(From Ann)
In the capable care of Captain Ron!

Captain Ron.

Okay, maybe that doesn’t make much sense…Captain Ron, capable hands…but in Suva it does! Yesterday we ventured ashore with Linda and Bob from Bright Angel. We headed toward the hotel that supposedly has a dinghy dock and found nothing that looked much like one. When there he was…Captain Ron! “You can tie your dinghy up behind my boat and use the swim step to get ashore!” Okay, why not! Especially because Captain Ron is docked just in front of the police boat.

Captain Ron is actually from Seattle but has happily settled here in Suva on his boat. Scratch another item off the bucket list ….meet Captain Ron!  We also found out that his daughter lives in Oakland.  We’ll try and get in touch when we’re back for the holidays.

Suva was a culture shock! We had not seen a paved road in at least two months and that one turned into a dirt road as it rounded Taveuni. This road was not only paved but full of screaming fast cars! Maybe we were still adjusting but they sure seemed fast. We hailed a taxi and got dropped off at the main bus terminal. Very dangerous place to walk as 20-30 buses were all in a hurry to keep their schedules.

But we maneuvered through the buses and crowds of people waiting for them and crowds of vendors selling snacks for your bus trip…you get the picture..sensory overload! And this is before we got to the market.

This is the outside part of the market.

$2 Fijian for the whole bowl of tomatoes is about $1 US

These folks are selling clams (as well as coconuts and other assorted stuff).

The Suva Market is the self-proclaimed largest market in the South Pacific and I believe it! Your senses are assaulted with smells, colors and sounds! This place is full of the best looking fruits and vegetables we have seen. They even sell rolled pandanas rolls ready for weaving. Bob and I stopped in a hand made craft booth and were delighted to find out that it was associated with Fulunga. They were equally thrilled to hear how much we loved it. Unfortunately we we out of sight just long enough to lose Bob and Linda. No worries, 45 minutes of cruising the market and back to the bus station and we were finally united. We kaivalangi (white people) kind of stand out!

Meanwhile...upstairs in the Kava market...

The kava from each island area is different due to soils and water. There's a dizzying array to choose from.

You can taste the difference, but they all taste somewhat like dirty water with a kick and you end up with a numb tongue and throat and a bit of a happy smile.

Sensory overload got the best of us and after a delicious pizza for lunch we headed back to our very small, very quiet boats having only been nearly run over once. We will attempt to see more of Suva on Monday, when hopefully the rain will have lightened up!

Meanwhile I have just processed our first batch of ginger beer. Tasting trials take place on Tuesday!

From Ann
Yes, we made it to Suva and are happy to be on a mooring ball in a bay just off of the main harbor. With the weather that is headed this way, we are set! We hope.

Not much here, but they had a nice restaurant where we enjoyed our evenings having dinner with Rand.

But we never quite shared our story of Leleuvia and that’s what I am ready to do!

As Bob said, we stopped here because our friend, Rand Axelrod who we met in Aitutaki and spent time with in New Zealand is here. Rand is helping farm coral in the lagoon. It is a very interesting process. Here is how Rand describes the process:

“Coral trimmings are taken from a healthy distant patch of coral then transplanted into small cement pots and place into a submerged rack. After 60-90 days the coral will have calcified onto the cement pot. Once this occurs, the pot can be wedged into a hole in the reef that is to be regenerated.”

Who would have thought you could grow coral in cement! Rand took me on a snorkel tour of the garden and it was fascinating. This area has many varieties of coral in a ton of different colors. I also got to see the clams that Rand helped move to a protected location. They were about 6-8 inches across with beautiful lips! Rand took pictures so when he sends them to us we will share them!

The other joy of Leleuvia was the paddle boarding! At low tide a lovely sand spit forms along the south side of the island. Perfect place to paddle to, right! So we jumped onto the boards and away we went. Oops, we found a lot of coral and shallow water as we got closer. No problem! We stepped off our boards and carried them about 100 meters to the high spot of sand. We parked the boards and went exploring!

The tide pools were full of shells and eels! We were able to explore for well over an hour as the tide turned and started to rise. As a result we only had to carry the boards about 10 meters before we could float again. And just as I was putting my board in the water an eel made a bee-line for me! Yes, I screamed like a girl and jumped up on my board. Bob was concerned I would squish it because it stayed hidden under my board! So what! Fortunately it finally decided that my board was not the best hiding spot so headed first for Bob’s and then back into the tide pool! Phew!

We were able to paddle down wind back to Charisma just as the wind and waves were beginning to pick up. Perfect timing. Love these paddle boards!

Finally made it into The capital of Fiji! In good style too! We came through the reef and into the harbor under full sail.

Suva is the first large town we've been to all season.

We had a very good, if long day. We left Leleuvia at 0600 on the dot for our 55 mile passage. It was a great ocean sailing day. Sun, wind, blue water, we had it all. We averaged 5.5 knots and made the trip in 11 hours, tying up to a mooring off the town of Lami on the sw side of Suva Bay at exactly 1700. Good timing, since that’s just about “Charisma Time”. That gave us extra incentive to fold the sails and tidy up and we were comfortably sitting in the cockpit gazing across the bay, Charisma in hand, by 1730.

It feels a bit strange to be back in civilization. We can hear cars on the road and a generator on one of the little islets off in the distance. But we’re looking forward to visiting this largest of Fiji’s towns for a few days and thanks to our friends on Ladybug, we’re tucked into this really nice snug cove instead of the industrial area off downtown Suva where most folks anchor in mud. We definitely want to visit the area, especially see the Royal Suva Yacht Club, but we’ll do it by bus and enjoy our relative peace and quiet At our anchorage on this, the opposite side of the bay away from the industrial areas.

More tomorrow as we grab a bus into town and explore Fiji’s only really large, industrialized city.

OK, time to catch up.

Nairai was an amazing adventure. So much so, we didn’t have a moment to write about our time there, so now that we’re in Leiluvia (about 40 miles west), here goes.

The day we got into Nairai (Friday) was a whirlwind. We were immediately whisked away to the windward side of the island for a celebratory feast, to meet Boto’s family and see where the bottle washed ashore.  We barely had the anchor set when we left Charisma to go around the windward side and we didn’t get back until nightfall.

Village of Lawaki as seen from our anchorage.

The next day (Saturday) was almost as hectic.  Ann started the day by diving on the anchor to make sure it was fast and to check some of the rocks we could see under water around Charisma.  We wanted to make sure that the anchor was solid in case the wind shifted and we were on a lee shore as well as make sure we wouldn’t swing into a rock/reef near the surface.  Check and check-we’re good to go.

The longboat anchored by the reef with the island of Gau in the background.

Later in the morning the longboat came out to pick us up and bring us in to Lawaki, which is the village we were anchored next to.  Once ashore we headed to Esther and Abel’s house.  Esther is Boto and Vani’s sister.  She and Abel live in a house that goes back several generations in Abel’s family.  In Fiji, you inherit your family’s house.  It is a lovely house and next to it is their dining house.  It is about 30 yards away and consists of the kitchen area and a dining area-all of course with beautifully woven pandanus mats covering the floor.

And the food.  Another feast.  We ate so much in Nairai, Ann and I stopped eating dinner in the evening when back on Charisma.  We would usually have a huge meal in the mid-afternoon and that was it for the day.  No more room.  Today was no exception and an extra special dish was included.  Octopus.  One of my favorites.  Esther had picked up that I liked it and went out that morning and caught one!  It was fantastic, cooked in coconut milk and onions.  Yum!

Our meal at Esther and Abel's house.

After the feast we spent much of the afternoon waiting for the chief to be available for us to do the sevusevu.  Turned out much of the wait was because they have have so few boats call here, it took them a while to get organized.  They had to gather the elders of the village and then apparently there was much discussion about the fact that they weren’t comfortable doing it in English.  We assured them we were understood and had no problem that it was done in Fijian.  It was as we have usually found, heartfelt and sincere.  They accepted us.  In fact, the chief turned to us at the end of the ceremony and said: “You are now part of Nairai, and Nairai is part of you.  Nairai is your village now”.  I later also found out that there was much talk (in Fijian of course) during the ceremony about the bottle having a spirit that brought us all together from many thousands of miles away.  Very cool!

At sevusevu. The chief is on the right.

No excursion into a Fijian village is complete without all the children wanting to come and be around us.  Nairai didn’t disappoint.  Again, since there are very few boats that call here, Ann and I were quite the entertainment.  We ended up with a group of kids sitting with us and singing us songs.

As always, the kids were enthralled by Ann. Here they are singing her a Fijian song. (Note the mat-this is similar to the one Boto and Vika gave us)

Once again, impending darkness was our signal to get back to the boat.  It’s just too hard to negotiate the reef at night, so we always had to be back by sunset.  As we were dropped off for the night, to our astonishment, Boto and Vika presented us with a spectacular woven pandanas mat.  To just call it a mat doesn’t do it justice.  It’s something like 15×20 feet (we’re not sure as it takes up more than the entire cabin top of Charisma when we tried to roll it out) with an extra fine border weave and contrasting stripes throughout. Something like this takes weeks to weave and that’s after all the work it takes just to prepare the leaf for weaving.  We were stunned and as we told them, we will treasure it always.

Here's Abel stretching and flattening pandanas leaves in preparation for weaving.

The rolled leaves once the initial preparation is complete.

Boto and me in Esther's house on a mat much like the one they gave us.

Getting the longboat ready to take us back out to Charisma.

Sunday

Sunday was Fijian Father’s Day and we were invited.  The only catch was-since it was Sunday the longboat was not allowed to go out-we had to brave the windward side and come through the reef in our inflatable dinghy.  We thought long and hard about that one, but in the end decided we would give it a shot and if we weren’t comfortable we would turn around and call it a day.  So off we went.  Fortunately the wind held at about 15 knots and there was enough sunshine to see the coral and keep from tearing the bottom out of our fragile craft.  We negotiated our way through the surf around the coral and breathed a sigh of relief as we came in over the sand.  Whew.

We got to Boto’s house just in time for…a feast.  This one was cooked in the lovo, which is the in ground oven.  We had roast pig, kavika (like a pear), casava, several root vegetables and a soup.  As always it was delicious and the company was great.

Fijian Father's Day meal cooked in the lovo.

The location was the South Pacific version of an impressionist painting.  We were outside under a huge tree on a grassy knoll where about 40 yards away, just through the coconut palms, the surf was lapping against the beach.  Spectacular!

After a delightful afternoon with our adopted family we headed back in the sunset to Charisma.  I think we could get used to this.

Monday

Our last day in Nairai, we wanted to hike up to the waterfall.  There are lots of waterfalls on Nairai, but this one was a fairly short hike out of the village.  We’ll let the photos tell this story. The hike should be titled “Three Musketeers Lead the Way!”. These young guys giggled, laughed and sang the whole way! And of course graciously offered Ann a helping hand when the terrain got slippery!

Our hike through the jungle with our guides-three 20 something boys including Ben, Esther and Abel's son.

For sure, the boys had as much fun on the hike as we did!

Tuesday

Up at 0600 and on our way to Leiluvia.  As we took one last look at the beach at Lawaki, we saw that Esther and Abel had come out to wave goodbye.  What a wonderful place, what wonderful people.  We have already decided that we will come back here again next year.

Its a tiny island off the southern end of Ovelau.

We were up at 0545 for the trip over. Got here around 1300, so we had good mid-day visibility and getting in wasn’t an issue. You could easily see the shallow/reef areas.

Leiluvia is a tiny island with a boutique resort. We've been having fun paddleboarding and meeting up with our friend Rand Axelrod who is here on vacation.

A friend who we met last year in Aitutaki, in the Cook Island Group and who is an expat American now living in NZ is actually staying at the little resort on this island. Rand Axelrod. He’s the main reason we stopped in here.

More on all that and the last few days on Nairai tomorrow. For now, we’re exhausted. Our Fijian family who has adopted us (we now have two more sisters and a brother) wore us out with their kindness!

So, some moon-watching on a stunning almost windless night. Tucked in behind a little island that is blocking the waves. For the first time in a week, we’re not rocking and rolling thinking that at any moment if the wind shifts a bit, we’ll have to make an emergency exit. We will sleep well tonight.

We are having such a great time today we’re exhausted.  So, I’ll leave today with just a few photos and say go to Facebook here https://www.facebook.com/2Johnson for a full set.  We will post some to this blog when we have some more time, but for now…sleep.

View from our anchorage at Nairai, just off the village of Lawaki.

Here's where the bottle was found.

Boto with the bottle, note and Charisma boat card.

After only 15 months and 5,000 miles, we found it!

Enjoying being part of the family on Nairai!

It's no secret-all kids love beach balls!

We presented our sevusevu. The Chief (on the right with his great grandchild) told us we are now part of Nairai forever. Nice.

Destiny or dumb luck? Who knows, but Ann and I experienced a magical day today. We met the folks who found the bottle we dropped over the side at the equator back toward Mexico. It travelled 5,000 miles in a little over a year and ended up here in Fiji where we’re cruising this year.

To be exact, it ended up on an almost deserted beach on the windward side of Nairai Island. Almost deserted except for Boto and his family who we met today. Boto’s comment about it: “I saw it half buried in the sand and just kicked it. Just then I saw something inside”. That something was our note, carefully wrapped in a plastic bag along with a Charisma boat card with our contact information. He then showed us the bottle, the notes and even the plastic bag that he had saved. (we have pictures that we’ll try and post as soon as we have a minute)

This is the beach where our bottle washed up.

Boto (on the left) showed us exactly where he found the bottle.

Bob reunited with the bottle and note.

Here's the note we put inside the bottle.

Side Two of the note.

It was a long day getting here. We left at 0700, since it is 40 miles and we knew that since this island is very rarely visited and there is therefore almost no information on getting through the reef or where to anchor. We had to get here in the early afternoon when we have the best visibility to avoid reef and underwater rocks waiting to slash a hole in an unsuspecting boat.

Our plan was looking good as we approached the island in blue skies and fair winds as they say. But as we got closer a big squall threatened to ruin the day. It poured for almost an hour (did I mention that Ann had just taken over driving – perfect timing!) and it was beginning to look hopeless when as suddenly as it came, it passed. Sunshine! And the outer reefs are just 4 miles away. We could see the white churning water. Good. That means we can avoid it! I had set up a gps course in through the pass. We turned towards the island and began cautiously moving forward confident in the deep blue of the water around us. But, as we for closer, the gps course went right over a light blue patch. What to do? I opted to go visual and turned out a good choice. Turns out the gps is several hundred yards off here and we got closer, we saw it would have put us right on top of coral lurking just below the water. Whew!

That's Nairai in the background.

Once inside the main reef the lagoon is quite obstacle free and we headed toward the village of Lawaki where we had a vague plan to be met by Boto. Initially we saw no-one and were a bit worried that this trip might become a bust, when we saw a panga headed toward us with a bunch of waving people in it among them Boto and his sister Esther. What a joy to hear the shouts: “Charisma, Charisma! I’m not sure who was more excited!

Here's the longboat coming out to meet us.

After some introductions in the bouncing waves of the lagoon with their boat alongside ours, they told us they would show us “the anchorage”. It’s a little exposed. We’re just sitting about 100 yards or so or the side of the island and just north of the bottom tip. We’re in 27 feet over sand, so Charisma’s anchor is good and dug in, if the wind shifts at all to the southwest we have to leave. Fast. But, for now, we’re good although I’m seeing some lightning in the distance.

Anyway, flash forward to Boto’s house where we were taken around the southern tip of the island by panga, we were completely made to feel part of their family. We met Boto’s 80 something year old father Elisha, Boto’s wife Vika, sister Esther, her husband Able and a half dozen other wonderful young guys whose names I can’t remember.

As we came in off the beach (having to wade through the water the last 50 yards and where Abel picked a coral sea snake out of the water and threw it to one side) and walked up to Boto’s house just past the palm trees, we met his wife Vika, who was already cooking a small feast (by our standards) just for Ann and I. It’s a little unnerving sitting and eating from among a half dozen plates of food including fried eggs, rice, tinned beef mixed with noodles, fried breadfruit and fish caught while we were on the way in the panga, but we’re getting used to it. It’s the Fijian way of showing hospitality. They will not touch the food while you are eating. And the Kava helps! They treated us to some really wonderful Nairai kava. Boto warned us that Nairai kava was very strong. He was right! I think the glow is still around us four hours later sitting on the boat! (Kava also makes me use a lot of exclamation marks!!!!)

Vika in her kitchen.

Going ashore.

Boto making Kava in his house (the white bucket is for the water to mix with the powder).

Anyway, Ann and I keep exchanging knowing glances that said; “Are we in a dream?”

I think we are. We’re very clearly living a dream. Today’s dream was finished by an almost surreal panga ride back through the surf and reef strewn waters around the tip of the island and arriving at Charisma just as twilight was turning to darkness. Then we were gifted with a half dozen coconuts, some mangoes and a huge stalk of bananas.

Tomorrow, Boto is going to pick us up after he goes fishing with the village chief and together we’ll all go in to the village for sevusevu.

Oh my.

Ann and I also want to add a special “Thank you” to Boto’s other sister Vani. When Boto found the bottle he wasn’t sure how to contact us since he doesn’t have Internet here. He gave all the information to Vani and it was she who contacted us and has coordinated today’s meeting. The bonus-she is currently living and working in San Rafael, Calif! How’s that for a small world? We’re now even Facebook Friends (her FB name is VeeBee). We’re planning on meeting her during the holidays when we fly home to visit.

This is a gorgeous spot. Too bad it’s just a stopover for us. Looks like it would be fun to explore. Oh well, not this year, we’re on a mission to get to Nairai Island while the weather’s favorable (which it should be starting tomorrow).

Speaking of which-we left Cousteau this morning in rainy squalls. It’ the price we sometimes pay to stage for a destination where we want to spend some time. Sucking it up a bit today means we’ll have an extra day or two of good weather at Nairai. We sailed 30 miles today, and we have 40 to go, tomorrow.

Our sail today was 7 hours. Besides the rain it was squally gusting between 20 and 30 knots with 5 foot seas. Early on we had a good wind direction. Beam reach. With double reefed main, jib and stays’l we were storming along at 7.5 plus knots. BUT, later in the morning, it got windier and it headed us until we were 50 degrees. That’s about as close to the wind as we get sail in those kind of seas, and we had to furl the jib. Too much wind. So most of the day was under triple reef main and stays’l doing more like 5 knots. We had to tack a few times to make it here. Not the best, but when the sun peeked through and the sea turned blue, it was glorious!

So, here we are. We got in with time to put away the boat, take a shower (with the teapot of couse) and have a Charisma. Now Ann has graciously offered to cook dinner tonight. Right now she’s making a lot of grumbling noises from the galley. She has very nicely offered to make her eggplant parmigiana tonight, but sometimes that can be scary. The sounds that is. There’s a lot of swearing going on. Ann’s a real sailor now you know, so swearing is part of dinner if she cooks.

Anyway, that’s our report from paradise for today.

Summary: Long windy sail with Ann swearing a blue streak in the galley and Bob hiding out in the cockpit writing the blog.

We’re just hanging today, anchored off Couseau Resort on the corner of the bay. Tomorrow morning we’ll leave for Koro (30 miles), which will be our overnight stop on the way to Nairai (another 40 miles). We need to break up the trip to allow for entering through the reef in sunlight. You can’t trust the gps-it’s sometimes off by 1/4 mile and sometimes dead on. The main thing is to use it as one tool, verify with radar and have a good visual. There are a ton of reefs in these bays that are just not even charted, so the visual part is essential when you enter an anchorage for the first time. We’ve just been waiting for good weather. It’s been 100 percent overcast for days, with winds out of the south and right now it’s raining. Tomorrow, the clouds are supposed to start receding and the wind backing to give us a more favorable angle. If the forecast is correct, we should have a beam reach in 20 knots and 4 to 5 foot seas tomorrow, then 15 knots and almost clear sky for our arrival at Nairai. Should be an interesting week. Cross fingers for our fishing for the next two days. We’re on our last bit of Mahi and would like some fresh fish. Last night I poached the Mahi in a coconut/eggplant curry over rice. I have to say it was yummy!

Today’s only event was getting up at 0600 to untangle the anchor chain. I knew I should have put a float on it, but didn’t and sure enough we got short chained during the night. We wanted to untangle from the hidden rock before the wind came up-hence the early effort. It came off fairly easily and I tied a fender to the chain about thirty feet out on a twenty foot line,(we’re in about sixty feet of water) so hopefully it’s floating the chain up off the rocks and coral on the bottom. We’ll find out in the morning!

Here’s today’s tidbit on provisioning. We left NZ with 54 lbs of ground coffee (dark roast, vacumn packed). As of today, we have 23 lbs left. We’re doing pretty good. There’s no good coffee here (unless you like instant), so this was an essential provisioning plan. We’re also down to our last French Press having broken two so far. If we break this one it’s “cowboy coffee” for the rest of the trip.

So I spent a few more hours today troubleshooting our electronics issue. As you might recall all the instruments up at the helm have quit! When I turn them on they run for a few minutes then the whole network shuts down. I have to unplug the helm instruments to bring the other one in the nav station back online. It’s inconvenient at the very least since Ann has to read the depth and other info from the cabin and then shout it up to me at the helm. (And sometimes he listens! LOL! -most times! But when he has visibility he overrides my calls!)

But…today, I took apart the network and tried each of the helm instruments, one at a time, by itself to see if one of the three was malfunctioning. Turned out each one tripped the network. Can’t be that all three have gone bad.

So…I have cleaned every single connection, I tried replacing the SealTalk NG “Tee” connector (damn lucky I had a spare waaayy out here as there’s probably not another one between here and Aukland!). Voila! Once I replaced that the network worked. It’s now been on for about four hours and no problem. I’m going to turn it off for the night and then light it up again tomorrow and hope it still works. I’m hoping it’s a defective connector because I have run out of any other possible idea.

Good timing if it really works since our next leg to Nairai will be the most challenging. There are zero waypoints into Nairai for the gps, the charts are almost non-existent. We found a chart of the general area today-it was based on a survey done in…1877!

So, good light to be able to see the reef and a functioning depth sounder visible at the helm will be a happy thing.

I don’t think I mentioned last night that I cooked our new specialty-fish in coconut milk in a pumpkin. The only issue is while it was in a Pyrex dish, the Pyrex exploded in the oven! Good thing I lined it with foil-our dinner wasn’t ruined nor was the oven-just scared the crap out of us! Luckily the clean up was not too hard, it only took Ann a few minutes to safely remove the remaining glass shards and clean the oven!

Tonight I used the leftovers and added more Mahi, some eggplant, the end of our heart of palm, some yellow curry and served it all over rice. Yuuummmmy!

From Ann- and to stay out of the captain’s way I took a hike to Cousteau. Actually, right up front I have to confess that I “snuck” onto the Cousteau property and touched their dock without going through the “Gestapo” at the front gate.( I sure hope that Rich from SV Legacy is reading this!) Yep, I walked all the way to Cousteau via the beach! It was a beautiful walk but my favorite part was as I returned on the road.

I saw a bus stop and unload some people but ignored it and tried to duck under the cloud of dust that resulted. A few yards down the road I noticed two young children making their way up into the hills. We all called out, “Bula!” and five steps farther down the road I hear, “I know you!” and they were right! I knew these two kids too! I retraced my steps….

And sure enough the two kids hiking up the hill in their school uniforms were the same cute kids who I had met at the marina dock on Sunday. They were trying to get their parents to come see the cool sea life they has found. I noticed and asked to be shown their special “finds”. Well, ends up that Sterie and Walther remembered me too! “I know you!” they shouted! Imagine that..I know people that I run into in the middle of Fiji! And so darling, Steri commented…”It is so nice to see you again!” No small deed goes undone. These people are really special. This made my day!