_________________Sailing LandFall

August 16 – 17, 2014

16 56.797 S 177 22.028 E

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Posting by Barb:

From the caves we went to the location where the rest of Blue Lagoon movie was filmed. It is a very, calm anchorage, which is hard to find in the Yasawas. The first night there we booked ourselves in for a Fijian dinner and Fire Dance show at a nearby resort. The reservation included a water taxi ride to and from the resort. We got all dressed up and waited for taxi. We waited and waited and then came to the realization that it was going to be a ‘no show’. As an alternate plan we decided to go for dinner at the Nanuya resort. We stopped to say hi to our new found friends, cruisers on the yacht from Mexico, Don Leon, super nice people. They invited us to come aboard. They offered Mike and Allison Mezcal, a cheaper form of tequila and that was the end of going anywhere. Pepe brought out a cigar for Mike and from that point Mike referred to Pepe as his buddy and gave him the warm Newfoundland buddy hug.

We did a quick visit of the resort on Nanuya and had a great burger lunch which was accompanied with cold greasy French fries. One of the recommended hikes was the cross island tour which took us through some of the plantations and the final destination was Lo’s tea House, famous for appearing in Lonely planet. We had cold, expensive drinks and banana bread (a little dry and probably day old leftovers from the batch made for the tourists on the Blue Lagoon cruise ship which had just left).

  On Sunday we went to the church service at nearby village of Sese on Matacawa Levu. They had the usual harmonious singing and then there were a couple of testimonials by 2 Fiji ex-pats (chief’s son working for the UN in NY and a close relative to the chief, enlisted in the army and stationed in Afghanistan). They were there to be with the chief who had a stroke and was not doing well. They did the testimonials in English (for us) and  in Fijian which resulted in a much longer church service. I am not sure the locals, especially the kids who were home for a school holiday appreciated the extension of the normally 1 hour service to 2 ½ hours so that we could understand the testimonials. I am not sure Mike and Allison quite appreciated it either due to the slight hangover they had. The theme of the service was that although the village was very poor, anybody can do great things with ‘hard work’. I am not sure the well-known“it’s Fiji time” culture quite fit the vision of these extraordinary people.  But it was great that our crew, the ‘young ones’, could experience the musicality of the Fijian people who sing in harmony without any instruments, although some much louder than others!  

August 14 –  15, 2014

16 50.825 S 177 28.059 E

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Posting by Barb:

Sawa-I-Lau was the most northerly anchorage for this trip. The main attraction was the caves which had been a film location for the 1980’s movie the  ‘Blue Lagoon’, with Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkins. I confess, Denny and I did watch the simply awful movie to appreciate the Blue Lagoon scenery and the caves that we would visit in Fiji. Not something I would recommend anybody do as it is a painful 2 hours of movie time. We did our first and only Sevu Sevu. We went to the town closest to the caves but it turned that it was not the town that administers the caves. It was Mike’s and Allison’s first and only Sevu Sevu and it was a disappointment. The chief,  who was lying down on his mat, barely sat up to greet us, clapped once and  then told us we were welcome and that we could go. He wasn’t even interested or bothered with some cordial small talk. It is definitely a tradition that is dying. We walked around a little and took pictures of the interesting limestone formations.

Early in the morning we got ready to visit the caves. We waited for the hoardes of tourist boats to leave and then headed in when it was a little quieter. It cost $100 Fijian for the four of us to enter the  caves and get a guided tour. The first cave had lots of light and we took pictures of ourselves of the rock ledge where the ‘sexually explicit’ Blue Lagoon scene was filmed! The second cave required a 10 – 20 second snorkel under water to the next cave that had no natural light. So that represents two things that give me anxiety, dark tight spaces and an underwater snorkel without being able to pop up for air at a whim. Thanks to Ally, Mike and Denny’s encouragement I faced my apprehension and did the short underwater journey to the adjacent cave. A guide was there at both ends and all I had to do was follow the light at the other end. It was worth it to swim in the dark, eerie cave that has never seen sunlight. Another snorkeling experience for all of us!!

August 11, 2014 – August 13, 2014

17 10.308 S 177 11.183 E

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Posting by Barb:

We anchored close to the Manta Ray resort near Drawaqua Island. We could feel that there was a strong current underneath the boat but our anchor could hold us. Our first stop was the dive shop at the Barefoot Resort. There we met Sam, a local working there, who seemed to be very excited to talk about the Mantas that feed in the narrow passage between Navitiy Island and Drawaqua Island. The Mantas come every year from June to October. They are lazy feeders and they show up during high tide and float the current with their mouths open, feeding on plankton. Sam showed us where to go with the dinghy and then explained that it would have to be a dinghy float down the pass as the current would be very strong. So at 6:30 in the morning, at a full moon high tide, we did our first of many float passes with Denny running the dinghy , although I did have a turn at the dinghy so that Denny could swim with the Mantas as well. The current was very strong and often the Mantas would do a quick pass under us and sometimes they would come directly towards us and then do a dive to avoid us. Allison experienced a moment where the Mantas did circles around her in a feeding frenzy along with a school of little fish which seemed to have dislocated their jaws to open them as wide as they could to filter in all the plankton.  At 8 in the morning the resort boats showed up with the tourists and then it was a fury of fins and snorkels. The Mantas seemed to patiently navigate themselves around the mayhem. The Manta Ray snorkel was probably one of the highlights for Mike and Ally.   

We celebrated my birthday at the Barefoot Resort with a lovely dinner on the beach and a harmonic Happy Birthday chorus by the staff at the end of dinner. We hiked the Barefoot Hike which took us to a scenic lookout of the boats in the anchorage. We also enjoyed a couple of Happy hours at the Manta Ray resort on the Northern point of Manuva Balavu Island where we did another small hike to explore the interesting rock shoreline. We took a day to sail to Viwa Island for a snorkel but it was too windy when we got there so we had to return to Navadra. But on the way we did catch 3 Spanish mackerel and a Dorado, which Allison cleaned and filleted (well Denny cleaned the Dorado as Allison found the big fish a little daunting).  We also caught a Skip Jack tuna the next day and that was the last fish we caught in Fiji to date!!