Yadua, Fiji

We slipped through the pass into Thukuvou Harbour about mid-afternoon and anchored in the wide-open bay. We celebrated a “good-as-it-gets” day of cruising with sundowners and mahi-mahi on the barbeque while taking in the dramatic landscape of volcanic rock, lush tropical vegetation and white sand beaches.

We spent three days there on the west side of Yadua, snorkeling on the beautiful reefs, fishing, reading, relaxing and socializing with a friendly Freysian (a region of Holland) couple named Janneke and Jouke (pronounced Yan-a-ka and Yu-ka) who had cruised all the way from home on their Catalina 42.

Visiting the village at Yadua

We were visited twice by Chief John, from the only village, located on the opposite side of the island. It seems that a few villagers, who are wealthy enough to own boats, use this side of the island as a fishing ground and/or as a getaway from the hustle and bustle of life in a remote Fijian village. Chief John gave us a nice trevally that he had caught and then asked us for enough gasoline so that he could get back home on the other side of the island with his outboard powered longboat.

Our keel was getting a bit itchy, so we decided to do a bit more exploring around the island. The trade winds had become reinforced by a huge high-pressure system to our south, so anchoring on the south side of the island would have been untenable in the big southeast swells. We decided to check out a couple of anchorages on the north side.

The first and prettiest anchorage we came to, which was not named on our chart or cruising guide, was quite small. There was a motor yacht anchored right in the middle of the bight. We attempted anchoring to one side, but with “bullets” (strong, shifty wind gusts) swinging us about, I was uncomfortable that we might kiss one of the surrounding reefs or bommies. We hauled up the anchor and moved on down the coast a few miles to a larger, but less attractive anchorage called Watering Bay.

We were visited twice by Chief John, from the only village, located on the opposite side of the island. It seems that a few villagers, who are wealthy enough to own boats, use this side of the island as a fishing ground and/or as a getaway from the hustle and bustle of life in a remote Fijian village. Chief John gave us a nice trevally that he had caught and then asked us for enough gasoline so that he could get back home on the other side of the island with his outboard powered longboat.

Watering Bay is so named because of a fresh water spring running out of one of the steep hills bordering the bay. The local fishing boats come in to take on fresh water and the crew head ashore to have a bath. We shared the anchorage with a Labassa-based beche-de-mer (sea cucumber) boat working in the area. Beche-le-mer fetches about Fijian $50 per kilogram or about US $12 per pound and is sold to the Chinese who believe it to be a powerful aphrodisiac. This is big money in a country where the average wage is F $1.75 per hour (half that for US $). The Fijian divers collect these animals in 120 to 150 feet of water using SCUBA tanks or hookah rigs (long air hoses). Unfortunately, they are not always fully aware of decompression sickness, and we’ve heard that two divers had perished from it in just the last month.

We had a nice visit with the captain and the crew of the “ss Love Potion,” who told us all about their trade. During the night, the wind backed around to the northeast so we returned to the better-protected and much prettier Thukuvou Harbor the next morning. That evening we had sundowners on the beach, joined by Janneke and Jouke, as well as fellow Ponsonby ralliers Charles and Glennis from “Racundra” who had just arrived that day to Yadua.

The next morning, we made our way to the west side of the island to Navilaca Bay, this time going around the south side of the island. This side, being more exposed to the moisture carried in the trade winds, was lush and green, as opposed to the north side of Yadua, which is dryer, rockier and scrubbier, more reminiscent of the Kona Coast of Hawaii.

The entrance into Navilaca Bay is quite narrow, just a slit in the reef, but opens up to a large but bommie-riddled lagoon. We found good anchorage with plenty of swing room at the north end of the bay, off of a small palm tree-lined beach set against a backdrop of jagged rocks.

The next day at high tide, we negotiated our way through the reef, around the point to the village of Ndenimanu, generally known as Yadua Village. We went primarily to make sevusevu, which is the Fijian custom of offering a gift of some yaqona root (kava) to the village chief for the privilege of anchoring near and/or visiting the village. We found the villagers to be cheerful and extremely friendly. The village of about 200 people was very tidy, with many traditional thatched bures giving it a very romantic South Pacific flavor.

After making our Sevusevu with a village elder (Chief John was away), we were seated on a mat under the shade of a frangipani tree and served tea and biscuits in the company of a couple of the village ladies. After tea, one of the ladies gave us a tour. In typical fashion, we were taken first to the church, next to the school, where the headmaster showed us all four classrooms, and finally to the government-operated clinic, before walking amongst some of the homes. Also in typical fashion, we were greeted with a friendly bula! (hello) and warm smiles by all that we encountered. We said our farewells and negotiated our way through the thick reef back to Moonshadow while the sun was still well above the yardarm.

The reinforced trade winds had blown themselves out, so we decided to put in a bit more easting while the conditions were in our favor. We lifted the anchor, set the mainsail and motor-sailed toward the island of Vanua Levu dodging reefs to port and starboard, passing though Yadua Passage into the protected waterway along the southwest coast of Fiji’s second largest island. Once inside the outer reef, the seas calmed and the (mostly present) navigational marks were easily visible to either side of the wide channel, making for easy navigation along the mangroved shoreline.

We passed the day just watching the verdant, mountainous landscape move along our port side, occasionally checking out a village or other landmark with the spynoculars. We reached the notorious Nasonisoni Passage late in the afternoon. Nasnonisoni Passage itself is quite well marked and easily negotiated, but in a strong trade wind situation, the eastern exit into the Koro Sea is the final resting place of waves that have had hundreds, if not thousands of miles to be whipped up by the winds into a constant barrage of direct frontal attacks on one’s yacht. Conditions being benign at that moment, we decided to put Nasnonisoni Passage behind us and then anchor in Navatu Bay, a snug little harbor just on the other side, for the evening.

With a couple of days up our sleeve before we needed to be in Savusavu, and the trade winds still nowhere to be seen, we decided to hop down to the lovely island of Koro, about 30 miles to the southeast. We started the day motor sailing in light air and finished it bashing into a fresh southwesterly, brought to us thanks to a small disturbance to our south. We were able to take protected anchorage on the northwest side of the island in Dere Bay.

Hoping for a long-overdue meal out, we headed ashore to the Dere Bay Resort, which we visited when it had “opened” two years ago. No luck as they were still not really in operation. The boys had to suffer through my cooking again!