Bay of Islands, Lau Group

We waited in Oamea for the winds to turn NE before making the 50 mile sail to the Lau Group. The Lau is a group of islands on the eastern edge of Fiji that tends to be much more traditional and pretty much completely undeveloped. The sail to the Bay of Islands, Vanuabalvu (spelt many ways on the various charts) was the best sail we’ve had in Fiji so far. We spent a night in the Bay of Islands anchorage and then the next morning we loaded up cruisers from Qi (Chi), Family Circus and Moondancer onto Georgia and motored over to the anchorage off the village of Daliconi.

The crowd on Georgia including two kids off Family Circus on our way to the village

The point of the visit was so that all the boats could do their sevusevu. This is a Fijian custom where any visitor to a village or area visits the chief and presents a bundle of kava. Kava is a mild narcotic that is very popular in the South Pacific. It is a tea made from the dried stems of a local pepper plant. You can see the bundles wrapped in newspaper at the chief’s feet lying on the mat along with other gifts brought by cruisers for the village. Once the ceremony is complete you are given permission to visit the adjacent islands and bays, along with permission to dive and collect shells, etc. There is a fair amount of presentation made in Fijian by your representative along with strategic slow, bass sounding claps.

After the sevusevu ceremony we walked around the small village and ended up at the friendly bakers shed.

He bakes sweet rolls and bread for the villagers in this homemade, wood burning, oven. This appeared to be the only business in the village. There are some cows inland and long-boats for fishing. The island also has a copra plantation (coconut trees) that was hit very hard by Cyclone Winston.

We hiked along the road toward the village school.

School house door

With some interesting posters, such as No Glue Sniffing.

If they only had this sign in my elementary school in Davie Florida I bet my early school life would have been much better.

The Lau Group are dry islands, ie; no alcohol. A few of them have some slow cell phone based Internet, while most others have nothing. The supply ferry visits some islands twice a month, others once a month. The main town stores have a few staples and that’s it.

The area that we spent most of time in is called the Bay of Islands for the small rock islets that are behind Georgia here.

Here’s some better views

Moths taking a pollen break on the beach vegetation

This gal wasn’t happy that we were intruding on her beach, even though we had done the sevusevu.

We saw a few interesting soft-corals among the coral bommies

Sometimes these look like delicate lace and others times its more varicose veins like.

We didn’t see many larger fish, but lots of small tropical reef fish like these damsel fish who quickly hide in the coral (behind them) if startled.

The clear water makes for some impressive coral scapes.

We went into Little Bay on the north end of the island for a night and some SUPing. The entrance is pretty narrow but you can SUP in almost a mile.

Paddle boarding in Little Bay.

We also spent a few nights in Bavatu harbour on the north coast. This is the main bay for the copra (dried coconut) plantation. It took a beating from Cyclone Winston as you can see here.

It was nice to get off the boat and get in a few hours of hiking. Those specs under the tress are sheep. The plantation had cattle, sheep, pigs and chickens.

It clearly had more buildings prior to Winston.

One of the plantation owners houses high above the bay on a cliff face.

This large spider, Charlotte I believe, was devouring this moth along the trail. There is a little red spider just above her wanting to get in on the action and hoping not to become the next meal.

This shed foundation with the shed contents perfectly in place was just lacking the shed building that must have been blown away by Winston.

Nice view of the Bay of Islands from high up on the cliff.

We motored over to the bay just south of the Daliconi village, aka Airport Bay. This is the grass airstrip that has a pretty steep grade up the hillside. On our way over to the bay we drove out the Adavaci Pass between the outer reefs. We did this so we would have a track to follow in the earlier morning when it would not be enough light to see the bommies.

We really enjoyed our time in Banuvalevu but it was time to head further south in the Lau Group. We were inspired to get moving because the World Oyster Rally showed up with 30 boats. If you click on the image above you can see the oysters at anchor in the wee early morning light with there mast head anchor lights on. We took the picture on our way out to make the passage to Lakemba. Oyster is a British boat manufacturer that every few years organizes a rally where they circumnavigate the world in 27 months. We last ran into them in St Pierre, Martinique 3 or 4 years ago. It’s hard to visit remote and desolate places with your closest 90 friends.

Shelling in Fiji has not been as a good as Tonga, but when you put them all in one place the haul looks pretty impressive.

Paul