September 29 – October 2
16 14.701S 179 31.826E
Posting by Barb:
We had a beautiful sail using just the 160 jib from Tilangica to Veravera Bay. The Sau Sau pass was easy to navigate through and we anchored just outside of Wainikoro River. We intended to do another river tour but this time it would be with a ‘not so heatlhy’ outboard dinghy motor. Denny hit a rock at our last anchor while navigating thru some coral.
I did my usual Kayak tour first and explored the surroundings. It was a mixture of white beaches and white maybe Gypsum rock. A small rock island nearby was home to sea snakes, crabs and small eels in the low tide pools. I had intended to climb to the top until I saw the sea snakes doing the same and that made me think twice. On the main Island I joined Denny who was exploring via dinghy. He found a small pineapple patch. The pineapples were still small and growing.
We did a slow dinghy tour up the river on a very hot day. The villages seemed to be mostly Hindi and area by the river banks appeared to be mostly sugar cane and cattle country. The cattle were tied to ropes, no shade and little greenery which doesn’t fit in well with the Hinduism concept of no-violence or well being to all life form (but I guess they must also be eating the beef). This part of the island has not seen much rain! We had to get out of the blazing heat so we had a picnic in the dinghy under the shade of some large trees with our usual snacks of sardines and crackers. 
We loitered there for a while until the afternoon heat was not so intense. There was some boat traffic but the people seemed to be busier with day to day and not so interested in a quick chat. On our way back Denny took a detour through the mangroves and after many twists and turns I felt a little lost. I didn’t want to know if Denny felt the same, luckily his sense of direction is much better than mine. He did lead us to a dead end where my videotaping came to a crashing end (the Mangrove roots are hardier and denser than they appear). We exited the river from a different point and then had a very wet dinghy ride home. We both agreed it was time for change and so our next planned anchorage would be a reef stop.