The day the Marshmallows invaded Dravuni

When we arrived at the island of Dravuni (the most northern of the Astrolabe Reef islands) last week, we found a neatly manicured village of about 120 people who were in the midst of preparations for something big. On the beach a team of men was floating pontoon decking to attach to some piles driven into the sand:

The following morning, all became clear. The Dawn Princess cruise ship, en route from Sydney, via New Caledonia and on to Suva, had anchored a mile offshore and three of its big lifeboats took turns to motor most of its 1200 passengers ashore.

The enterprising locals has set up stalls offering coconuts, food and back massages in an attempt to gain full financial advantage of this event (they get about one ship a month on average) and the visitors wandered about looking faintly perplexed. Sailing friends call cruise ship passengers 'marshmallows', presumably from their general build and colour - there were certainly some very pink ones at the end of the day! Most had no idea about Fijian culture, though one person did stop us and ask if it was true that they should remove their hats and sunglasses in the village; we explained that it was but most weren't aware or bothered. We thought that the locals must have a very strange opinion of their visitors, who were mostly Australian, and we did feel that it was a bit like watching visitors at a zoo. 

We did feel that two very different worlds were illustrated here: one of the nurses from the ship had spotted us (he recognised a Yeo Valley t-shirt!) and he later tracked us down wanting to show us a photo on his iPhone. A villager who we'd met the previous day came along to look so the nurse showed him the photo and explained it. The villager wasn't bothered about the photo but more about the phone, asking what kind it was and how much it cost. The nurse flippantly said "something like $650 US" and the villager responded by estimating that he would never earn a sum like that in his working lifetime. 

Visitors wandering through the village centre

Many just headed straight for the beach

Preparing the credit card terminal (really!) for a busy day

Quite a few made it up the 'mountain' for this view

Selfies and white torsos

Overall, these visits are obviously very beneficial, financially, to the village so we guess that the once a month invasion is worth all the hassle for the people who live here.

Photos from Namara

Some photos taken  at the little uninhabited island of Namara, Astrolabe Reef, south Fiji:

The dinghy is hoisted out of the water, if you are trying to make sense of the perspective!

Note the unfortunate shadow from the wind indicator!

Catching a Turtle

The little resort island of Leleuvia is pretty special so we parked Maunie on one of their moorings for three nights last week:

Graham did a couple of scuba dives with the dive-master Seru and was able to film him catching an adult Hawksbill turtle for a government tagging and monitoring project:

There's a short video and more photos here: https://youtu.be/FqihQhK2Pi4

In the Great Astrolabe Reef

We have sailed south to the Astrolabe Reef (see http://www.yit.co.nz/yacht/maunieofardwall for details) – a cracking 70 mile sail that made the 2.00am departure worth while. The reef is huge, with several small islands and a couple of big ones, Ono and Kadavu, to the south.

 

We've had some great entertainment, both at Leleuvia on the day before departure, and at the island of Dravuni yesterday but we'll have to wait till we get to some internet access to tell you about it all as the photos are needed to illustrate the stories. In the meantime we hare anchored off the tiny, uninhabited island of Namara where the water is crystal clear and the coral beautiful and teeming with fish so we'll be snorkelling again today before moving south to Ono.

 

 

Leleuvia

The wind finally quit on us so we motored the last 90 minutes to Leleuvia where the very friendly resort staff guided us to a free-of-charge mooring. Dramatic skies and mirror calm water as the light faded:

View from the mast of Leleuvia. The Fijian flag shows the effects of a windy season

The weather front approaching us

Anchorages don't come much calmer than this!

Ghosting along

After an overnight stop in Makogai, an  island we visited last year, we left at 07.30 to sail south the 30 miles to the little island of Leleuvia. As forecast, the wind is very light and the sea is calm so we hoisted the cruising chute and are ghosting along at about 2.5 knot in only 6 knots of wind. We're in no great hurry, though, so it's very pleasant.

You'd never guess that Maunie's first owner was Irish!

You can find our location on http://www.yit.co.nz/yacht/maunieofardwall and Leleuvia is just to the south of the big island of Overlau. We'll stay there a couple of days whilst a weather front passes through so the wind will go anticlockwise around the compass from NE to SE. 

Leaving Savusavu

After a week here in Savusavu, we're about to leave for more adventures. Our passports were finally given 'Visa Extension' stamps yesterday by the grumpiest Fijian lady we have ever met; Fijians are, by nature, happy and friendly people but those traits had obviously been trained out of her by the Immigration Department.

We've had a busy time here replenishing stocks, cleaning the boat and putting clothes and seat covers through the excellent laundry service at the marina where the lovely Sylvia will do a wash for about £2 or a wash & dry for £4 - the best value and quality washing we've ever found on our travels.

The plan for today, after a last run around the vegetable market, is to head out to an anchorage a couple of miles away from here to be able to get a swim and to stow the dinghy and then we'll head south west tomorrow. The weather forecast looks pretty good so we hope for some good sailing; we'll update the blog when we know just where we are going!