The spectacularly remote Vanua Balavu

We departed Tonga on a lovely afternoon. We had about a 44 hour trip to Fiji and we were expecting the passage to be moderately rough, with a good steady wind the entire way. I spent the day before we departed cooking several meals that would be easy to pop in the oven/microwave and would limit our needing to cook if required. The sea state definitely met those expectations. With in an hour or so of leaving we had some rolly seas making it difficult to do much other than sit and watch the waves go by. Often a form of entertainment is the ongoing dialogue of 'look at that wave...', or 'no, wait, that wave is bigger!' It is a never ending discussion with no real outcome.

There were three of us on board for this leg. Dan & Sandra did the heavy lifting as I felt under the weather for the first night. I took some sea sickness medicine and was back to my mostly normal self by the second day. We later found out that many others that are normally inclined to be queasy were also queasy during this same period.

The most entertaining part of the passage is that we were on a port tack, so every time we had a really big roll, our mattress would slide off the bed, 4 feet and land partially on the floor. I think it happened about 10 times that night. I finally started sleeping through it and Dan had to wake me up to get me out of bed to push it back into place. I had resigned to just sleeping on a angled mattress, it seemed better than the floor and better than waking up every 30 minutes, but Dan was persistent in putting it 'right'.

Happy crew arriving in Fiji

The fleet stayed really close together for the entire 300 miles. We all arrived to the 'Tongan Pass' on the SE side of the reef at Vanua Balavu within an hour or two of each other. We paraded into the designated area for clearances. It took most of the day to clear all but 2 of the boats. First we were boarded by the health inspector who made sure we were all healthy, we lowered the "Q" flag and then we were boarded We were checked in by 3:30 pm. The clearance process was extremely well organized and efficient. The winds were still howling, so we all quickly left the exposed anchorage as fast as we arrived and headed to the leeward side of the island.

Horse Bay, Vanua Balavu

We had an exciting fast passage the 2 hours around to the east side of Vanua Balavu. We were going at the wrong time of day (not by choice as we had to wait until we were cleared to depart by the officials) with the sun in our eyes and strong winds kicking up 2' chop. In Fiji the charts are not great. Visual navigation is better than relying on charts. Satellite imagery is best if you can't see the colors of the water. Dark blue is safe. Turquoise blue is about 30' of depth but best to avoid. Brown and breaking waves is reef below the surface--do not pass! We needed to get into a bay before dusk. We carried on until the point where I almost hit a channel marker. It was just getting too difficult to see. Fortunately with some fast reaction we turned the boat 90 degrees into safe water and we avoided scratching the paint. The channel marker was 1/4 of mile off of where it was shown on the chart. After this near miss, we decided to pull into the next closest bay called 'Horse Bay' and we spent a luxuriously peaceful night. We did wake up to rain at some point as well as some small surf breaking on the nearby reef at high tide, but other than that it was pleasantly uneventful.

A perfect mushroom shaped island in the Bay of Islands, orange rocks appeared to be rock with oxidized iron ore

We continued on around to the NW side of the island early the next morning. Conditions were much improved over the prior afternoon and we had a beautiful scenic cruise to the area called 'Bay of Islands'. This is a spectacular area with very cool geology. Formed initially from submerged volcanos, then coralline limestones accumulated over the volcanic foundation, tectonic actions lifted the land up above water and finally when the limestone was exposed to the elements (rain & seas) it dissolved the soluble carbonate in the rock. Long story short -- it looks super cool with lots of nooks and crannies to explore.

One of the caves you can swim into which opens up into a large space above, with fish below in the clear blue water.

Meanwhile, the Fijian weather service & Navy shut down pleasure boat traffic around Fiji, due to extreme surf conditions and wind. So this meant we were going to be 'stuck' here and 'shelter in place' until the storm system passed overhead. It was a pretty fabulous place to be stuck. We were pleased that the customs officials did not take our meat and remaining fresh vegetables as there was no place to provision here and no village. It was a good chance to start going through some of the non-perishable goods in the deep bilges of Okisollo. Our anchorage spot was well protected from the wind and had spectacular views in every direction.

Our "own" little bay with its own islet, great for paddling and snorkeling.

There were caves, islets, cliffs to jump off of, swimming, paddle boarding, dingy exploring and many interesting creatures to observe. With almost all the other boats from the ARC here as well, it became a floating village. Neighbors would swing by to say hello, dingys would meet up to explore a cave, watch the bats at sunset and gather for dinner or appetizers. Many of our friends will be leaving the ARC from Fiji (off to New Zealand, or back to Europe with storage of the boat in Fiji) so it was a good chance to say long farewells and recognize our collective accomplishments to have made it this far.

Unique rock formations in a small hidden inlet

We ended our week long stay on Vanua Balavu with a trip to the local village of Daliconi. With roughly 50 families, this small vibrant town welcomed us with a traditional 'sevu sevu' ceremony. With about 18 of us from the WorldARC we presented our gift of Kava and other donations (school supplies, clothing, used solar panels, etc.) to the chief and his council. They blessed our visit, sang songs, and performed 'meke' (their traditional dances). We introduced ourselves, tasted the kava and returned back to the boat. It was a delightful evening. The next day we departed to Taveuni Island, more on that next week. Onward!