27 October 2016 (+12 UTC)
We again rose early to go the last 60 miles from the NE of Viti Levu inside the reef system to Denerau Marina near Nadi (pronounced Nandi) on the SE side of the island. Nadi is the second largest city with only Suva the Capital being larger. Viti Levu is one of the largest islands in the South Pacific, so it would be another 11-12 hour run to go from one corner of the island to the opposite corner.
The north coast of Viti Levu is sparsely populated and classically \”Bali Hai\” in appearance. The reefs for the most part offer protection from the ocean swell, but we have to pay lots of attention as in some cases they\’re invisible until you\’re right up to the edge. The good news is, the electronic charts here are very good.
We motored by lots of villages and a few modern ex-pat communities and finally passed the old city and port at Lautoka. Lautoka is the sugar capital of Fiji. There is a special dock to load the raw sugar into freighters for export. Next, we passed \”Enchanter\” anchored outside of Vuda Point and observed the marina\’s very first \”catamaran\” haul out. Rijnhard (of Enchanter) was ashore watching and didn\’t see us pass by, but said the operation went well enough. This is the same marina that told me 5 years ago to just be patient one more month and they\’d be able to haul me out to investigate a then small leak. We\’ll five years later, I\’d have been first instead of the other guy!…:-))) Needless to say, we didn\’t wait. I was told by the then marina manager at Vuda Point that the owner had been telling the same, \”be patient just one more month\” story for 5 years – 5 years ago!
We got to Denerau just around 5 p.m., tucked in our slip, dock power attached and have now had a good nights sleep.
We\’ll enjoy the main island for a few days, stock up, fuel up and a few repairs. Our solar panels are now not putting power into the batteries! Ah \”yachting\”….
There is another small weather front which we\’ll wait out here as well before proceeding to the outer island en route to Vanuatu and New Caledonia.
the season is getting long and next month is officially Cyclone season here so it will indeed be time for us to be moving south and west toward Sydney.
Sydney is well south of the cyclone belt.
Internet here is good and I will really try and get some of the 7 photo blogs up that I\’m behind!
Scott and Nikki
AIRMAIL YOTREPS
IDENT: N6ABC
TIME: 2016/10/27 07:35
LATITUDE: 17-46.35S
LONGITUDE: 177-22.96E
MARINE: NO
WIND_SPEED: 5
WIND_DIR: E
CLOUDS: 90%
VISIBILITY: 15
BARO: 1012.5
AIR_TEMP: 26.7C
COMMENT: Beach House – DOCKED -Denerau Marina – Viti Levu, Fiji