8/7/24 – 15/7/24

There were plenty of marina staff on hand to see us safely berthed for the night and, with strict instructions that we were not to step foot on the land until we had been officially ‘cleared in’, they bade us good night. We spent the rest of the night on the quarantine dock with our yellow Q flag correctly displayed from below the starboard spreader. Tomorrow we will be visited by immigration and customs officials. Tonight we treated ourselves to a champagne celebration, a delicious meal and a fantastic night’s sleep.

The officials arrived at a very civilised 10am. Three lovely ladies who made the whole process simple and friendly. All of our documentation was in order and the Ministry of Agriculture representative was particularly impressed with Sue’s biosecurity plan which documented the location of every cockroach and fly trap on the boat. Now we have to wait to collect our cruising permit which, we are told, will take around three days.

Three days in Nawi Island Marina will not be too much of a hardship. The marina is brand new. Google Maps shows a construction site and our Navionics charts have the boat positioned firmly on dry land.

The marina is still being developed so the swimming pool was not yet finished and construction of resort accommodation continued while we were there. All the important facilities (like hot showers, a bar and opportunities to provision) were complete however. We met many fellow cruisers in the marina bar as well as enjoying great bar food. We took long, luxurious showers in the 5* semi-outdoor shower facilities and used the free boat shuttle service to visit Savusavu town.

There was good shopping in town with many places prepared to deliver back to the boat. Jonathan made good use of this when stocking the boat with beer and wine. Only one slight mistake when provisioning. It took Jonathan several days to get over the error – it’ll live with him for some time yet – perhaps years 😂.

Hiring a car seemed like the best option for exploring some of Vanua Levu (Fiji’s second largest island). Unfortunately, the day we had arranged to hire the car Sue was not feeling well. So Nigel, Jonathan and Claire set of to see some of the island and to find a walk.

The first stop was Labasa, the largest town on the island. The Fiji Pocket Guide lists the top walks and hikes on Vanua Levu. Number 4 on list list is the Labasa Riverside Walk, ‘a pleasant walkway along the Labasa River’. We found the start of the walk in the centre of town as described but then needed to ask which way to head along the river. Once that was sorted we needed to take a detour as the path seemed to head across derelict land that was fenced off with a no entry sign. We should have taken this as an omen. We eventually found the path and followed it through a number of villages close to the river. Not particularly pretty scenery and rubbish everywhere. As a consolation we did get to meet some friendly locals who were very happy to chat.

Number 5 in the Pocket Guide sounded more promising so we headed 10km south from Labasa along increasingly mountainous dirt roads to the village of Lekutulevu.

We were met at the village by several young men who were happy to sample our tuna mayo but somewhat confused by our intentions to do the waterfall walk at this time of day. They assured us that it needed a whole day and that we should come back tomorrow morning. We pulled out the Pocket Guide and read the description of a one hour hike to the waterfall which passed a natural rock formation shaped like a tanoa (kava bowl). That clarified everything. There was a second waterfall that was only about 15 minutes away and a slight detour would take us to the tanoa. By now we had lost all faith in the Fiji Pocket guide and happily followed our self-appointed guide to the village chief to get permission.

Permission was duly granted by a very friendly chief and our procession grew to include a second young man and two children who should have been at school. A few minutes later we were shown the tanua which the men assured us had actually been used for serving kava in the past – would have been quite a party! Then fairly soon afterward we made it to the waterfall where our guide felt it necessary to demonstrate the water slide and swimming hole and seconds later the two children had joined him. The little girl was still wearing her school uniform and we ribbed her about how much trouble she would be in when her mother saw it. She did not seem too concerned.

One ‘problem’ that we had on the crossing to Fiji was that we caught so much fish that we needed to convert two of our fridge drawers into freezers. A combination of rising temperatures and overloaded freezers meant that they did not cope and we were in danger of losing the contents. A local electrician came highly recommended and had a number of suggestions. First he wanted to re-gas. Unfortunately, the fridges had a sealed gas pipe so he needed to return the next day with all the necessary tools and fittings. By the time he returned he had done some thinking (aka YouTube viewing) and decided that there was no problem with the gas and so would check the fans. This was the problem. They were completely iced up. There were many more (days of) toings and froings but the upshot is that we need to de-ice the fans every week or so until we get back to New Zealand and have them looked at by an authorised service agent.

The next issue was our dive compressor. We had tried to fill dive tanks while out on Minerva but the compressor had refused to run for more than a few minutes. Now we had the opportunity to take it off the boat and plug it directly into the shore power. As a result we were able to discover that there was nothing wrong with the boat power system and in fact the issue was a $10 cut out switch on the compressor. We removed the switch (with the permission of the supplier in New Zealand) and the problem was solved. Now we can go diving…