Bula Fiji!

In most places, when you pass someone you don’t know on the street, the most you expect is a nod and maybe a polite ‘Good Morning.’ In Fiji, you often get a loud and enthusiastic ‘Bula!’ with a big smile. It almost feels like you just got a hug from a good friend. Fiji is a very special place.

We left Tonga July 12 under cloudy skies, with a following wind of 15 knots, one knot of current in our direction, and following seas of about 1.5 meters. We sailed all afternoon and night with only the jib and did 6 to 8 knots in comfortable conditions. The next morning we furled the jib and brought up the spinnaker. We did 7 to 10 knots all day, a comfortable ride! 🙂

The passage was 425 nm. We plan for about 150 miles in 24 hours so this works out to almost 3 days. You always want to arrive somewhere new at a time when you have good visibility. This generally means between 9am and 3pm. Outside of this window, the angle of the sun makes it difficult to see down into the water. This is especially important in Fiji because the charts are known to be inaccurate and incomplete with many reefs and coral heads not marked.

This trip ended up being 3 overnights, our longest yet with just the two of us. Conditions were good and all went well. We arrived at our destination, Nawi Island Marina near Savusavu at about 7am on the 15th, so we spent a couple hours doing circles, waiting for the sun to climb higher to give us safe visibility. We contacted the marina and they sent out a small boat for us to follow to the quarantine dock in the marina.

Once tied up at the Q-dock (about 11am), the marina orchestrated the check-in process. Teams from Fiji immigration, health and customs rotated through Calista and the 7 other boats that had arrived that day. It was all very professional and efficient when they were on your boat, but there was a fair amount of waiting. It ended up taking most of the rest of the day and we were done and moved to a regular slip by 5 pm. There were also two offices that we needed to visit in person to pay fees (Biosecurity and Cruising Permit) but we were allowed to do this over the next few days when we were in Savusavu for shopping and such. It all worked out well and we were happy with the process.

Nawi Resort Marina is brand new and VERY nice. It was built to be able to withstand a category 5 hurricane (the strongest with winds over 157 mph) and it has great amenities. The swimming pool was still being constructed but there was a nice coffee shop, two restaurants, a chandlery (hardware store for boats) and a free shuttle boat into Savusavu, Fiji’s second biggest city, which is on Vanua Levu, Fiji’s second biggest island. The bathrooms were gorgeous, with each out door shower having its own small tropical garden. And the staff were wonderful!

On the Q-dock we saw several of the boats that had left Tonga the same day we left. It is really nice to form friendships in one place and meet up with them again later.

Nawi has big plans. The marina is top-notch and they are planning on putting in a 5-star hotel and about 40 luxury homes on the surrounding island. There is also a boat yard nearby that can haul-out boats up to 90 ft by 28 ft (Calista is 46 by 25) and do whatever work is needed.

This view shows the marina, with a few of the luxury home lots in the foreground.

If you are looking for a vacation home and love Fiji as much as we do, one of the luxury homes might be worth considering!

One night, while sitting on Calista’s foredeck, we witnessed a marriage proposal with him down on one knee, at the top of the ramp shown above. They are a cruising couple we had gotten to know in Tonga and they were all smiles the next day when we told them we had watched.

The 5 days in Nawi marina were spent resting, doing boat work, and some sight-seeing. There was a large group from the AU-NZ-South Pacific annual rally that organized a day with a tour of a farm that grows cocoa and makes great chocolate. The group also went to Vuadomo Waterfall. We joined up with them and had a great time.

Koko Mana (mana means ‘power’ in Fijian) is a small artisanal chocolate maker, staffed mostly by locals.

Sustainable practices and giving back to the local community are a big part of who they are. Visit the Koko Mana website if you want to learn more about them and their chocolate making process.

While in Nawi, we were able to find a shop that could fix electric winch motors. The motor on our stbd helm winch had failed a couple weeks earlier and we were eager to get this fixed. The stbd winch is used to raise and lower the main sail and while it can be done manually, that is a lot of work and we much prefer using the motor. The shop owner came by to help remove the motor because I was not strong enough to loosen the bolts. Turns out he could not do it either so he sent for one of his employees who was able to get it done. They were able to fix the motor, but it took a while and they ended up shipping it to us a few weeks later when we reached Suva.

Our 5 days at Nawi Island Marina were really nice. We would recommend it to anyone!