Vananui Bay is about 30 miles around the sw from Suva. We left this morning around 0730 and arrived about 7 hours later. The 2nd half of the trip was the best part. The sun, blue sky and blue water came out, we squared away about 150 degrees to the wind and were doing a solid 7 plus knots touching 8 from time to time. Inspiring sailing. The waves were good size too, so I choose to sail through the pass into the small bay instead of wrestling with the sails in 5-7 foot waves offshore. It’s often a toss up which is more terrifying. ;-). Sailing into a fairly small pass sure gets your attention. There ended up being plenty of room but the wind gusts, round ups and big waves breaking on the coral reefs on both sides of us what seems like only a few yards away is invigorating to say the least!
The reward: we’re sitting here, the only boat in the bay, watching the sun set and the stars come out and listening to the roar of the surf on the coral of the outer reef. Wow.
Ann is kindly making dinner tonight, so while sitting here writing this and sipping some wine (we already had our Charismas with homemade ginger beer!) I can smell the fragrant aromas of dinner wafting up out of the hatch (and I hear fish jumping out of the water all around us).
Tomorrow, another 30 something mile leg and we’ll be at Likuri Harbor and Robinson Crusoe resort. We’re looking forward to the island hospitality and Fijian dance show. We’ve heard nothing but rave reviews from friends who stopped over.
As always, stay tuned to see where we actually end up. 😉
Did you say round-up? 🙂
Ha,Ha, yes, round up. We normally sail conservatively with a reef or two since Charisma has such a large mainsail she easily overpowers the wind vane. But yesterday I was hand steering all day because we were so close to the coast and sailed between the coast and an island so went with full main. The wind was gusting up as we were approaching our little bay in the early afternoon and…well, you know.