Day 31-35 - Monday thru Friday, September 25-29
Monday September 25
We are still in Vava’u today, getting papers to leave Tonga, buying provisions, doing laundry and a whole sundry of other maintenance and repair projects. It’s a lovely day here and I can’t think of a nicer place to do chores as we prepare to set sail for Figi tomorrow (our Tuesday). We are expecting lighter winds and a nice 3.5 to 4 day/night sail to SavuSavu, which will be our port of entry into Fiji.
After our multi-hour processing at customs to receive our exit papers, we headed to a nearby sheltered lagoon to spend the night. We arrived around sunset and, as always, it didn’t disappoint.
Tuesday September 26
We got a leisurely start to the day, pumping the bilge (we still haven’t found the leak) and doing a few chores. Then we decided to go to a nearby famous spot for a morning snorkel. We took a short dinghy ride and landed in the middle of a gorgeous coral reef called “The Japanese Gardens”. There were so many different types and sizes of coral. At one point, Mickey and I saw a huge coral that looked just like a hammerhead shark at a distance. Fortunately for us, it was just a large coral head. There were angel fish, much smaller than ones we’ve seen in other places. There were various kinds of starfish, brownish in color and others bright blue. But by far the star of the show at this reef was the coral.
There was a good chance we would see whales in the channel leading into the lagoon where we spent the night. They are known to be in this area and south. But we didn’t spot any. However, as we left the island group heading back into the open ocean, we spotted a mama and her baby. Our whale spotting count is now 17.
As we depart this idyllic place, you can see island after island after island, reef after reef after reef. It is so beautiful it really takes your breath away. No pics can do it justice.
Wednesday, September 27
We sailed all night, so it was another night watch scenario for the 3 of us. Gotta admit, was a bit out of practice but it all came back to me - watching wind speed, boat speed, course over ground, and radar for other vessels. And we actually saw another boat! It was the first time while sailing that we encountered another sailing vessel. It was about 4 miles north of us and passed us. We could see the sails on the horizon and believe it was a fast catamaran.
As we set sail, Xavier explained that we would have a west-northwest heading even though Figi is pretty much due west. This is due to the wind predictions over the next 3-4 days. Xavier uses various apps when plotting our course, one of which shows quite accurate wind predictions up to 5 days. If we were to sail due west, we could encounter the doldrums, an area of “dead air” where we would lose all wind and speed. To avoid this, we are traveling a bit north and will come back to Savu Savu, Fiji, our next port of entry.
Mickey prepared a nice seafood pasta dish with a butter and white wine sauce. We are definitely not going to go hungry!
Thursday, September 28
Mickey rigged up his fishing gear. He wanted to try some deep sea fishing off the back of the boat and today is the perfect day. We have much milder seas and winds, almost too mild!
Since the wind is so light, Xavier decided to put up the Spinnaker sail. This is the very large sail that is used in these occasions to try and capture as much wind as possible. We had used the Spinnaker when sailing to Maupiti very early on in our voyage. Some of the lines had gotten tangled and we haven’t had the right wind conditions to try and fix it. So today’s the day.
We got the sail up the first time, but the twists in the sail and lines were wound so tightly that Xavier wasn’t able to untwist them. We lowered the sail, Xavier worked on clearing the line and undoing the twists. Then we unfurled it again and it’s working like a champ. But our speed is still below our expected average, so our arrival to Fiji will be delayed a bit. Such is the life of sailing - there is no schedule!
Friday, September 29
The winds continued to be light overnight, but around 8:00am this morning they really picked up into a very rough ride through the day. Mickey's fishing rig was still in the water even though the speed increased dramatically. Then in the afternoon Mickey noticed the rod was no longer bent and sure enough a fish had taken the lure and all the line from the spool. Time to re-rig!
We sailed into Fiji around 10:30pm and anchored outside the harbor. We’ll sail into SavuSavu in the morning.
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