We’re off adventuring again and as always we find seem to find plenty to keep us busy. We had a damp passage from Vuda to Savusavu but anchoring each night along the way made for an easy start to the new season. Savusavu is the largest town on the island of Vanua Levu, the other big island of Fiji and will be our jumping off place for at least the next four months and possibly on though next year’s cyclone season. As we motored through the mooring field that runs along the main street waterfront of Savusavu we were happy to see both a handful of boats that belonged to friends from Vuda Point and several boats we hadn’t seen since the fleet broker up late last spring. We’d be exploring Vanua Levu with friends!
First we needed a mooring or at least a
spot to drop our anchor. But it turns out that virtually all of Savusavu was
reserved for a big rally that was due in a few days –The Oyster Round the World
Rally. Both the Copra Shed and Waitui
Marinas were holding their moorings for the incoming boats and despite the fact
that many were empty telephone calls to both marinas left us dropping the hook in
75 feet of water near the head of the pack in the open entrance to the river
that runs along downtown. We were tired
after the four day passage and just wanted to shower and eat and maybe say
hello to a few friends but Bill decided to call Copra Shed Marina to ask again
about a mooring. Seeing as we already
had a reservation for six months on a mooring for cyclone season maybe they
would give us a spot for a night or two until the Oysters started showing up. Surprisingly they agreed and said to come on
up the river and they would send out a boatman to lead us to one of their moorings. Unfortunately our trusty 88 pound Rocna
anchor had other plans. We were stuck tight.
Our anchor has become stuck before –it’s
the nature of an anchor after all- but always with a bit of back and forth and
zigging and zagging we have been able to untangle from coral or rocks or what
have you. This time the more we worked
at it the tighter our chain became. Of
course the anchor couldn’t have picked a time to get hung up while we were in
twenty feet of crystal clear water, nope seventy five feet of brackish dark
water was between us and freedom. Oh and did I tell you that we were tired, and
hungry and that the sun was getting ready to set soon?
I was about to cry foul and settle for staying
right where we were but Bill caught the eyes of a group of local men who were
on a flat bottom boat returning from their working day at the local pearl
farm. A bit of negotiation followed –
“how much?”
“um, one?”
“One what,
one hundred dollars?
“Yes.”
Hmmm,
well…ummm…. “how about $50 dollars?
In about the time it would have taken
us to get the dive gear up on deck and ready to go the local men had us unwound
and chain reeling in: great for us and by the sound of their excited chatter as
they pulled away great for them too.
They were laughing happily and obviously making plans between them over
how they would be spending the sudden windfall of cash. I think the local pool
hall and grog shop was singing them a siren song.
Savusavu is just a fraction of the size of
Lautoka or Nadi. There is a sweet small
town feel to the place and everyone seems to be living a slower easier
lifestyle. Since we will base ourselves
ere for the coming months this is where we will do essentially all of our
shopping for the coming months, which means if they don’t have it you don’t
need it! So far it’s looking rather prosperous and well stocked with several
clothing stores, a shoe stores, numerous hardware stores each with a slightly
different base inventory, a barber shop or two, two of the usual fresh bread
stores –one of which sells whole wheat, yea, several places selling fresh fish,
a daily produce market and plenty of restaurants all with prices significantly
lower than for a comparable meal in Nadi town or Lautoka with everything from
surf and turf to curry to pizza and burgers. There are a few upscale resorts
nearby and several members only clubs that welcome visitors. They also have video stores and a library
–the first I will have the chance to use in three years, whoopee! There is even
a six day a week cruisers net on CH 14 to answer all the questions we boaters
seem to have about a new town. The locals seem to include more Fijians and
fewer Hindi’s but are the same mix of happy and friendly people most genuinely
happy to share their town with you.
On our second day in town we were
wandering through the main street hardware stores looking for two part epoxy
paint when we heard a marching band that seemed to be coming our way. Turns out that Suva’s police marching band
was in town performing as a part of a country wide safety campaign and they
were headed our way. The music sounded
great and we’re always up for a chance to share in a little local
excitement. The interesting thing about
this bands parade down the main street wasn’t that they were there in the
middle of the day on a weekday –we’ve learned to expect the unexpected- but in
the way the entire town seemed to put whatever it was that they were doing on
hold and simply stop to enjoy the parade.
By the time the band reached our spot along main virtually everyone had
moved out of the shops and were waiting patiently for the band to arrive. When they did it was spectacular. The crowd surged along as they came bringing
with them everyone from further up the street.
As the band stopped in place and broke into a lively rendition of Rock
around the Clock the audience tightened in around them.
The small mostly brass band was good and
they were hot. The precision music and
choreographed dance steps attested to hours of band practice. They were dresses
in dark blue military style long sleeve shirts complete with epaulettes, gold
braid and shiny gold buttons over crisp white sulu’s with a shark tooth hem
(the shark s tooth hem is typical for all “uniform” sulu’s here in Fiji) and
carried trombones, tubas, drum set ups, cymbals and trumpets. As the band
played the crowds surged and soon women were breaking from the sidelines and
running amidst the members shaking baby powder or flour over every head they
could reach. Then as the crowd laughed
and clapped several women broke through and were pulling pairs of bright red women’s
panties over several heads as others moved in and began a sort of raucous dirty
dancing with a couple of the members. When
the song was through they launched into another before quick stepping back into
parade formation and moving on down Main Street along with most of the
crowd. Middle of the day, middle of the
week and almost everyone who was in town simply stopped what they were doing
and came out to be a part of the show.
Since then things have been a bit quieter
but we have had a chance to share a meal with each of our friends here and to
learn more about the areas we will soon be traveling in. We’ve almost completed the job of refinishing
the aluminum bottom on our newly traded for dinghy and have completed a small
list of the usual boring boat jobs. In a
day or two we will start serious provisioning for the coming weeks in the outer
islands and then will be off for Taveuni.
Till then, Happy Sailing, Kat.
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