We motored to the outer reef past Tavarua and Cloudbreak, for a final farewell in the grey and stormy conditions. The forecast was for a rough first night, with wind in front of the beam, followed by a few days of reaching in more settled weather. A change of some sort was forecast coming through just as we approached the North Island. This change could have involved some nasty weather; so we thought it would be good to get into the passage a day earlier than the rest of the southbound Fiji cruisers and beat the queue at NZ immigration: there were at least 20 ready to go. As we exited the pass, the south east wind started to kick in. Evenstar began to plunge into the short period swells. Just as things started to get a bit woolly, Rob had a strike on the big reel. I slowed the boat in the rough conditions as he and Paul fought to land a good size skipjack on the pitching aft deck. After a tussle they got it on board and cleaned it up. Night was falling, and the conditions w...
We had a final feast with our extended host family after church on Sunday; followed by a very chilled overnight passage to Matuku, arriving midday on Monday. After a decade of obsessively poring over google maps and ambiguous internet posts, I knew Matuku has waves, but of unknown provenance, other than the main wave was pretty full on. I'd had a long hiatus off the boards and my fitness was starting to look questionable. But when it's on it's on. Brett and Tash from SY Complicite stopped by to say hello and check out the boat, so we decided to go in with them to complete what turned out to be a very chilled Sevusevu and a tour of Lomati village. We then headed back to Evenstar for some shuteye. At dusk we were roused by a local boat coming over to say hello. On board was an Aussie surfer, offering a tour of the waves the next day. Guy is almost a Matuku local, having visited 3-4 times, staying on land with the local chief. He has a love of remote surf, piercin...
We took a very rare position on the dock and enjoyed the big smoke of Denarau, which is kind of like Darling Harbour but friendlier and it actually is a harbour. I took a taxi to the airport to collect Cathe, who had been slaving away at home on PhD work. It was finally time to show her something of the cruising life, if only for a week. We headed for Musket Cove and spent a couple of chilled days hanging out at the beach and the barefoot bar. On Sunday morning we took the dinghy through the shallow pass and over to the village of Solevu to attend church, enjoying the hymns and the friendly exchanges with the locals. Finally it was time to see some more of the Mamanucas. In the afternoon we set sail for Yanuya and anchored off the village, enjoying sundowners while watching gusests from a cruise ship being ferried ashore. In the morning we went in to perform Sevusevu. It appeared that the proximity to the hub of Denarau meant that Yanuyans had developed a much ...
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