Category Archives: RealTime

Items posted real real time, thus no editing and items that come from instagram

Nawi Marina

Savusavu and the New Nawi Marina

We arrive into Savusavu after 60 hours at sea.  Our passage from Tonga was a pretty quick one despite having one rudder and reduced sails for the entire 413nm.  It is good to be back in Fiji!

Pio met us at the mooring ball in his panga to assist with the hook up.  I love that they do this for the cruisers-excellent customer service.  We then wait a few hours for the officials to come onboard and welcome us into the country.

The health official comes first and is on and off the boat within 20 minutes.  We completed a few forms, answered some questions, then allowed her to take photos of a few things.  First, she wanted to take photos of our toilets.  Weird, but ok. Then she took photos of our can goods, pantry, and snack area.  

An hour later, customs, immigration, and biosecurity board us.  This is always fun as they each ask us questions at the same time and you never know who to answer first.  they are all incredibly friendly and easy going.  They let us keep our “prohibited items” such as our meats (chicken, pork, beef), some produce, and dairy.  It was rather surprising and pleasing!

Our mooring is pretty close to the shore which looks dangerous at low tide.  But in reality it is totally fine.

Nawi Marina

I am not sure if you remember, but back in June 2022 we came to Savusavu.  During this visit, we explored the new Nawi Marina.  Well, it was a work in progress.  They had signs up saying that they were going to open for this cruising season and we just could not imagine it happening.  Well, they proved us wrong!

When we first visited they only had a few docks installed and lots and lots of poles. Now they have boats in the docks!

They are still working on the east side of the marina.  They need to install power, water, and cleats, but it is coming along nicely.

The two-story building has the Skipper’s bar on the 2nd floor and a really nice restaurant on the bottom floor. The bottom photo shows the building where there is a small grocery store and chanderly.  And they also have laundry facilties and bathrooms.

I know it seems like more should have been done in a year, but this is the islands and we are all shocked this much work has been completed.

There are more amenities coming according to this sign (pool and spa). The lower right photo is the entrance to the laundry and shower facilities.  I love the word “bula” spelled out on the mat in palm fronds.

There were no boats and now there are cruising boats, local boats, and super yachts.

Savusavu

This little town just makes me smile.  Most of the businesses are located on the main street which runs east to west.  It is not a large town and will only take you about 30 minutes to walk from one end to the other.  But it is packed with some good stuff.  Several markets, a pharmacy, 2 butchers, many restaraunts, 2 phone companies, computer store, gift shops

Running into friends we haven’t seen since French Polynesia! Brian and Sue on Sea Rose, Lenny and Dave on Perigee, Alex and Carla on Ari B and Matt and I.

The cover photo is the Nawi Marina and Sugar Shack is on the upper left corner(by the trees) on a mooring ball.  Here is another cool shot from my friend Chris’s phone while in an airplane flying over.

Nawi Marina

Nawi Marina

Our blogs run 10-12 weeks behind actual live events.  This blog occured mid-August.  We make the passage to Fiji in our last blog.

Weather, a fickle mistress, Arrival, Recap

The weather in these parts can be quite the mess. So we were looking, as many other boats for nice weather windows to leave the ‘cyclone area’ for season and go somewhere “safe” ..

Well I guess there is no really cyclone/hurricane safe place. The systems will just be called by different names to lure you in. We will probably be dealing with typhoons next as we go further west. Ugh,

Anyway, waiting for weather is an extreme exercise in patience, boredom, itchy feet, mental stability all play a role, which might explain things.

In Fiji, we were waiting and watching, a Tuesday looked good – but further looking had winds on the nose. Then a Friday looked good, but had a constrained finish, had to arrive before the following Friday. So why not Thursday .. hmm maybe some on the nose, similar to the Tuesday that we passed on. Then Lola started to swirl around and make noise about coming to Fiji.

Cue “The Clash”, “Should I stay or should I go”.

Leave Thursday so there is a buffer on the Friday deadline. We did this trip last year in nice conditions and it was a 6 day trip, the models were showing 9-10 days for the Thursday or Friday departures. Doing math and redoing math and checking with weather people and routers etc.. It’ll make your head spin. Weather router said, “doable”, not a warm fuzzy by any stretch of the imagination. Doable did sound, well doable.

Thursday got the call, a few other boats were leaving, others were staying. Thursday did have the allure of a couple nice days at the beginning, to get your feet wet on the long passage, And running “away” from the future Lola that was brewing near by gave a bit of weight to Thursday departure. So we cleared customs and departed just after lunch.

Thursday evenings updated forecast after we left, had future Lola (had not be named yet) coming on our path. Ugh more math, double check dates. Want to turn back, more math, nearly 100 miles into 1100 mile trip we could turn back easier than the 90% left in front of us. Decision was, wait till next forecast, continue on. Whew.. next forecast kept future Lola north and not following us. Still had the Friday constrained by cold front from the Tasman sea.

Christine will have her own view of the passage, but for me, a couple nice days for decent sailing, a couple days of pure crap into the winds with demoralizing VMG (progress to destination) followed by a couple good sailing days, and still a looming Friday constraint. So we kept pressing hard and making forward progress with eyes on arriving Thursday, ahead of the Friday cold front. Amazingly enough that Friday constraint has been in the forecast and never wavered one way or another for over a week. We calculated we needed a 6knot VMG (to make 6nm every hour toward the destination) to make it by Thursday. Boat can be going 10knots and only making 3kn VMG which is what was happening on the ‘crappy’ days, where we sailed 80 miles off course because of the wind direction. We made it.

Lola did materialize and did start her way south, kind of regrouped into the forecast you see below. This forecast is for Monday, the boats in the picture should all be in on Friday or Saturday at the most. Just in time to hunker down. Hopefully we will be nicely tied up to a good strong floating dock by Thursday evening awaiting the Friday event that has now tuned into a possible bigger deal with the addition of Lola remnants.

Predicted forecast for Monday.

We averaged 7.3kn for 1200 miles, used a bunch of diesel, broke the jib car, but we made it before the deadline, now time to sleep, clean, secure the boat for 50 knots of wind in the marina.

As the crow files the passage is 1100, we did this in 160 hours so we made 6.8nm per hour as the crow flies. Our VMG goal of 6nm is what we needed to make our Thursday arrival. The 7.3 average was over the entire distance the boat went, of 1200 and change.

Arriving in the dark
Rounding the Whangarei heads at day break

Now back to your regularly curated blog posts.

Pushing to the Finish

One more sleep to till daybreak.. Uh? Loosing your mind??.. Of course daybreak happens after a sleep. Lets try this again, One more sleep till we arrive, there will be plenty of naps between here and there.

Sun is out, wind is cooperating and giving us a boost to arrive in on Thursday morning well ahead of the changing weather. Not taking any chances tho, burning some diesel to make sure. Temperature is brisk, so tolerable with 3 layers on. I’m sure 19C/65F degrees is warm for some.. but it’s darned cold at night. And the cold front hasn’t even arrived yet.

Finally saw sails on the horizon to further the proof that we are going some where. And even more interesting is that we all have ESP and we can read each others mind even if we are miles apart. Imagine the possibilities.

In almost synchronized swimming precision, we all decided to raise the canvas at the same time. Well could have been daybreak and the ‘slow wind’ from over night was starting to fill in enough to use it as propulsion instead of just making noise flapping back and forth.

Ready set raise!

Doing pretty good on finishing the pork products, a couple of chops will be donated to the incinerator as we can’t eat everything. And there is no way Christine will let the pulled pork go to anywhere else, so that’s for lunch and to be followed with Gumbo for dinner since its getting cold..

All in all, nothing but making the miles today, and checking on boats that also on this hear fun passage. And fresh baked cookies, now time for another one of those naps. And restraint, save some cookies for the officials. Must save cookies… Must save cookies.

All good all day, Last night out. 90 miles to go, nice winds, decent seas, scattered clouds

Cheers to tomorrow’s sunrise and learning to speak Kiwi again. Sweet As.