Bavatu Harbour at Vanua Balavu

July 2024

One of our big goals for this trip to Fiji was to get down to the remote Lau Group of Islands.  They are THE place that boaties rave about.  Unfortunately, to get to the Lau Group requires boats to travel the wrong way, wind-ily speaking.  Over a cocktail/mocktail or three, we came up with a schedule (definitely not a timetable), where we will be creeping down to the Lau Group in small, good-weather hops (Jenny and I are definitely not interested in that beating-into-the-wind thing). First to Somosomo Strait 1wk (tick), next is Bay of Islands 2wks, then down to Fulaga (Lau Group) for 3wks and allow 1 wk slippage for the vagaries  of weather. 

So next destination, The Bay of Islands [the name amused me, as we had left from the Bay of Islands New Zealand, which looked to us like a compact version of Queensland’s equivalent of Bay of Islands, The Whitsundays – I guess it makes sense that it would be a very common name]. 

But after leaving the lovely Viani Bay, we were going via Nadilo Bay (on Qamea Island, just a little south) for a rendezvous with Southern Star.  Southern Star (an N47) is another Nordhavn in the rally group.  It seems this year the power boats in the rally are represented by Nordys – there are 5 of us!  We’ve previously never come across more than 2 together – another reason to consider joining a rally.

We joined Ted and Jenny from Southern Star, on Ara Roa for a fun night (it wasn’t a long night as we all had to get moving early the next morning.  Southern Star were heading north to go over the top of the big island, Vanua Levu and on to the Yasawas (www.southernstarnz.com).  We promised to catch up somewhere on the western side of Fiji, before heading back to New Zealand.

Peter booked me for an early morning departure (it is something of a family joke, but I can do mornings, I just need to be warned the night before). 

We knew there is a patch of really bad weather coming in, so we planned to lift anchor early in the morning and steam down to Bavatu Harbour to bunker down for the week.  Bavatu Harbour is on the northern side of a rather long island called Vanua Belavu and is really well protected from bad weather. Also Vanua Belavu is where The Bay of Islands is located but you REALLY need to do Sevusevu at the village of Delaconi down south end, before heading back up north to anchor.  We won’t be able to do that safely in the expected conditions, but fortunately, Bavatu Harbour is privately owned (by a fellow Nordy owner!!!), so we can anchor there without needing to do Sevusevu first. We later found out that Jonathan, from Sea Mercy Fiji, had already asked the chief to make an allowance for us on the grounds that we were the ‘good people’ delivering hospital supplies – thank you Jonathan.]

We should be at Bavatu by 3pm, about an hour before the first front arrives (cutting it a bit fine, but we can’t stay where we are).  And then Peter goes and adds a complication…
 

and catches a MahiMahi (Dolphinfish) just before we get onto the line for entering the reef around Vanua Belavu.  Talk about inconvenient timing, but there was no way he was letting that guy go as they are exceptional eating.  As we approached the entrance passage, we could see the weather front approaching from the west; dark grey and dropping some serious menacing vibes. 

I was busy scoping out the reef passage (it’s out there somewhere).  We were entering from the north, so used the Qilaqula Passage which has clear leads and good depth, but can pack a punch with the cross currents.  So, the magnificent fish had to wait, carefully wrapped in a towel surrounded with every ice pack we had in the freezer (and we seem to have collected quite a few over the years). 

The waypoints for the passage around to Bavatu turned out to be accurate, although at times I felt we were awfully close to some of the channel markers and reef.  As soon as we entered the mouth of the Harbour the wind died away to absolutely nothing; I knew I was going to like this place. Bavatu Harbour can also be called Bhavatu or Turquoise Bay.  There was not one place we visited in Fiji that didn’t have an alternative name.  And the pronunciation of the spellings made looking places up quite problematic at times ie. Deleconi is pronounced Deli-thoni, and extra consonants are thrown into words for not-very-obvious reasons eg. the capital Nadi is correctly pronounced Nandi]

Once we were all anchored safely, Peter had to head over to AraRoa to loan some fish scales (the weight measuring kind, not the little collogen based fish coverings).  Terry thought he’d come over and be a good friend and act as the official measurer (he wouldn’t want Peter to ‘accidentally’ get it wrong). 

Peter, the fisherman, is ecstatic.  His first Mahimahi was an impressive size.  The fish was beautiful; coloured in iridescent blues, greens and gold.  It turned pale when it died, which made me feel a bit sad (I guess Mother Nature is making a point, squid do the same thing). But the colours came back a bit later, although not as brightly.  It weighed 14.05kg and was 1.3m long.

Our feline has gone feral.  He wasn’t happy with his share of the Mahimahi and decided to help himself (we have a very similar photo of Neon doing the same thing to a Spanish Mackerel around the top of Cape York, Queensland).  Peter cleaned off all the smaller bits of meat (working around the feral creature) so Taz has a good store in the freezer.  He stood out the back looking quite upset when the carcass was towed out to the reef for the other fish to enjoy.  No dumping near the boats, it just teaches sharks bad habits.  [As was learned by the sail boat at Minerva; they left a GT carcass hanging in the water off the back of their boat and were then surprised when they attracted the attention of some large and quite aggressive Tiger Sharks. Just Don’t Do It]

There was some excitement last night with the freshwater pump stopping working properly.  Never ignore a new noise, even if it means you have to press pause on Bond, James Bond, and deal with some inconvenient housekeeping.

It appears the pump components had a stop work meeting after some team members had ‘bolted’ and the upper management system made a swing to the right – sounds a bit like the world at the moment.  I’ve never seen a pump come apart like this before (as you can see the bolts that hold the top unit in place have worked their way out).  We replaced it with one of the spares (we have collected 3 over the years) and went back to bond with Bond.

Sticking to the watery theme, today’s job is changing the membranes on the watermaker (remember we have been problem solving the dear thing since Viani Bay and this is our last attempt).  Not a quick affair, but we should be finished tomorrow.  It does mean we get more training in ‘things that we never thought we’d need to know’.  Hopefully, our watermaker work will pay off, else we’ll be lugging water jerry cans between boats for the next 5 weeks.  Thankfully the changeout was successful and the watermaker returned to its normal productive self.  

We realized today what a really good spot this is when two boats came in from the other side of the island, where we will be heading next week, and said that all the boats taking shelter around there were in 40 knot winds!  We are flat calm here, AND there are the cutest little turtles in the bay.  We spent some very relaxing time here.

One of the recommended walks was to a lookout for a view into The Bay of Islands on the other side of the point.  So, we went in to shore and climbed the 271 wooden steps (well past their prime) and not in record breaking time I can assure you…

Past the ‘Sometime Store’.  The sheep said there was no fresh bread today…

Through the really tidy little homestead with sheep, lambs and ducks kept protected by well-built stone walls and gates…

Across paddocks of cow pats keeping an army of dung beetles happy (you have got to love those active little dudes)…

to a fantastic view into the Bay of Islands, where we will be going next week.

On the way back through the ‘orchard’, we were stopped by…

A Pacific Boa Constrictor (not looking too good; very thin with a dull sheen – we think he/she was ill) and…

A Great Tongan Orb weaver spider (she was a good 10cm/3” foot to foot).

And we ended that day with a game of Bocce/Patanque/Boulles.  The boys won – phooey.

This is the view into the harbour from the Exploring Isles Yacht Club. It is located at the entrance to the harbour.  Boaters are welcome to use the building and bbq for get togethers.  The facilities appeared to be in the process of being upgraded after it was damaged in the last big cyclone.

On one of the calmer days we took the tenders out for a tour of the bay.  We thought we’d pop around the corner to check out the next bay, but as soon as we popped our noses around the point, we were jostled by wind and waves.  We retreated to a beach just inside the point and ate a ‘wild’ coconut.

What could possibly go wrong here?

None of us were very confident about Peter’s opening technique, but it worked and the coconut tasted good.

Taz Talks:

Feral??? I thought I was very restrained waiting patiently and protecting Dad’s fish!

Research Ravings:

The Tongan Giant Spider, Nephila Tetragnathoides, is a large orb weaver spider found in Tonga, Fiji and Nieue.  We know the spider we came across was a lady because the males grow to less than 5mm in length and usually get eaten just after having a ‘jolly good time’.  The females grow to 25mm (the measurement obviously doesn’t include those impressive legs).

What I blithely identified as a Dung Beetle, because it was a shiny beetle living in a cow pad, is more probably a Clown Beetle (Pachylister Chinensis). A most confusing name for a hard working dude that also lives in dung, but doesn’t roll it into balls to bury them (and not even all Dung Beetles do that). The Clown Beetle eats fly larvae living in cow pads and was introduced to Fiji in 1938 to sort out the housefly problem (a 1968 study by the CSIRO determined that despite their hard work munching away, the little dudes didn’t make a significant difference to the fly population).

Boat Works:

Pesky watermaker; cleaned salinity sensor (didn’t look crusty), chemical cleaned the membranes, replaced the membranes. While we were at it we also replaced the sand, carbon, 10 and 5 micron filters, and changed the oil in the HP pump.

Replaced the freshwater pump with a spare of the same unit.

Navigation Notes:

[This is a record of our experiences and is not intended as a recommendation for others. Phone reception on ‘Opal Lady’ is assisted with the use of a StarLink satellite system. Dates are in standard Australian format DD/MM/YYYY. We measure our depths from the lowest point of the hull (add 1.6m for actual water level depth).]

When cruising in Fiji, in general the charts will show reef locations accurately for latitude (the N/S) but longitudes (E/W) may be very inaccurate and many reefs are just not shown at all! Some boats in the rally were using software that can overlay satellite photos onto the charts on our plotters, so we had a better idea of what and where we would come across hard things like reefs.

Anchored Nadilo Bay on Qamea Island: 5/07/2024, at 16 47.752S, 179 46.831W, in 22m water, 70m chain, scope 3:1, exit 90o. Winds WNW <5knt. To get to this bay you need to run down the inside of the western reef. There is decent width and depth, but it is odd running so close along a surf break. [Chart BA2691 Overview of Fiji] [Pacific Rally Handbook, 2024, Island Cruising and Rally Down Under] [Fiji and Tonga App, www.sailsouthpacific.com, $84] [NoForeignLand App, free] [Navionics App]

Anchored Soso Bay in Bavatu Harbour on Vanua Belavu: 6/07/2024, at 17 11.211S, 179 00.079W, in 19m water, tide 0.2m (1.35-0.4), 80m chain, scope 4:1, exit 360o. Winds <5knt, reports of +30knt outside (protected from all but Nthly). Shallowest depth at entry 13m (middle of channel). [Chart BA2691 Overview of Fiji] [Pacific Rally Handbook, 2024, Island Cruising and Rally Down Under] [Fiji and Tonga App, www.sailsouthpacific.com, $84] [NoForeignLand App, free] [Navionics App]