Category Archives: Fiji

The Beauty of Savusavu

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Savusavu is a delightful place with grocery stores, fresh produce, bakeries, restaurants, chandleries, mechanics, and some tourism.  It’s small enough to be quaint and big enough to meet our needs after being off the grid for so long.

There are 4 marinas in Savusavu.  Two of the “marinas” are very small and only offer a few mooring balls:  Waitui Marina and Savusavu Marina.

Copra Shed Marina has moorings and a few slips at their dock.  They have 2 restaurants, a gift shop, chandlery, activity center, Fiji Airways office, and a Money exchange.

Nawi Marina is the new, big marina that is still in the process of expanding.  They have lots of marina slips and a haul out facility.  Soon, they will have mooring balls.  They have a beautiful pool, 2 restaurants, chandlery, small market, coffee shop, small beauty spa and more.

We stay on a Copra Shed mooring (see green arrow).  We have a nice breeze, very little traffic and a pretty view.

The marinas are all vastly different but there is something for everyone.

Nawi is still trying to figure things out.  They’ve unfortunately tripled their rates so it is not a place we stay.  But, we do love to visit and enjoy their pool, bar and restaurants.

There is a lovely produce market that is open daily.  You can find eggs, potatoes, onions, papayas, bananas, bell peppers hot peppers, cabbage, avocados, passion fruit and oh so much more!

A Month Long Stay

Normally, we would not have stayed for a month.  However, I had to fly back to the states to pick up our boat parts and Matt had to do the repairs.

At least we were “stuck” in a beautiful town with provisions, restaurants, and lots of other cruisers to hang out with!

We had lots of beautiful rainbows.

And more rainbows:

Our blog posts run 10-12 weeks behind actual live events.

We arrived Savusavu in early May and stayed for several weeks repairing the boat.  Be sure to check out our arrival to Savusavu here.

Drama on the high seas

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First and foremost everything is fine on board, we are continuing on toward Fiji as planned still with a stop in Tuvalu.

We left Majuro bound for Fiji with 2 stops along the way, Kiribati and Tuvalu.  Its the end of cyclone season, Yippie, except for the one that just popped up between Vanuatu and is heading toward New Zealand.  We are heading to “Bula” country, home of friendly people and kava ceremonies. 

When we left the Marshall Islands we had 2 steering helms, 2 rudders, 1 auto pilot and 2 souls capable of steering the boat with any of those.  And we have an emergency tiller too, in case everything goes pear shaped.  Let me say, we have had some “challenges” on this passage south. 

First arriving Kiribati, one of the steering boxes on the starboard side decided 24 years was enough, and demanded attention.   One its bearings on the inside the steering gears rusted through and burst into pieces.  One steering station down. Now we can no longer steer the boat from the starboard helm, and that is also where the gas pedal is.   So picture a clown car with the clowns carrying around the steering wheel, yet the car won’t turn. Turn as you might the steering wheel, helm, just spins indefinitely.   To actually turn, you have to run to the other side of the drivers end clown car to steer and run back to give it gas or slow down.  What can go wrong?  🙂  The clowns always make it work, right?   I actually removed the steering gear (red below) where the bearings disintegrated, so that the pieces and wobbly gear wouldn’t lock up the steering completely.  So whew,  order bearings to repair and head off to Tuvalu.  Not ideal but we have 2 of everything, part of being a catamaran.

Left Kiribati bound for Tuvalu.

The sail started out as champagne sailing doing great speeds and making short work of 700 miles we were making toward Tuvalu. It devolved a bit into prosecco sailing when the speeds dropped a bit, but still great fun.   Day 3 the squalls of the ITCZ (convergence zone between north and south hemispheres), quick wind shifts and gusts made for some exciting times.  Nothing out of the normal for this part of the pacific crossing the equator and the convergence zones.   When the wind went too light and on the nose, it was time to check the engine fluids before starting and to spot any potential issues.  I found the port rudder “control arm” broke at some point, probably during one of those pesky 30kt squalls.  The ones that steel your perfect wind and force you off course.  Thinking back, the broken bit might explain why it took longer than normal to turn downwind to run in the storm.  So the port rudder is down till we find a stainless welder.  Its lashed to the central position now, its just not wobbling too and fro willy nilly, and getting a free ride.

So for those keeping count, we have 1 working steering helm station (port), 1 working rudder (starboard), 1 auto pilot(starboard), and 2 less than pleased souls on board.   And of course the emergency tiller when all else fails.    So now we still use the gas pedal on the starboard side, run to port side to steer, the steering rudder is actually on the starboard side.   Got it?  A bit complicated but we are still trucking along, albeit a bit more conservatively till we arrive Fiji and work on getting cold beer to tackle fixing the steering project.

Is it Fiji that doesn’t like our steering?  2 years ago, one of our rudders vanished on the way to Fiji.  This year, other steering components are making their voices heard. 

275nm to Tuvalu, then another 500ish to Fiji.. we will get there!

Port Denarau Marina Preparations

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We head into Port Denarau Marina for provisions, laundry, a shipment, and to meet my cousin Jeff who is visiting for a few days.  Lots to do in a short amount of time but it always seems like it becomes a hurry up and wait situation.

We made a reservation for a mooring ball from 12-16 October with the hopes of completing all of our errands and projects.  Hope being the operative word.  However, when we arrived they had no space for us on the moorings so they put us in a berth.  Wow, ok.  Scramble to get the lines and fenders out and in we go with 20+kts pushing us around the tiny slip.  But, we made it safely with no issues with the marina’s help.

Early morning on the dock at Port Denarau Marina.

The good news is we are on a dock which makes it super easy to do a lot of our projects.  Matt starts off with washing down the boat using the marina’s fresh water (yeah, not our hard earned fresh water from the watermaker).  While he is busy doing that I take 3 loads of laundry in and make good use of their industrial machines.

Bring on the Heat

Yes, it is super hot and humid in Fji, but I am talking about actual heaters for Sugar Shack.  No, I have not lost my mind (well….).  It is darn cold in NZ and our current heaters onboard no longer work.

Matt had been in communication with Espar Michigan/Espar Parts in MI and with Heatso in CA (both in the U.S.).  Heatso responded with information on the wrong part at first so Matt sort of wrote them off.  Espar responded, but then went radio silent for months.  When they finally responded we were in a red hot rush to get the parts shipped to Fiji while we were here.  Why do you ask?  Well it is easier to import parts into Fiji than it is into NZ.

Long story short, Espar didn’t have all the parts and pieces.  They wanted to ship a partial order and then ship the rest to my cousin Jeff who was flying to Fiji to meet us, but even then they couldn’t get the order together to make it work.  Their communication was less than stellar and their stock was horrific.  They just couldn’t get it organized.

As a last stitch effort, Matt contacted Heatso again.  It was a thursday afternoon.  The owner said he had all of the parts and could ship everything out the next day.  He answered all of our questions, called to confirm all the measurements and pieces, and offered us a 10% discount because we were buying 2 kits (without me even asking – which you know I would have done).

Heatso sent the large box overnight to Fiji Freight in California, our freight forwarder who received it on Monday. Fiji Freight then put it on a plane and sent it to Fiji. It arrived Tuesday, cleared Customs Wednesday evening and was delivered to us on Thursday!  The delivery from CA to Fiji within a week of contacting Heatso and Fiji Freight!  Now how about them apples!  Whoop Whoop!  Talk about amazing service from both Heatso and Fiji Freight.

This will have to be a project for another day, but at least we have the parts!

Errands & Projects

We brought in our propane bottle and got it refilled, made several trips to the trash and recylcing and picked up my cousin Jeff. All made easier being at the dock.  But alas, all good things come to an end and we had to move out to our morring.

We had loads of preparation before our passage.  Matt prepared pre-cooked meals and froze them; we stowed a lot of stuff; got out the jacklines, ditch bag, first aid kit, PFDs, foul weather gear, and priority bag (for computers/phones/paperwork); refilled both diesel and gasoline, tested systems (Iridium, PredictWind tracker), re-scheduled our prewritten blog posts, and prepared our Fiji departure paperwork & our NZ entry paperwork.

Help on the Passage

We did not have much time with Jeff so we tried to make the best of it while still preparing for our passage.   

We enjoyed many tasty meals, but this one at Bone Fish stood out as truly delicious.  I had grilled prawns and the boys had Wicked Wahoo.

Overlooking the marina where we are staying…can you spot Sugar Shack on the mooring?

Hiking Mt. Silo

As we wait for a weather window we take Jeff on a few hikes.  The first weas a walk around Malolo island during low tide.  Super easy, flat walk that is about 4.5 miles.  The next hike is shorter but has a lot of elevation (up and down and up and down).  It is the ridge hike or the hike to Mt. Silo.

Many beautiful views on the way to the peak. I just love the variation in colors in the water.

I tried to capture the boys as they were on the trail, but they are so small and hard to find 🙂

And more gorgeous views.

We made it to the bunker and the top of the highest peak.

We reward ourselves with some great snorkeling along the outer reef and see some marvelous fish, soft and hard corals.

Departure

We were starting to see some weather activity and decided to head back to Port Denarau.  Jeff was heading to New Zealand by plane and Matt and I in Sugar Shack.  

Super fun time showing Jeff around Musket Cove and Port Denarau.

In our last blog post we share our adventures on several different islands.  Our blog posts run 10-12 weeks behind live events.  This blog occured mid-October.  Did you read our last blog “So Many Islands, So Little Time?”