Tonga to Fiji

Just as we had come through the pass at the bottom of Fiji we had our first visitor.



Perched on one of the kids fishing rods.



We caught at least three flying fish, of course unknown to us until we went up on the tramps in the morning!



Poor Rylee had leaking ears and his lovely long hair was all stuck together, so he decided that it all was to go.



He even had several dreadlocks that he had managed to grow in Tonga.

Our visas were once again at an end and we needed to decide what to do. We figured we had three choices, stay for another month, head to NZ, or head to Fiji. We felt we didn’t need to stay in Tonga any longer but also didn’t feel we would be ready for a passage back to NZ with the busy weeks we had just had so Fiji won. We also figured it was cheaper for us to check into Fiji than renew our visas in Tonga and Dan’s brother Andy had also said that if we were there he would come and see us.
So a couple of busy days getting water, food and loose ties sorted in Tonga, saying goodbyes and we were ready to go. We left on Friday morning (1st October) Spinnaker up. As we were coming out of the pass we saw a boat sitting , not sure what they were up too, but as we got closer realised they were whale watching but we were not able to really change direction and we started busily looking around for any whales so as not to hit them. Next thing there was a mother and calf just out behind us surfacing and blowing. What a perfect way to say goodbye to Tonga.
We headed in a generally WSW direction to go around the bottom of the Island group as we wanted to be on the West Coast of Viti Levu, as this is where Nadi Airport is for picking up our visitor. The passage was very uneventful apart from poor Rylee who had been complaining of ear ache a couple of days before leaving Tonga. A couple of days into the trip his ears actually started leaking pus and he was generally unwell and slept a lot. Never having had any of the kids with an ear infection before I wasn’t too sure of the antibiotics used to treat them so didn’t start him on the ones I had on board as even though he wasn’t himself he didn’t seem too sick. On an interesting note Oliver’s energy output seemed to double while his brother was ill, which caused us some issues in keeping him occupied. But overall the kids did really well considering this was our first passage with just Dan and I doing all the watches day and night, so if we weren’t steering we were trying to sleep, feed and entertain kids.
On Tuesday morning (5th October) we came through the pass in the reef at the bottom of Viti Levu and headed up to Lautoka. This took us all morning as the wind was nonexistent and we ended up (reluctantly) motoring to be able to get to Customs and Immigration at a good time, and hopefully find a Dr. to look at Rylee. Fiji has an advanced notice of arrival form and you need to put your ETA on it. Dan had put 12 noon on the 5th October and he walked into the office at five to twelve. Dan found the process of checking in very painless, the people were very friendly and helpful, advising us to take Rylee up to the local hospital. When he got back to the boat we had a quick lunch then went ashore to get a taxi. When we got to the hospital they dropped us at the ED and Dan went “Oh dear, is this where we want to be!” The place seemed packed with people all waiting around. I found a Perspex window with a couple of holes in it, so we lined up there to ask for information about getting seen. They asked if we had a hospital card, which we didn’t, so I handed over our passports and Rylee and I were given Fijian hospital cards. We were told it would be $16.00 for the consultation which seemed very reasonable to me. We were then ushered into a side waiting room, and we no longer had sat down, when the triage nurse called us over and checked Rylee’s temperature, then again ushered us into the next waiting area. Less than five minutes and we were in with the doctor, a quick check of the ears, “Yes, ear infection”, prescription written out, and we were escorted down the hall to the pharmacy. The longest part was waiting for the medication, which did end up being the same as what I had on board anyway. The whole experience was amazing especially as we were dreading trying to get help.
On the way to the hospital we had passed a great coloured playground which we stopped at then on to a supermarket before another taxi back to the boat. We stayed the night in Lautoka harbour and the next day Dan and the kids headed back into Lautoka to send a couple of emails, finish off checking in and have a look around. That evening we did a short hop to a small bay for the night to make the next day a little shorter as we were picking up Andy from the airport on Thursday and needed to get into the marina at Vuda point before we figured out how to get to the airport. Vuda Point is a circular marina where you tie onto bouys in the middle and then tie up to cleats in the basin. It took a bit to get our mooring lines right to prevent hitting the boat beside us or the concrete wall behind us, but after some fine tuning we were sorted. A quick lunch then off to the airport to collect Uncle Andy, Yah!!....and that’s the next instalment.