"Happenings" Number 10 - 2003

Homeward Bound – 2003

It is now almost 400 days since Envy commenced her South Seas odyssey, and with the cyclone season fast approaching, our thoughts are homeward turned as we prepare the ship and ourselves for our last ocean passage back across the Tasman from New Caledonia to Brisbane later this week.

Since our last contact via ‘H-8’ from Fiji’s Malolo Islands a few weeks ago, we have made two more land visits to Nadi (Nandi) and one more to Lautoka, enjoying more of the sights, culture, food and shopping experiences that add to this country’s charm, and of course, took a few hundred more photos on the digital camera to add to our book of memories. Audrey and I really enjoyed ‘the differences’ of Fiji, and would readily return and recommend it as a cruising destination.

Even though Fiji has both the most challenging navigation, with its multitude of coral reefs, sand cays and tiny islets, and the most petty crime of stealing from yachts throughout the South Pacific, we gratefully avoided all of this and safely took our leave after 43 wonderful days there, clearing from Lautoka on 16 October with the forecast of a favourable 15/20 knot breeze to commence our passage to New Caledonia.

But there was a localized stationary front just west of Fiji that was not mentioned in the forecast and so we battled strong winds and a rough sea all that first night, and indeed most of the way, and arrived in New Caledonia 6 days later after having spent the last 36 hours tacking into a strong westerly wind to cover the last 50 miles. Shades of the New Zealand to Tonga passage. But as usual Envy handled it well, whilst we got a bit more experience in heavy weather sailing!

We ducked into the first sheltered bay we came to after negotiating the dreaded Havannah Pass at the southeast corner of New Caledonia and, though strictly improper, dropped anchor and took a well-earned rest overnight, before continuing on the 40 miles to Noumea. Arriving there late in the afternoon, we anchored out in Port Moselle and ‘cleared in’ with Customs the following morning.

It all proceeded very efficiently with Quarantine and then Immigration, but a misunderstanding between the three very busy Customs teams led to us being overlooked and after waiting many hours before we initiated our concern, we had a quick visit from four senior officers who apologised profusely and cleared us in without so much as a look!

Wow!! What a great place Noumea is. We’ve neither of us have been here before and had no idea what to expect. After the lesser developed and poorer places we’d seen, New Caledonia is rich, modern, well developed, expensive, and French. Everything runs like clockwork here, though they still indulge the French colonial habit of closing for 2 hours or more in the middle of the day, and the Parisian syndrome of driving their mostly new Peugeots, Citroens, and Renaults at hair-raising speeds around the town.

The main island, Grand Terre, was discovered and named by Caption Cook in 1774, is 400km long by 50km wide, has been a French possession since 1853 and a penal settlement (as were most French colonies) from 1872 to 1913. Its successful economic background is principally due to mining with its hilly red volcanic country being rich in nickel, (the worlds third largest producer after Canada and Russia), cobalt, chromium, and iron, and together with coffee production, all add to the coffers of this nation’s economy.

Around Noumea and the mainland’s southern end, the coastline, with its several adjacent islands, is a continual jigsaw of bays, coves and headlands, running back to quite parched though scenic high hills of volcanic country, intermittently clothed in stunted green shrubbery, offering a stark vista of the contrasting monotones of red and green alone, quite striking and very unusual.

The capital, Noumea, is a modern city of over 70,000 people, principally native Melanesian Kanaks and French Europeans; the national population is 180,000 and comprises a racial mixture that additionally includes Asians, neighbouring islanders and West Indians.

After spending a few days being ‘townies’, we bolted out of expensive, bustling Noumea and sailed down to Baie de Prony for an overnight stay enroute to ‘the jewel of the Pacific’, New Caledonia’s famous Ile des Pins (the Isle of Pines).

Located 40 miles (65km) south of the main island, but still within the huge lagoon that surrounds New Cal with 1600 nm of barrier reef, the Isle of Pines is picture postcard pretty with its clear water, fine white sand, countless coral reefs and little sand cay beaches. Also discovered by Cook and named for the native pines which are indigenous to this island alone, these trees are tall and more needle shaped than Norfolk Island Pines, though they share a similar type leaf or frond.

The island is quite small – you can drive around it in half an hour – but steeped in New Cal’s early history, for it was here that 3000 deportees were incarcerated following the Paris Rebellion of 1871, thus commencing its period of penal servitude, and the numerous stone buildings of the prison infrastructure and many other public works, together with the well kept cemetery, speak to the misery of hard labour that no doubt proliferated here.

Envy was anchored 200 mtr off the main sandy beach at Baie de Kuto which, together with the adjoining Baie de Kanumera, separated only by a 200 metre wide isthmus, are two of the most beautiful places we have seen. Our anchorage here afforded us a view of the old penal era colonial residences of the governor and the doctor with their privileged waterfront locations, contrasting the adjacent new public wharf and huge offshore catamaran that spews out hundreds of tourists three days per week, bound for the many modern tourist resorts which occupy the Isle of Pines.

New Caledonians boast the sand here is the finest in the world, and that claim may well be true, for it is very clean and talcum like, though perhaps not as white as the silica sand of Whitehaven Beach in Queensland’s Whitsunday Islands. Nevertheless, the clean sandy bottom could be clearly seen 4 metres below us, as could the fish and turtles that chose to keep us company.

With no public transport, we hitchhiked the 6km of good bitumen road to check out the principal village of Vao. Its lovely old cathedral features numerous carved statuettes and an ornate ceiling comprised of many different species of timber and, high on the hilltop beyond it, up to which we climbed, is a tiny chapel containing a statue of the weeping Madonna. Peopled principally with local Kanaks, this little village comprised a mixture of small western and traditional grass-roofed houses in well-kept grounds, but as in French Wallis Island, its few shops were not close together.

Other highlights of our time here included our 3km round-trip daily walk from Kuto Bay to the only bakery for excellent baguettes (French bread sticks), we enjoyed local cuisine for lunch, and one fine windy morning struggled up a very steep stony track to the islands highest peak at 262mtr, then hiked along its narrow bare ridge for several kilometres being rewarded at every step with continual magnificent views over the entire island and its fringing turquoise reefs, sandy beaches and islands.
Fortunately (for us) there’s been very little rain anywhere we’ve been these past few months, which is good for we tourists and our camera but has left village gardens quite bereft.

Each late afternoon we played Petanque (French style bowls) on the beach with our new friends and fellow CCCA members Neil and Ley, “Crystal Blues”, usually to the inquisitive observations of the Japanese tourists who strolled by. As a result of this daily idleness we now have our own set of steel Petanque balls, to hone our skills and continue our enjoyment with visiting friends on the little sandy beach back home on Karragarra Island.

We were told by Jean Paul, a French expatriate living in Noumea and fellow yachtsman whom we met at Kuto, that New Caledonia is too distant to attract many tourists from France and that most tourists are Japanese, followed by Aussies and Kiwis.

We had a marvellous sail back the 40 n miles from the Pines and spent another couple of days in Baie du Carenage, at the top end of Baie de Prony, enroute back to Noumea. It is all red soil country around there, which clings to shoes and feet and tends to stain everything red and, with rain showers about, we shied away from the walking tracks, but we did get to enjoy a visit by dinghy to the ‘hot springs’ pool in the eastern Carenage, though it wasn’t flowing. Then it was back to Noumea.

Today is Armistice Day, a public holiday in New Caledonia, and we’re hoping to find an Internet Café that’s open to send this off.

Meanwhile, Envy rides at anchor in Noumea’s windy and overcast Port Moselle harbour as we attend final preparations and maintenance prior to ‘clearing out’ and departing later this week on the 800 nautical mile (1483 km) trip back to Brisbane, which we estimate will be a 7 to 8 day passage. At the moment our weather faxes suggest fairly good conditions of 20+ knot easterly following winds, so here’s hoping for a favourable run.

Most of this season’s Pacific cruising fleet have already arrived at, or are in transit to their summer (cyclone season) stopover destinations of Fiji, Australia or New Zealand, with not many of us stragglers yet to depart, but with a bit of luck, Envy will be back safely at home soon after a simply wonderful year in Paradise.

"Happenings" Number 9 - 2003

More Landfalls in Paradise - 2003

‘Envy’ didn’t leave Samoa for Fiji “in a few day’s time”, as per our assumption in concluding ‘H-7’; indeed, we stayed a further 2 ½ weeks, principally researching Bruce’s Samoan ancestry, and what a revealing and exciting pastime for us that turned out to be. As brief as possible, here is the story.

With no intention of being pretentious, some of you may be unaware that Bruce’s paternal great-grandfather, Australian explorer and pioneer of Cape York and Somerset, Frank Jardine, met and married there, in 1872, a Samoan Princess, Sana Solia Sofala, niece of Malietoa the ruling Suzerain of Samoa from around that time.

Those details have long been historically documented, but not much was known concerning her family and background, so our visit to Samoa provided the opportunity for genealogical research. As the result of a frustrating morning pouring over complicated and confusing mid-eighteenth century local historical records at the Apia library, I decided the best approach was to go public, so contacted the major ‘Samoan Observer’ newspaper, who thought it newsworthy enough to initially run a full page story with photos, then followed that up with a further four articles over the ensuing two weeks, which got the telephones ringing, and an offer of research by a local consultancy agency free of charge. (They were newly established and wanted the associated press exposure and publicity).

Acting on a suggestion to contact an 80+ years old retired Minister who was writing the early history of The London Missionary Society in Samoa, he gave me, a few days later, a letter that his wife had since discovered in an old church magazine from an aging Sana Solia sent from Somerset in 1907 seeking news of her family in Samoa, with whom she’d had no contact for 37 years. It documented her family history, which I won’t bore you with, and that they came from Falelatai Village on Upolu, to which we have now visited twice. For us, it was a very interesting and exciting couple of weeks.

The harbour at Apia, Samoa’s capital, must be one of the busiest in the South Pacific, for frequency of shipping arrivals was one every other day, not to overlook the 30 yachts which were anchored all around the harbour there as well. The most interesting of the large ships was the up-market cruise liner “Tahitian Princess”, with almost as many crew as passengers (who oozed wealth), though a large Oil Tanker was the biggest by far, discharging its bulk fuel cargo through an underwater pipeline from the centre of the harbour.

We had intended to visit only the main Samoan island, Upolu, then sail down to Fiji, but somewhere along the way plans changed to include a visit to the tiny French possession of Wallis Island, so we stopped off for a few days at Samoa’s other major island, Savai’i (sar-vie-e), enroute. It has the reputation of being the most scenic of Samoa’s islands, and we spent six very pleasant days discovering Savai’i by bus, totally circumnavigating the island and passing through all its main villages.

Savai’i is very different to anything we’d seen; though volcanic like much of the South Pacific, it differed with its considerable areas of jet-black lava rock bare of any vegetation, including an extensive flat barren area running to precipitous cliffs on the north shore known as the Lava Fields. This coastline featured some stunning coastal cliffs and maritime scenery, plus picturesque sandy beaches with backpacker resorts. Asau Village on the northwestern end of Savai’i is a small, clean and pretty place with modest western style housing scattered throughout the undulating, hot, black lava rock terrain, skirted with sandy coves and turquoise waters. It has an excellent harbour with a large concrete wharf, and a small but modern all-weather airport, but neither ships nor aircraft call here any more. Such a waste of valuable resources in a country lacking in them both.

But it’s a South Pacific story of repeated regularity. With limited employment opportunities and little else to keep them there, Asau’s younger generation, as have many Samoans, gravitated to the cities and/or overseas, and we often heard the claim that there are more Samoans living abroad, principally in New Zealand, the USA, and Australia, than reside within their homeland.

Nevertheless, here as elsewhere, the locals were very friendly, and we had several children come aboard Envy for a drink of cordial, a biscuit and a ‘look-see’, which they absolutely love to do. They would hail us continuously from the shore until we went in to collect them in the dinghy, or if ignored, sometimes even swim out to the yacht.

We departed Asau Harbour late one afternoon with Envy scorching along at 8.6 knots (15km/hr), an exhilarating buzz from our usual 5 to 6 kts, having the benefit of a strong ocean current along the top of Savai’i Island, heading for Ile Uvea, the main island in the small Wallis Group, a tiny speck surrounded by its huge lagoon, lost in the middle of the Pacific. Its narrow entrance channel has large tidal ‘overfalls’ during mid-tide runs, so it must be negotiated at slack water, hence our late afternoon departure from Samoa, but that passage was quicker than anticipated and we found ourselves ‘hove-to’ for an hour at 4am about 20 miles offshore awaiting daylight and the tide to make our entry into the lagoon.

Wallis and Futuna Islands are a French possession lying west of Samoa and northeast of Fiji and, at 13 º south marked the northernmost extent of our cruising. The main island of Wallis, Ile Uvea, is only 12km long by 6km wide, peopled by French speaking Polynesians, and you’re hard pressed to find many who understand any English. The pace is pretty much laid back, with all shops and businesses closing at noon to re-open sometime after 2pm. Surprisingly, the island has no tourist industry at all, nor is tourism sought or encouraged. There is not one single Taxi on the island, nor any public transport whatsoever, though there is no shortage of motor vehicles. We hitchhiked or walked everywhere, and almost always got a ride with the first vehicle that came along and though everyone was friendly, communication was difficult since our French is sadly lacking.

We were fortunate to share Uvea’s only protected anchorage at Gahi (Nar-hee) with another ‘cruising yachtie’ from England who’d been there for 3 weeks and who spoke French fluently, so Chris Smith gave us a good introduction to the local scene and customs. We also met a few French expatriate professionals there on 2-year postings who informed us that Wallis Island has no domestic product or export income at all, being entirely dependent on French handouts of total aid and support. Medical, dental and hospital care are all free to the locals, and imported food lines are subsidised. Even so, the cost of everything in the provincial centre of Mata Utu except bread and some cheap French red wine was quite expensive, but the baguettes were the best bread we’ve tasted since leaving Australia.

After six wonderful days there soaking up the local culture, touring around and visiting some sights of interest including the little known but immaculately preserved ancient stone fort dating back many centuries, we departed this exciting landfall on the afternoon tide to clear the lagoon, with a nostalgic farewell to Polynesia, and commenced our 3 day passage to Fiji filled with exciting anticipation of what lay ahead.

Our destination there was Savusavu, on the southwestern corner of Vanua Levu, Fiji’s second large island, where we arrived 72 hours later after a pleasant passage, though we motor-sailed for part of it due to a lack of wind. Sometimes when the wind dies away in the ocean the sea swell continues to roll on through, resulting in a most unpleasant motion as the boat rolls from side to side with sails loudly slatting, so in these circumstances we run the engine and motor sail to ease the discomfort.

Our ‘clearing in’ at Savusavu reminded us of Fiji’s colonial heritage with the copious paperwork, all in loose carbon paper triplicate, of Customs, Health, Immigration and Quarantine requirements standing proudly as a legacy of old Britain, and far outdoing any other entry experience. The annual cost of ink and paper must be staggering, but it no doubt benefits Fiji’s employment situation.

For us, Fiji is different again to the rest of the South Pacific of our travels, and in a nutshell, the following ‘thumbnails’ are our observations to date.

New Zealand is a developed cosmopolitan society and its Maori are Polynesian. Tonga is also Polynesian, comparatively poor and pretty much embraces a subsistence lifestyle; we found it mainly a ‘sailing experience’ of wonderful tropical island cruising. Samoa is Polynesian, bustling, clean and progressive with a higher standard of living, and for us, an excellent ‘on-land’ experience, somewhat determined by its relatively few suitable cruising destinations. Wallis Island was again mainly a ‘people and land’ thing; Polynesian, French, expensive, and ‘un-touristy’, yet so very interestingly different and unusual.

Fiji is pretty much a combination of it all; lying west of 180º longitude, it is Melanesian, but has an absorbing mix of ethnic Fijian and Indian Fijian cultures. Comprising over 300 islands (only 1/3 inhabited) it offers great inter-island cruising comparable to any, but is also very much a ‘land and people’ experience and, away from the main tourist areas, comparatively inexpensive.

Vanua Levu has never shared the glitzy tourist reputation of Viti Levu, Fiji’s main island, and this made it all the more appealing to us. Having only the two towns of Lambasa and Savusavu on the entire island, (but numerous villages), with a large Indian community, many sugar cane plantations, and a character reminiscent of ‘old Fiji’ in so many ways, we generally immersed ourselves in both ethnic and Indian experiences and enjoyed our ten days there immensely. The municipal market in Savusavu offered the best vegetables since NZ, cost of living ‘across the board’ was comparatively cheap, and the unpretentious Indian Curry Cafes served unbelievably good dishes at Aust$3.00 per meal. You couldn’t cook a similar meal any cheaper!

We took a local bus over the 80km of rough bitumen road, through farms of drought-stricken sugar cane, up to the main town of Lambasa with its majority Indian population, where we fortuitously arrived in time to witness a major annual religious procession down the main street, honouring a Hindu deity. About thirty men all clad in white physically towed a very ornate float garlanded with leis & flowers, and featuring a mural of an elephant-trunked female deity, no doubt the subject of this colourful celebration, which contained a very serious, young looking priest who was having a lovely time playing with fire and blowing flames everywhere. All this excitement, together with the crowds of women dressed in their bright multi-hued saris, made this a most memorable spectacle of colour and mystery indeed.

Departing Savusavu, Envy sailed west through narrow coral reef passes and boisterous Nasonisoni Passage with its mile-long 2 to 3 metre high standing tidal surge, for overnight stays at Nambouwalu and Mbau Bay before leaving Vanua Levu for Yandua Island. Now somewhat off the beaten track, our three days in this splendid anchorage offered the best reef snorkelling so far, and our digital camera, safe and dry in its underwater housing, worked overtime among the pretty tropical fish and the coral gardens. Most small tropical fish maintain a ‘comfort zone’ of a metre or more but here, with much less human contact, they inquisitively checked us out at a much closer range than that. The long hot climb up to the top of the narrow isthmus ridge behind the anchorage rewarded the hardy with some truly awesome views of either side of the island, a panorama of several idyllic coves whose multi-hued blues, turquoise and green waters lapped shallow coral giving way to palm lined beaches. Real postcard stuff, and very pretty.

It was time to see something of the main island, Viti Levu, so we sailed south into a 15/20 kt south-easterly averaging 6 knots for the thirty miles across notoriously rough and windy Bligh Water to the reef strewn entrance to small Nananu-I-Ra Island, where we anchored in a long sweeping bay that fronted a lovely sandy beach lined with several up-market homes, which we later learned were the property of international absentee landlords, and that foreign holiday home ownership is a growing trend in several areas of Fiji.

The entire northern coast of Viti Levu is fringed by almost continuous barrier reefs, as well as many more lying further offshore, and Envy cautiously picked her way in short day hops around the top of the island inside these reefs, to Lautoka, our home for the next five days, and where we had to again ‘clear in’ with Customs. So much bureaucracy!

Being now the sugar-harvesting season, each night in our anchorages around this coast we were treated to the spectacular vision of cane fires illuminating the night sky as nearby farmers burnt their fields preparatory to hand harvesting the next morning, but this spectacle was not without cost. Since all the mills were crushing daily and non-stop, our anchorage in Lautoka, Fiji’s ‘sugar capital’ and second largest town, for both Customs and sightseeing requirements, had all the yachts there clothed in a blanket of fine black ash, which floated down day and night and covered everything with soot.

But Lautoka was otherwise a great experience with its colourful busy street scenes with their mix of multi-cultures, the buzz of the large municipal market, the aromas of the cafes and fragrances of the Indian shops, and better still, perhaps even less expensive than Vanua Levu. The government’s Public Service Information Week and the Annual Sugar Festival added further appeal to our time there, as did our indulgence in their culinary delights plus the occasional ice cream or two. Here, as elsewhere, we almost always shared our visits ashore in the company of other cruising yachties.

We also took the one hour bus trip to Nadi (Nandi) for a look around this touristy gateway to the nation, and were pleasantly surprised to discover our visit coincided with day 1 of a four day ‘town-wide’ “sale”, in which most of the shops were participating, with much merchandise reduced to half price; what good fortune, for we had intended to shop anyway! That afternoon we visited the nearby up-market Denarau Island Resort and Marina, a 20-minute trip from Nadi, which in addition to its pristine maritime environment and beachfront, features superb resort accommodation, championship golf and tennis facilities, and two new residential estates. Having been shown around these facilities and the modern Marina, which are both still ongoing developments, we are very impressed and decided that we could quite easily live there, being only a 2 hour fight from Brisbane.

Finally, the bagasse ash from the sugar mill got the better of us so we moved a few miles down the coast for an overnighter at Saweni Bay, another popular anchorage, before moving on to refuel and take water at Vuda Point Marina, enroute to the well-known yachties haunt at Musket Cove Resort and Marina on Malolo Lailai Island, about 20 miles distant, where F$1 secures life membership of the Musket Cove Yacht Club, for whatever it’s worth. In order to qualify you must have sailed to or from a foreign port to Musket Cove, and by all accounts, it seems very few yachties do not sign up.

Envy is currently cruising Fiji’s highly regarded Yasawa Islands, having spent the past nine days visiting the islands of Navandra, Vanua Levu, Waya, Naviti, and Matacawa Levu and as we were writing this at anchor in The Blue Lagoon yesterday, snugly enclosed by four islands and famous for the film of the same name, we watched a film crew in action shooting another movie, much to the pride and delight of Var, Kara, Bill, Bei, and Semi, residents of this tiny island with its million dollar location and views across the lagoon. The night before Semi built us a fire on the beach for another memorable BBQ and sing-a-long with guitar and banjo accompaniment, with our Fijian friends joining in. Thanks again for the memories.

This morning we commenced our move twelve miles southwards down the chain as we slowly make our way back to Lautoka in preparation for our ultimate departure from Fiji later in October. Today finds us in a rolly anchorage at Naviti Island’s lovely ‘One Dollar Beach’, reputedly so named since it featured on the old Fijian one dollar note. On the way up here off Waya Island we were approached by some local fishermen in a small open boat offering us the two largest crayfish we’ve ever, ever seen for $45 each, which we reluctantly declined. This afternoon here in One Dollar Beach we purchased two large Crays for their asking price of $10 each, not quite as big as the others, from a boat full of young boys who just dive for fun. Yummy, yummy, guess what’s for dinner tonight!

Perhaps we’ve mentioned it previously, but one of our biggest surprises and laments has been the scarcity of marine life we’ve encountered during our cruising since leaving Australia. One whale, one sea snake, comparatively few ocean birds and not a single porpoise until a few days ago when a pod of around 12 of them put on a great show for our camera as we cruised along in the Yasawas.

It’s a couple of days later and Envy sits at rest back in Musket Cove as we plan our last few days here in Fiji before sailing off to New Caledonia next week. Tomorrow marks 1 year to the day since leaving Australia, so we’ll probably pop a celebratory bottle of Champers then.

The annual ‘Cyclone Season’ is fast approaching, so we must turn our thoughts towards home. Regrettably, we’ve run out of time to visit Vanuatu this season, but perhaps that is something to think about for next year. Nevertheless, we are looking forward to discovering French New Caledonia on our way back to Oz, and hope the weather favours a trip down to its spectacular cruising grounds in the Isle of Pines.

Malolo Lailai, Fiji. 12-Oct-03