FIJI

After a very nice but very wet 6-day trip from American Samoa to Fiji, we arrived early morning on what we thought was Friday the 30th of November.

Crossing the date line

As we came in to Savu Savu a friendly Fijian man came out in his little boat from where he worked at the Copra Shed Marina and assisted us in getting tied safely to a mooring.

The local officials came out to the boat and checked us in and all the paperwork formalities were completed in a friendly atmosphere. The only down side to our arrival was that we had failed to remember that by crossing the date line on 180⁰ longitude, it was now Saturday and at weekends we became subject to overtime charges of about $200!

With formalities behind us we were now at liberty to go ashore  and explore Savu Savu.

The village is a wonderful mixture of Fijian and  East Indian culture, the Indian population being the principal small shop owners and almost anything can be found on their shelves. Everyone you meet says hello ( Bula ) and we were immediately made to feel welcome.

our first mooring at the Copra Shed Yacht club

In the days that followed we would go for a beer at the Copra Shed bar and there got to meet all our fellow cruisers . Some of them are flying home for Christmas, but a nice group will be with us here through the whole cyclone season.

Although we were on a safe mooring for the time being we knew we would have to vacate it soon. Our friend Robin Irwin had promised us a cyclone mooring on our arrival and after a few days his on-site engineer finished building and putting down a 3-helix new mooring for us and as soon as it was ready we got tied on.

A Helix mooring is screwed into the seabed and is extremely effective.

Jeff on a very empty looking boat on our new mooring, away from all the other boats.

The brand new Samson post we put in a few days ago and the pretty new lines to the mooring.

No sooner had we got established in our new spot at the end of Nakama creek, when our routine online weather check suggested that a small tropical low seemed to be developing into something more ominous.

A few days later it became a cyclone which proceeded to ravage American and Western Samoa. We were pleased our friends in Pago Pago were all safe but the damage especially in Western Samoa was extensive and part of Aggie Grey’s hotel complex was destroyed. In 1978 Jeff met Aggie who was at that time 84 years old, a charming woman who had inspired the character of Bloody Mary in James Michener’s  tales of  the South Pacific.

coming year.

Evan is here over Samoa and the predictions put him really close to Fiji.

The cyclone, now called Evan, remained close to Samoa for a few days whilst it intensified and then began moving south westwards towards Fiji.

As all predictions placed us in its path, we spend most of the week removing sails, tying things down and generally preparing the boat for the storm. Chafing gear was put on the lines, our dinghy was deflated and stowed and even the wind steering gear was removed for safe keeping.

By Sunday 16^th of December  at about 23.00 hours  Evan arrived and we began to experience strong winds, gusting up to 80 kts.

The whole event lasted till late Monday and during the storm we experienced winds from almost all directions, the worst being from the Northwest on Monday. As you can see from the storm track we were very lucky not to take a more direct hit for Evan was a category 4 supporting winds of at least 120 kts and gusting 135.

Here it still looks like he will be going south of us, but that completely changed of course.

Too close for comfort, Evan was here as close to us as he would get, we are about 100 miles west of the eye.

the eye would end up almost over Lautoka

beautiful picture!

Other “safe havens” were virtually destroyed, at Vuda Point and Denarau Marina most of the boats were severely  damaged. Musket Cove faired a little better but damage was also done there in the inner harbor

We were very lucky to be in Savu Savu, for historically it has never had an cyclone eye go over. The reason being the land masses of Taveuni and Vanu Levu and Viti Levu would seem to deflect the storms, some to pass above us and some on the opposite site of Taveuni. It proved itself nice again to be a reliable cyclone hole.

We sustained no damage from the storm, our mooring held 100% with no chafe and we have now got complete confidence in it.

this small cruise ship managed to beach itself and stayed safe 

the ferry was another story and the boats around were not too happy about its presence in their midst

doesnt look that bad, does it???

every time we looked at the latest forecast it seemed to come a little bit closer again!

and this was the track as he ended up, now on his way to New Zealand as a small storm.

We were however “badly” damaged by an on board visitor in the form of a pregnant female rat! Just how she got n board is a mystery since we have not been tied to docks recently.

She managed to eat through a lot of packaged food and a dozen or so electrical wires and cables, exposing the inside copper etc. and so creating a fire hazard and causing lights and instruments to stop working! At the time of this writing we have managed to repair all the rat damage and have caught and disposed of the rat.

the reason we think it was a female, she must have been building a nest with our mattress!

The seat where she did the most damage to the food, she seemed to really like oats! It took 2 traps, 2 glue boards and a lot of poison to get her.

We are now getting ready for a modest cruisers  group Christmas celebration and looking forward to the coming year.

dinner at a local Indian restaurant with Koby and Arnold from Drifter, Heinz and Sylvia from Mambo and Ian from Cable's Lenght.

We wish all those that read our blog Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!