costs but in other aspects; cooking gas for example.

Our selection of gas tanks

On Maunie we have Camping Gaz 2.2kg cylinders as our main supply, plus a 4.5kg Calor Gas bottle but in New Zealand we had to buy some expensive 1.8kg aluminium tanks as no-one would refill our tanks. Here in Fiji, no problem and the Camping Gaz tanks cost about £5 each to fill whereas when we left England we were paying about £24 each. Any explanation of the difference would be welcome!

A cautionary tale

We've previously mentioned the risks of uncharted reefs and shallows in this part of the world. Fiji remains a beautiful but risky place to cruise and we've chatted to several boat crews who have 'kissed the coral' with their keels.

There's a very honest but sobering account of what happens in a moment if you get it wrong. The American yacht Bella Vita mistakenly went the wrong side of a marker post and ended up high and dry on a coral reef as the tide ebbed - it's worth reading and is a timely reminder for us to remain super-vigilant in our last couple of weeks here. Here's their story

On a more positive note, we're busy preparing Maunie for the 1260 mile / 8-9 day passage to New Zealand at the end of the month. Graham will be up the mast today to do a full check of the rigging and we've been restocking the boat with food. Tomorrow we get lifted out for two days for below-the-waterline maintenance so a busy couple of days lie ahead.

Planning the migration and reflecting on Fiji

October is the month when boats begin to start their seasonal migrations from this part of the Tropics. From November to May this area become susceptible to cyclones (the southern hemisphere name for hurricanes) so most of us don't want to be around for those! 

A few brave souls will book a 'cyclone mooring' in a sheltered creek here, where they can attach their boats to a very substantial concrete block on the seabed and hope for the best, but our insurers wouldn't cover us for that and we wouldn't want to be here through the hot and humid Fiji summer, anyway.

So the options are, broadly, head south to New Zealand or south east Australia or head north up to the Marshall Islands or Indonesia. For us, New Zealand has always been the plan so are now beginning to focus fairly seriously on the weather forecasts for the 1260 mile (8-10 day) passage south.

The latest NASA satellite photo - we're currently in the rain band at the top of the picture

The challenge for us is that a series of significant weather events roll from west to east from the south of Australia to New Zealand, squashed between the cold air of the Antarctic and the hot conditions in the Australian centre. So a big low pressure system will roll along, followed by a high pressure then a low pressure and so on, with about 5-8 days between each event. In the southern hemisphere the winds rotate clockwise around a low and anticlockwise around a high. There's a really nice website which shows animations of the current wind patterns across the globe; it really helps make sense of the weather wherever you are - you can spin the earth and zoom in - so do have a look at it here

Anyway, the theory goes that we should wait for a big high pressure to pop up north of NZ, moving east on the line from Fiji to NZ and then set off, riding the northerly winds on its western flank. The problem is that the next low pressure is likely to come along before we get to our destination so we'd hit a front (big change of wind and weather) then get south or south-westerly winds against us. It being the end of the NZ winter, those winds could be gale force if we were unlucky and, of course, the weather forecasts for 8-9 days ahead aren't very reliable. So the best we can do it to study the conditions, consult the experts and keep our fingers crossed; needless to say we'll have the boat set up to face heavy weather conditions so everything will be strapped down securely. 

We're aiming to leave towards the end of October and so have only a couple more weeks to enjoy this wonderful country. There are huge areas of Fiji that we haven't visited and other places we'd have liked to stay longer but we've done pretty well for a first visit. We are now back in Port Denarau and today made the decision to do a maintenance pit stop here; on Monday Maunie will be hauled out of the water for 2 days to allow us to service the folding propeller and other under-water fittings. The cost here is about two-thirds of that in New Zealand and it'll save us the job down there; a super-clean bottom might also give us 0.2 knots of extra boat speed and shave maybe 5 or 6 hours off the passage time!

The northern-most village

We're returning from a really lovely exploration of the northern Yasawa islands. We made it up to the northern-most village, Yasawairara, and anchored in perfect turquoise water off a crescent shaped golden sand beach  (at 16 degrees, 42.5 minutes south, 177 degrees, 34.6 minutes east, if you fancy a look on Google Earth).

Looking towards the village

The anchor chain - the 'snubber line' is stretchy rope which acts as a shock-absorber for the boat when she pitches in any waves.

Once again, we found that it's the opportunity to meet the local people that makes Fiji so special. Although Yasawairara is comparatively well-connected compared to Fulaga, with a supply ship running once a week to the mainland at Lautoka, only a few hours away, plus an airstrip serving a posh resort and good mobile phone and internet connections, it's still pretty much on the way to nowhere so visiting yachts are welcomed warmly.

We dinghied ashore with Pacific Hwy. to offer our sevusevu and were taken to the most substantial house in the village to meet Ratu Assaelli. He welcomed us and explained that the last chief (his fbrother, we think) had died and, as yet, a new chief hadn't been appointed. There are 4 'tribes' in the village and we gathered there were some serious village politics at work. However, Aselli, as the villagers seemed to call him, (the 'Ratu' bit is a reference to the chiefly status of the family) and his wife Winnie told us a bit about the village, once the formal sevusevu was completed.

Aselli and Winnie with Laura from Pacific Hwy.

Aselli and Winnie's house

The place seems to get whacked by a passing cyclone on spookily regular, 20 year cycle. In 1952 it was abandoned after a particularly devastating storm but people started to move back in 1970 only to suffer more damage in the 1972 cyclone. The  story was repeated in 1992 and the last Cyclone, Evan, hit in 2012. Aselli said he had 9 families sheltering in his strongly-built house and they experienced the eerie calm as the eye of the storm passed overhead before the full force returned from the seaward side. Waves flooded into the low-lying village and the Methodist church, several houses and many trees were flattened; their house still has plywood in place of glass in most of the windows and the village generator and underground cables are still out of action two years later. 

The village hall, left, is now also the temporary church as the original is now the pile of rubble to the right

Abandoned Lali (church drum) and the demolished church

The village has had to raise funds to pay for the repairs to the power supply but that should be restored 'soon' whilst the government has paid for contractors to come and fix the wharf; once that's done (again 'soon') they hope to entice the odd cruise ship to call in, as they are a lucrative source of income in a place otherwise dependent on subsistence farming and some employment in the nearby resort. Aselli told us that they charged the last liner $6,000FJ and that was several year ago, though we wondered who would get around to the process of contacting the cruise operators to entice them in.

Certainly the village and the surrounding coastline are worth the effort to visit. We were assigned a team of 5-year-old children to guide us out to the beach on the eastern side of the island and they were lovely - chatting and giggling and, of course, delighted to see their pictures on our digital camera.

Our guides lead us out of the village

Plantations of yams - the vines are trained up onto the trellis to keep the fruit from scorching on the sun-baked earth

The beautiful eastern beach

The delights of drawing in the sand are universal

Kids at play, young and old! Bruce leads the cartwheeling

As we left to return to our boats, Aselli asked if we wanted to go fishing. Or, in real terms, could he come fishing in our boat. So the following morning, Graham, Bruce and he set off in Bruce's dinghy for a long trip around the reef to a favourite spot; Aselli's a keen fisherman and was delighted when Graham gave him a new lure to replace his fish-eaten one. His delight was heightened when he reeled in a 3lb Trevally about 20 seconds after putting the lure into the water. In all we caught 12 fish, mostly large mackerel which are delicious so Maunie and Pacific Hwy took one each and Aselli distributed the rest around his neighbours.

Happy fishermen

Our final part of the Yasawairara experience was to be invited back for afternoon tea and we sat on a pandanus mat in the shade of the house eating Winnie's home-made scones plus a very fine chocolate cake made by Laura. She'd also made a large batch of popcorn so the children were given equal shares as they lined up, each with a little plastic container. 

Popcorn distribution

We walked back, after a fun afternoon, via a little market garden run by a few of the women. They are praying for rain but have to carry water from a well at the moment to irrigate the tomatoes and cabbages but the soil seems relatively fertile here and they have plans to extend their operation to sell produce to the resort in addition to supplying the village. One of the younger women was the the village nurse and it turned out she new Batai, the nurse at Fulaga, so we were able to pass on her regards to him on the SSB the following day.

The bucket-chain from the well

Evening light on a perfect beach

So, we're now heading south back to Musket Cove, having really enjoyed another slice of Fijian hospitality. The weather threatens strong winds for the early part of the week, accompanied, we hope, by some much needed rain.