THE FINALE IN FIJI
A short visual recap of my time in Fiji!
After our two months of sailing in the northern and eastern parts of Fiji, we returned in early September to the Yasawa Group and the Blue Lagoon. The topography change was really noticeable as we headed back to the drier, hotter western part of Fiji. It was interesting retracing our steps - so much seemed so familiar.
Our plan was to return to Mamanuca’s and do day trips to surrounding islands, catch up with our local family and prepare for exams and eventually our passage back to New Zealand. We had great trips out to the reef, plenty of provision trips to Denarau and day trips to local islands, such as Mana Island. We had a favourite anchorage in Musket Cove, to which we kept returning. One day out paddleboarding we had a visit from a giant manta ray - the width was wider than the whole length of my paddleboard!
In Malolo, I contacted Plantation Island Resort to see if we could do any volunteering. The resort hosts marine scientists, who look after surrounding coral reefs. So, Mum and I went out for a session of cleaning up coral of deadly starfish! Crown of Thorn Starfish (COTS) destroy coral reefs and are the second major cause of coral loss after coral bleaching. Spearing and killing the COTS is the easiest way of getting rid of them, as they don’t have many predators.
I was lucky enough to have met a group of sailing friends from different boats. The last couple weeks in Fiji, we all spent time together and did a range of different activities. We went surfing on the breaks by Tavarua Island, celebrated Halloween at a party the Musket Cove Resort put on, watched movies and played tackle bull rash on the sandbank. This was a lovely way to finish off Fiji before we all went our separate ways; some sailing back to New Zealand, others sailing to Australia and some staying in Fiji.
A final highlight in Musket Cove was taking out our local family sailing around Malolo, to go fishing and also again to loop around the local islands, which is their home.
When I chose to do both NCEA Level 2 and 3, in the same year, I knew it would be busy and it would require some sacrifices as part of our journey. Wifi is mostly everywhere in Fiji, so this didn’t impact things as much as we thought it might. However, there were times when we did plan to be in a certain place at a certain time. It meant I was conscious of studying a lot of the time, however, there is a lot of down-time on a boat and it did make good use of that. Port Denarau Marina was amazingly supportive and Geoff and Mere allowed me to use the Yacht Club for my exams.
To finish in the Mamanuca’s was a really nice way to close out a six month trip to Fiji, as it was where we first arrived in Fiji and started the whole journey. On our final exit from the Mamanuca’s we had a pod of dolphins send us off - something we had never seen at Musket in our whole time. It felt like a good luck sign for passage.
We prepared the boat for passage in Denarau; cooking meals, provisioning and enjoying the last days on land for a while. I got to experience Diwali Festival with a family outside Denarau. They ran a business called Farm Boy which provided fresh fruit and vegetables to sailors and other businesses in the Mamanuca’s. We got to see the behind the scenes of their packhouse and overall have a good night celebrating Diwali and our last days in Fiji.
The Total Nautical Miles: 3393.4 NM
