Bula Bula from Fiji!

10 July 2024

Where am I? 

Latitude: 017°40.9 S

Longitude: 177°23.1 E

In our berth at Vuda Marina, Viti Levu, Fiji.

How is the weather?

It has been blowing hard the last few days, with winds of 35 knots and 4 metre waves outside the lagoon of Fiji. Generally sunny and a bit cooler than we have experienced so far on this voyage.

What am I feeling?

I’m itching to get going again, after what will be 10 days in the marina here. We had planned to depart Fiji on 10th July but the high winds and waves and caused us to delay our departure until 12th July.

What has happened this week?

Since my last blog, we achieved another geographical milestone of our voyage – crossing the 180° longitude, passing from West into East. So we add that to the crossing of the Equator and the International Date Line (172°30.0’ W at this latitude). Fujin II hasn’t been in the eastern hemisphere since 2016 – it’s nice to be back!

Our plan had been to spend a week here at Vuda Marina, Fiji to allow us to haul out for anti fouling and hull cleaning/polishing and for a crew change. Unfortunately, the haul out did not happen as it turned out we needed 5 days on the hard, not the 2 initially indicated and with our crew change, that wouldn’t work for us. 

Our welcome into Vuda Marina was the finest we have ever experienced, with a group of staff on the Customs dock to welcome us with a hearty rendition of a Fijian welcome song – it brought broad smiles to our faces after the 540 mile passage from Tonga! The welcome took the sting out of losing some of our stores to the Bio Security police, in particular our carefully hoarded pepper salami…. 

We are all agreed that Fiji and not Tonga should be known as the “Friendly Isles” – everyone has been very welcoming and the greeting of “Bula Bula!” has become part of our vocabulary now. It’s amazing how a smile and a greeting from a stranger can bring warmth and sunshine even on a cloudy day!

We have spent time here cleaning the yacht above and below decks, except for the water line, which local rules prevent us from cleaning in the marina – we will leave this for Vanuatu, our next stop. And we are now preparing meals for our longer passages to come, the ladies having done the marketing in nearby Nadi.

The fresh food market in Nadi is worth a visit. It’s an enormous covered space with many stall holders selling everything from taro to cauliflower and tomatoes to tropical flowers. Half the space, though, is dedicated to various forms of kava which we have managed to avoid so far!

We also had a relaxing afternoon at the local mud pool hot spring spa, about 20 minutes drive from the marina. The facilities are pretty basic but the mud bath, hot springs of increasing temperature and the massage after were a real tonic!

Vuda Marina’s location close to the international airport of Nadi makes a crew change fairly easy. But it’s never easy to bid farewell to crew who have been with us for almost the whole of our trip so far, since Panama: Per and Anne returned to Tokyo this week. It has been wonderful having close friends aboard who know how to sail and, more importantly for long passages, know how to live with others at close quarters for 3 months! Many thanks, Per & Anne, and hasta luego!

We’ve welcomed aboard this week Ferry & Anne who made the long trek from Cologne to sail with us. And my cousin, Andrew, who has joined from Adelaide – we have not seen each other for some 50 years, so we are long overdue for a reconnection! We will now be 5 aboard for rest of our voyage.

We plan to slip lines on 12th July, fill up our diesel tank, clear out of Fiji and set sail for Port Resolution on Tanna Island in the south of Vanuatu where the main attraction is a trek up Mt Yasur, the world’s most accessible active volcano. From there, we will make our way to Port Vila via Dillon’s Bay, Erromango Island and then on to Australia, clearing in at Southport Yacht Club on the Gold Coast. We are hoping for fair winds and following seas for the rest of our trip!

Fujin out!