My friends Trevor and Mel arrived at oh-dark-hundred on Sunday morning. I was sound asleep and Moonshadow was tied to the marina at Port Denerau. Their three-hour flight from Auckland had been delayed by about sixteen hours but it didn’t seem to dampen their enthusiasm to get underway later that morning on our cruise to Savusavu.
Savusavu is the second largest town and only port of entry on the second largest Fijian island of Vanua Levu. Situated about 140 miles as the seagull flies from Port Denerau, the actual track around islands and steering clear of the massive network of reefs, roughly doubles the distance. We had also planned to stop off and spend a week at the beautiful and remote island of Yadua (pronounced Yan-doo-ah).
Victualled and fueled up, we tossed off the lines and motored out of Port Denerau right after coffee and breakfast. It was a crisp clear morning, with nary a breath of wind and sea state that would have most water skiers drooling. And so it stayed for the entire day as we motored all of the sixty miles of our first leg around the north side of Viti Levu, the main island, with the mainland on our starboard side and a massive labyrinth of reef to our port side between Bligh Water and us.
Bligh Water is named after the tyrannical captain of the H.M.S. Bounty, whose first mate led a mutiny that left him and a small group of loyal crew to fend for themselves in a small open sailing boat. I wonder if this body of water is so named because he safely navigated through the area on his miraculous voyage back to civilization, or if it is because it is arguably one of the nastiest and foulest pieces of ocean on the entire planet.
We arrived at a small island called Nananu-i-ra, just before sunset and anchored in a pleasant little bight on its west side. We had a sundowner and a nice dinner at one of the two small resorts on the island, while a string band (C for quality, A for effort) serenaded us. Trevor, having lived in Fiji for two years and knowing some of the songs even “sat in” with the band, playing the one string bass and singing.
The next morning, as soon as we had good light, we headed north out of Nananu Passage, which opened up to 26 miles of deep and mostly obstruction-free water between Yadua and us. The southeast trades were in perfect form so we had a spirited sail with about fifteen knots just abaft our starboard beam until we sailed into the lee of Yadua Tamba, a small islet just off the southwest corner of Yadua. Along the way, the Sea Gods sent a 15-pound mahi-mahi to join us for dinner.
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