The Cabbage Patch

We headed further north, up to Viani Bay. Bounding the bay are a number of world famous dive sites. We snorkeled the Cabbage Patch. Can you guess how it got its name? These are large, hard corals. The image above is probably a 12 or 15 foot square view. The actual portion of the reef area that is practically all cabbage coral is maybe 150 by 40 feet. The overall reef goes on for miles.

Our intrepid dive guide, Jack

When we first arrived, we anchored in a sort of sub-bay called Daveta Bay. (55ft at 16*45.36, 179*54.31) Definitely a coral rubble bottom with some shallower bommies around. It got pretty windy overnight. In the morning, Jack Fischer rows up to the boat in his tinny, aka aluminum skiff. That’s Jack talking with Chris above. He handed us more papaya than we could possibly eat and then asked if we wanted to go out to the reef. He would guide us out in our boat to a small sandy spot where we could anchor while he showed us where the best reefs were. For $10 Fiji a head ($5USD) we decided to go for it as the wind was laying down and the sun was really trying to come out. Jack took us out to a small sandy spot about 3.7 miles out of the bay.
Jack has an interesting story and does enjoy talking. His grandfather came over from England working on a four masted schooner. He was a skilled seaman and had some money saved when he arrived. This area was owned by the Chief on the opposite large island, Taveuni.

The grandfather purchased the land rights in Viani Bay from the Chief. Over the years it has been a Copra plantation and sugar plantation. It is still a functioning copra plantation. They harvest the coconuts once a month, husk and dry them. Then they are sold for somewhere between $200 and $600 a ton. Jack and his family, including 11 grandkids, still live on the original property.

This is some of the healthiest coral we’ve seen in a long while. Not a ton of fish, but a great display of coral colors.

This gives you a feel for the scale of the reef. That’s a miniature model of Chris using her GoPro.

Not many shells, but always worth taking a look

Even though it wasn’t that bright a day, the clear water gave us great color contrasts.


After diving we motored into Viani Bay and picked up one of Jack’s moorings (16*44.998, 179*53.265). It cost us a can of salmon. We are moving more slowly than we had planned working our way toward the Lau Group. They are about 150 miles to windward, making getting there a planning exercise. Hopefully we’ll be able to get out to the Lau when the winds lay down a bit, and see some of the more remote islands of Fiji.
Paul

Queer As A Seven Dollar Bill

I pulled this bill out of my pocket the other day to pay for some eggs in the market. I thought it was a 10 dollar bill. The guy handed it back to show me it was a 7 dollar bill ?????? Turns out that rugby is the sport of Fiji and this bill was minted to celebrate recent great victories. Why 7? Because they actually play Rugby Sevens here, which is:

A variant of rugby union in which teams are made up of seven players playing seven minute halves, instead of the usual 15 players playing 40 minute halves

We left Vuda Marina anchorage about a week ago to head up to the main north island of Fiji, Vanua Levu. It was a motoring slog into the wind almost the whole way. We stopped at Yadua Island (pronounced yan-dua). We were told it was a good spot to hunt Nautilus shells. This is a view from hill top looking down on the bay. That’s Georgia, Frandavig and Time Bandit left to right. You can see the large reefs to be threaded on either side of the bays entrance.

Chris needed to do some work, so I headed off with the other boaties to hike to the village to pay our sevusevu respects (more on this in a later blog). It really wasn’t much of a trail and we ended up bushwhacking over the islands hills for near 5 hours. We never actually found the town.

We did some serious high wind beach combing. Here I am bringing my pearl float haul back with me. We use these to float the anchor chain when there are bommies (coral heads) trying to grab it (at least when we remember to).

And here’s Chris pointing at a beautiful but disappointing  beach that gave up no good shells. You really can’t see it here, but the trade winds really blow onshore here, bringing with it lots of flotsam.

We did get in one snorkel when we convinced ourselves that the wind had laid a down a bit – it hadn’t. This is a 10 inch wide oyster of some sort.

This caught Chris’ eye as we swam over it. It looks like some white coral, but it is actually a pulsating bloom of some kind, each little flower is continuously opening and closing. A video would be a lot more interesting.

We spent 3 days sitting out howling winds in Yadua. Then headed out to continue the slog. We anchored behind this ferry in the open roadstead anchorage in Nabouvalu. We thought it was going to be a rough and rolly night as we headed in, but the moored ferry made for a nice wind and sea break and we had a very comfortable night.

We finally made it to Savusavu. This is Georgia on one of the Copra Shed Marina moorings in the quiet of the narrow protected creek that runs in front of the town.

The entire South Pacific is actively volcanic. The steam you see along the waters edge is from a vent.

Not trying to get political (even though I did read about the Charlottesville alt-right convention), but I saw this picture of the White House (what a dump) remodel they are doing while the Trumpsters are on vacation and thought it was interesting. Hope they don’t forget the gold-plated toilets.
Paul