Vanua Balavu, Fiji (May 30, 2012 to June 6, 2012)

On this leg of the trip from Savusavu to Daliconi Village and the Bay of Islands located on Vanua Balavu Island (Lau Group), we were so lucky to have our friends Rudy and Anita Carver join us.   Rudy and Anita’s trip consisted of four airline connections, starting from Redding, California and ending on a twin otter aircraft flying from Nadi, Fiji to Savusavu, Fiji.  The Carver’s are terrific divers, have lots of boating experience, brought much needed boat parts and supplies, and are good company who play a mean game of Mexican dominoes.

We chose the Lau Group to show the Carver’s a truly remote part of Fiji where only a handful of tourists visit and the Fijian lifestyle is still intact.  Vanua Balavu means the “long land”.  Vanua Balavu is a volcanic island with lots of uplifted coral, shaped like a seahorse.  This unspoiled environment of palm-fringed beaches backed by long grassy hillsides and sheer limestone cliffs proved to be a wonderful area to explore.

We sailed all night from Savusavu to Vanua Balavu (110 miles).  After a harried entrance into Vanua Balavu, we discovered that our ‘navionics’ chart plotter contains outdated chart information for Fiji.  Fortunately, before we ran onto a reef, we spotted them in time and Dennis was able to alter our course accordingly. Anita and MaryLee stayed on the bow looking for reefs while Rudy remained in the cockpit to assist Dennis with navigating.  Once inside the Qilaquila passage, we were able to safely find our way to our anchorage.

We did a quick trip to Daliconi village to present ‘sevusevu’ to the chief, visit the subsistence lifestyle village and do a snorkel on a nearby reef.  We found Daliconi to be a very clean village with impeccably manicured lawns.  Ironically, this simple little village has a clear view of Mago Island, owned by Mel Gibson.  Mel bought his island for nearly $15 million in 2005.

For the remainder of the trip, we anchored at the lovely Bay of Islands with fantastic scenery and clear aqua marine water.  It was easy to chill out here, have sundowner’s with the Kiwi cruisers (Rayfiki, Liberation, Yenka, and HiLoYo), kayak along the fabulous coastline dotted with mushroom like rock islands, observe the activities of the fruit bat and snorkel for scallops for dinner (courtesy of Anita and Rudy).  The life of a cruiser is rough work!

The below pictures tell the rest of the story!