Position: 16 degrees, 05 minutes south; 179 degrees, 11 minutes west (If you put these coordinates in Google Earth, you’ll see that this spot is a mile from the island. There is a shallow reef between this nice anchorage and the island proper. A long dinghy ride tomorrow-and wet if the wind holds up)

(By Ann) 5:30 am announced itself with an alarm clock. Time to get up and get going. It is time for adventure sailing. As cruisers you often get caught up with where others have gone and find yourself following the trail of other cruisers. Fun but not always really special. On Charisma we sometimes like to do it “our way”! Thus the early wake up call.

A little blue water sailing always lifts the spirits.

After a long day, here's where we ended up. Not bad! (you can see Charisma's shadow on the sand 30 feet down)

We picked up anchor at 6 am from our lovely little spot at Budd Reef and had to retrace our steps back to the opening and around the outside to the Rabi Channel which would lead to….the northeastern most island in Fiji…Nagalalevu or Quelaleu – the spelling depends on the chart or map you are looking at.

We knew it was a 40-something mile trip just to the entrance of a large lagoon that is the home of Quelalevu. Oh, and it took another 8 miles to get across the lagoon. Charisma makes about 6 miles per hour so do the math… to hit both passes with the required visibility to avoid reefs, we needed to get moving early. We were rewarded for the early start with a beautiful sunrise which made it easier to get going.

It was a glorious sail up the Rabi Channel. Bob had fun playing with adjustments on the new sails. The repair to the stays’l held beautifully. Charisma was smiling and the day was full of sun and deep blue water. Well most of the day was.

When we took Curly’s class on cruising in Fiji he emphasized “visibility”. Don’t move if you can’t see! Makes sense. So Bob checks the grib files to make sure the cloud cover is not excessive, rain is not expected, and what kind of wind we should expect. It looked pretty good for heading northeast. We jumped at the chance to go somewhere that no one else usually goes. We heard from our friends on Eagle’s Wings that they came to Quelelevu last year and expected to be lonely. They were surprised by five fishermen who were temporarily using the island as a base. We do not know what to expect this year,but anchored here we have seen smoke on the beach, so we do know someone is there.

But back to Curly’s rules: visibility….yeah, we made it to the pass at 2 pm. Unfortunately we could see a squall and some additional clouds coming our way. Our charts showed we still had almost 8 miles to go inside the lagoon to get to the anchorage. Yuk! Later both Bob and I talked about being prepared to get to the anchorage with no visibility and turning around, heading back out the pass and waiting until morning if we just couldn’t see well enough to avoid the reefs. Not our first choice, but a prudent choice.

As JHam would note, our tattoo mana must have been working. (I was silently praying the whole way across the big lagoon too.) Just as the bottom depth started reading 50, 40, 30…the sun broke out of the clouds and showed us the way! I love a little guidance from above. We circled once and dropped anchor on the second pass in 20 feet of pure sand! The anchor dug deep and Bob let out a lot of scope, so we can sleep well knowing we’re well dug in.

(From Bob: The other amazing thing is that for the whole 40 something miles I had Charisma set close hauled. That is to say we were sailing as close to the wind as we possibly could. I wasn’t particularly trying for a given course, I just knew we had to sail as high as possible given the wind direction. Wilson was steering the whole way as well. With that combination-magically we actually were delivered right, exactly, at the entrance to the reef (which is only a few hundred yards wide). It was as if we were meant to be here).

Just in time to make the traditional Charisma and enjoy the best Fijian sunset yet. Yep, adventure cruising has its advantages! Tomorrow we attack the shore…which had smoke rising from a hut as we arrived! New friends to meet tomorrow!