We headed off to Mana Island on a Friday and the25 nm trip took us all day. On arriving there the entry to the reef looked rather intimidating but we drifted outside for a bit sorting out sails etc and watched a couple of local boats go through then followed them in. Once in there it was quite obvious which way the markers were leading us. We did have a wee scare though as sun was in front of us, the way you don’t want it when surrounded by reef and next thing we know we have managed to go right over an isolated piece of reef. We could see the coral really clearly, but obviously it was a bit deeper than it looked as we didn’t hit anything. Once again very thankful for a shallow draft!
On the Saturday we had a wander around the island, managed to walk up a hill, and on the way back do a bit of long grass bashing. The kids and I also went for a swim and then snorkel, but this didn’t last long as the little jellyfish were stinging and making it pretty uncomfortable to be in the water. We spent the remainder of that afternoon watching the resort guests parapont off the back of a boat, sail hobiecats, and enjoy the beach.
Dan multitasking at Mana Island.
Reef around Mana Island.
The "Hill" we climbed.
On the Sunday we headed out again, in the view to anchoring at further North at Yanuya Island, which our cruising guide said was an anchorage that they had stayed at. But on arrival there the roll heading into the beach put us right off. We were on lunch time and getting hungry and a little short with each other as we needed some food, so we hove too a little off of the Island, had a cuppa and some muffins and relooked at the chart. The West side looked slightly promising, so we decided to check that out, but again could see no calm spots for anchoring as the SE wind and waves were competing against a SW swell that made the whole area look like a washing machine! Another look at the chart and we again decided to head further North up to Navadra and Venua Levu Islands, where it looked quite sheltered behind a reef there. On the way we saw several groups of birds “fishing” and headed towards them. We even saw the fish jumping but none wanted any of the lines we had out!
After another full days sail and getting on for sunset we arrived at Navadra and headed in around the reef. This was VERY nerve racking as there wasn’t a lot of room between the Island and the reef in the middle of the small bay the islands created and again we ended going right over top. We always had a minimum depth of 5 meters but the magnification of the water made the coral heads appear very close!! Unfortunately this anchorage too was subject to the SW swell, which we found out on our last day was larger than normal due to the big low pressure system slowly moving across NZ at the time. The setting was beautiful though and we had a lovely day despite an uncomfortable night. We caught our first fish of the trip and it tasted great! Then we headed for the only beach we could get to, as all the others had reef right up to them and we didn’t think out little two horse outboard would be able to get us back off. We swam, snorkelled, Mum read, Dad hunted coconuts, we harassed the hermit crabs and collected wood to light fires for our NZ sausages and marshmallows.
The rollers created by the reef we went over.
The View from our rolly anchorage.
On the Tuesday we decided to start heading back to the main land so that we would be back in plenty of time for the Friday midday low tide. Thank goodness we did as it took us three days! One night spent on the North Eastern side of Vomo Island, getting there near on sunset again after another bit of reef dodging and leaving first thing in the morning. It then took another full day to get to Saweni Bay and again up anchored first thing in the morning to head towards Denarau. We stopped at Vuda Point and anchored outside so that we could get our gas bottle refilled and catch up with some friends from last year that were there. By the time we got back to Division II just after 1300 we had more wind than we had had in the last 3 days and managed to go faster than we had in that time with just the genoa! This enabled us to do as we had planned and take Division II up on the mud on the evening high tide ready to start work on the Friday morning.
Portraits on a slow sailing day. Out on the tramps enjoying the sun.
Vomo Island lots of hours after we left it!
Cheif reef spotter in action!
On the chart this is a sandy cay. Didn't know you could build on them!
The work to remove the cutlass bearings was not so easy on the Friday, and poor Dan was using some rather choice words while trying to get the rudder down so he could get the prop shaft out. He mentioned something about changing things by small degrees next time making all the difference and changing angles of shafts so that we wouldn’t have to remove rudders to pull the shafts. All stuff he admits talking about during the build but deciding it wouldn’t make too much difference! After rolling around in the sand and mud and the heat for several hours I think he changed his mind. But the job was done with about half an hour before the sea started creeping back up around the boat again. For the port side lessons were learned and Dan had the job done in around half the time. The biggest thing is that he didn’t realise how much the boat would sink, so on the Saturday he put some plywood under the skegg to stop the boat sinking as much which made getting the rudder out that much easier, and the port side cutlass bearing wasn’t as damaged so that also helped.
While all this was going on the kids were having a great time in the mud. After about an hour I thought they were muddy but as you can see from the photos they did get a lot worse!
Another Great Sunset to end the day. Last night at Denarau.
So today means a day on the dock, new water in the tanks, a recharge of the batteries, and a day to decide where to next. We will keep you posted
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