Savusavu, Fiji
05/25/2008 - 06/07/2008
The Copra Shed Marina office and shops are housed on the site of Fiji's fist copra mill. Everything you need can be found here — great pizza cafe, travel agents, chandlery, yacht club, laundry, craft shop and a fancy restaurant.
Savusavu is a picturesque town surrounded by lush, tropical mountains with the main harbor sitting just off of Savusavu Bay in Nakama Creek. With Whisper safely attached to a mooring provided by the Copra Shed marina, we started to explore all Savusavu offered. Upon arrival, we reconnected with fellow cruisers — Gosi, Destiny, Songster, Bauvier, Rigo, and Esprit — for drinks and dinner at the Savusavu Yacht Club. As we munched on a delicious pizza with Barb and Tom (Gosi), both old and new passage stories were at the forefront of everyone's conversation. Hearing Tom and Barb recount their rescue of Pascal definitely captured the "Best Passage Story".
"Good Morning Savusavu" blares out of the VHF at 8:30 am the next morning. The famous Curly announces the start of his daily cruiser net informing us of a wealth of activities and information for cruisers. We quickly realized the next few days would be filled with seminars, dinners and socializing.
But first, we needed to get the formalities out the way. Even though we checked into the country down in Lautoka, each major port requires you to check in and out of its port while traveling within Fiji. Duncan and I walked to Customs to check-in to Savusavu. Filling in the same forms over and over is one of the necessary hassles of cruising in Fiji waters. While Duncan aligned the carbon paper between the forms, the customs officer asked us if we new the folks on Jane Doe (fictitious boat name to protect identity). We did not know them and said we had heard them on the VHF yesterday as we arrived in Savusavu. Turns out Jane Doe did not check out of Lautoka before coming to Savusavu. Uh Oh! Over the course of the next few days, negotiations on the fine for this were discussed between the crew of Jane Doe and Customs. The cruiser rumor-mill indicated the final fine was $1250 FJD. Who knows what the fine was, but we will definitely be checking in and out of every required port in Fiji.
Our friends on Gosi arrived in Savusavu a few days before Whisper. We looked forward to catching up with them.
Savusavu is surrounded by lush, tropical greenery for a reason. Rain, rain and more rain — but it didn't slow anyone down.
Cleverly placed supermarket right in front of the yacht anchorage. Well-stocked shops and supermarkets surprised us. Many of the provisions we stocked up on in New Zealand were plentiful in the MH market and less expensive. Go figure.
The local fruit and veg markets in both Savusavu and Labasa provide ample local produce. The supermarkets provide imported fruits and veg including apples, pears and fancy lettuce.
From Savusavu to the eastern end of Vanua Levu is reportedly some of the finest diving in the world. The local Savusavu dive shop shown in this photo focuses on diving in the Savusavu Bay. Resort operators just outside Savusavu explore the nearby outer reefs. We are most excited to get to the area on the eastern end of Vanua Levu called the Rainbow Reef to see Fiji's renown soft corals.
So far, the number of Hallberg-Rassy's (HRs) cruising in Fiji this year outnumber other manufacturer's cruising yachts. On one day in Savusavu, there were five HRs including Whisper
The fabulous Bula Re serves the best coffee and breakfast in town. They also provide lunches and dinner. We partook in a traditional Fijian dinner, called a lovo (items cooked in an earth oven dug in the ground), prepared at the Bula Re. Delicious!
In typical Robin and Duncan fashion, we leveraged every opportunity not to cook by sampling all of the cruiser dinner events — barbecues, curry nights, Chinese nights, and pizza nights. We did not cook a meal other than breakfast aboard Whisper for 7 days. Excellent for the cook and the dishwasher, but bad for the budget.
Traveling away from the main cruiser towns is something we always enjoy. Seeing a bit of the inland areas and cities via a bus or car is a fun change of pace from going everywhere by boat. To this end, we decided to go visit the Indian market town of Labasa with our friends Tom and Barb (and their visiting nephew Michael) on Gosi. Road trip!
Modus transport-us
Road Trip!
The bus from Savusavu to Labasa travels three hours through small villages and scenic mountains — unless you get on the wrong bus. The wrong bus takes six to seven hours. We asked twice to ensure we were on the three hour "express bus". But even three hours each way (six total) on a bus sounds like a long time, so we decided to spend the night in Labasa rather than go back and forth in one day.
Robin, Duncan, Tom, Barb and their visiting nephew Mike arrived early to the bus station and got comfy on the very crowded bus. We decided to go to Labasa on a Friday with plans to go to the big market on Saturday. Not only was it a Friday, but it was a public holiday. For some reason, we thought the public holiday would mean fewer people on the bus. Wrong. Every square inch (or centimeter) of seat was occupied. Seats meant for two people held three. That's six bum-cheeks on a seat designed for four. Cozy.
Here we go!
Up into the mountains we go leaving Savusavu Bay behind us. Stay safe Whisper
This was one of the big towns we passed through en route to Labasa.
Is that the red clay from Georgia? Nope — we were surprised to see so much red clay soil in Fiji.
The missionaries arrived in Fiji to introduce Christianity in the 1830s. Man, they were everywhere. Along the bus route, we spotted numerous churches,...
mosques and temples. About 52% of Fijians are Christian, 38% Hindu and 8% Islamic. In 1879, the first group of Indian indentured laborer arrived in Fiji which introduced the Hindu and Islamic religions.
Road conditions varied along the route.
Labasa is the trade, service and administrative center of Vanua Levu. The population of 24,000 is comprised primarily of Indo-Fijians. Arriving in Labasa on a holiday, we discovered a very empty town. We wandered the main street and located the open-air market for tomorrow's big day. All of the shops were closed. Thankfully, a few restaurants were open and the hotel pool was refreshing.
The difference between a holiday and market day was huge. Up early on Saturday, we found a coffee and breakfast treat to energize us prior to diving in to the market. Bus after bus arrived with people from all of the surrounding villages. Market day in Labasa is a big deal. Beautiful saris adorned many of the female shoppers. We learned that market day is not only for shopping but for catching up with friends. It is a social event.
The intrepid travellers arrive in Labasa. Robin, Tom, Barb, and Mike. Duncan takes the photo.
We stayed at one of the three places to stay in Labasa - the Grand Eastern hotel. The basic facilities and pool at the hotel met our needs.
Arrival day - empty bus station.
Market day - busy bus station.
Holiday - empty streets.
Market day - busy buses and busy streets.
Music stores everywhere look the same, don't they?
Art cars in Fiji?
The clean-up Labasa campaign included the interesting suggestion to "Treat public toilets like you treat yourself". The five of us spent quite some time analyzing how to behave in public toilets, so we just decided not to use them.
The fanciest building we've seen in Fiji is this government building. Government employees in Fiji seem to do quite well. The bureaucratic legacy left by the Brits combined with Fiji's "island time" urgency should keep Fiji's civil servants busy for decades. Although to be fair, there is a major government program underway to improve Fiji's productivity "in all aspects of daily life". Ironic, no?
Wall to wall people — okay, there were not any walls — at the big market in Labasa.
Beautiful, but deadly-hot peppers, were a very popular item.
This mannequin's hairstyle is quite trend-setting. Soon all Fijians will embrace this new style.
And if one hair color won't do, let's go for a rainbow of color! The mannequin's are detracting from the clothes they were wearing.
This happy crew looks forward to the bus ride back to Savusavu. Not.
We attracted quite a few stares from the locals. Rich Americans don't travel by bus! What's going on here?
School seems to be a high priority in Fiji. Here is one of the nicer school houses.
With vegetables and fruit packed in our bags, we boarded the last bus back to Savusavu. Knowing this was last bus, we found our seats on the bus a tad bit early. This allowed for some fine people watching at the bus station until we departed Labasa.
Three hours later, we arrived back in Savusavu to find Whisper and Gosi safely swinging on their moorings. Of course, it was much too exhausting of a day to prepare a meal, so we shared another great pizza from the Captain's Cafe.
Tiny bus stops dotted the road between Labasa and Savusavu
Wash-outs from the recent rain resulted in slight detours such as this one.
This vine appears to be overtaking most of Vanua Levu's landscape. The only thing it does not seem to cling to or cross is asphalt.
Coconut plantations support Fiji's growing copra trade. They now get upwards of $700 Fijian for a ton of high-grade Copra (the white coconut core, sun-dried, and ready for coconut oil extraction). A few years ago, they could only get $300 FJD per ton.
These piglets tried to catch the bus, but with no seats available, the driver did not stop for them.
Treated with dramatic scenery such as this peak made the $14 FJD round trip bus fare (each) seem like a bargain.
Curly's chart marking seminar provides insight into places to go in Fiji and how to best get there without hitting anything. Curly claims there were almost 200 yacht groundings last year in Fiji with 8 of these total losses.
Insights for Exploring Fiji
Cruising and travel guides describe proper village etiquette for visitors to Fijian villages. Dress modestly. Women must cover shoulders and the legs down to the knees. No hats or sunglasses. Bring yagona (kava) as a gift for the chief. Clap, drink a bowl of kava in one gulp and clap three times more without making faces from the taste of kava (it tastes like muddy water). Don't drink too much kava beacause your lips, mouth, tongue, and throat will go numb and the mild hallucinogenic effect may cause you to say something stupid or fall asleep on the kava mat. Don't aim the soles of your feet at the chief or the kava bowl. Don't touch anyone's head (the head is sacred). And so on. Concerns of offending the chief and the village people with some unintentional slip-up weighed heavy on our minds. This "village ettiquite" factor adds a bit of stress for those of us that are trying to be "culturally sensitive" visitors.
In addition, the Fiji cruising guides and veteran Fiji cruisers describe the hazardous "invisible" reefs and many challenges to navigation in Fiji. We should only travel between 9 am and 3 pm to leverage optimum sun angles. We should use proven waypoints and trust local knowledge. Always use your eyeballs — don't always trust the charts or waypoints. There are thousands of uncharted reefs, pinnacles, and coral heads in and around Fiji. According to local sources, as many as 200 boats bumped into Fiji's reefs last year and as many as eight of these yacht were total losses. Sounds like we should just stay in Savusavu hanging on a mooring ball.
Furthermore, we hoped to visit the Lau group, but a special permit is required beyond the basic cruising permit acquired to cruise Fiji. The request needs to be processed through an office in Suva requiring recent (within the past year) police reports on all yacht crew and weeks to process. It was almost overwhelming.
Curly's guide to etiquette in the villages helps alleviate the concerns of offending villagers.
No worries! All these questions and more can be answered by a New Zealand ex-pat and local Fiji cruising guru, Curly Carswell. Based at the Bosun's Locker in Savusavu, anxiety can be reduced with Curly's Waypoints ($20 FJD) and Curly's Cruising Ettiqutte Seminar ($20 FJD) learning "how not to end up in the pot" — get it?, they were cannibals. He offers the Curly Chart Marking Seminar ($20 FJD) to find all the best places to see, the nicest villages to visit, and the places you may as well skip in his opinion. In recent years, obtaining permission to visit the Lau group, one of the most beautiful island groups in Fiji, was facilitated by Curly for a nominal fee. Curly also hosts a cruisers radio net every morning and advertises services provided by local businesses.
We attended both the "Chart Marking" and "Cruising Etiquette" seminars. Both seminars were fun, but we especially enjoyed the practice kava ceremony. For some reason, getting our first drinks of the dreaded kava out of the way made the whole ceremony much more approachable. Furthermore, we had a much better idea of how much and what type of kava we should buy. The only disappoinment was Curly's "quick and dirty" permit for portions of the Lau group looked to be in question for this cruising season.
Kava, kava, kava. The markets are full of kava.
Kava lessons helped waylay any fears of the drink. To be honest, kava does not taste too bad. It does numb the lips a bit, but no where near as much as getting novacaine at the dentist.
We do not want to end up as a dinner course like early visitors to Fiji depicted in this photograph.
Heaps of cruisers showed up for the economical and tasty dinners offered by various restaurants each night of the week. This dinner was a curry night. The influx of Indians to Fiji in the late 1800s brought many good Indian spices and dishes to Fiji.
Several Fijian cruise ships tour various ports such as Savusavu in Fiji.
The vibrant colors serve as a backdrop while dining at the Bula Re.
Future cruisers. The Savusavu Yacht Club sponsors a children's sailing program. On Saturdays, the kids come out and sail their Optimists amongst the mooring field. Where do Fijians kids dream of cruising if it is not Fiji?
With some of the basics understood and less money in our pockets, we were ready to drop the mooring line (aka cut the cord) and start exploring the villages and waters offered on Vanua Levu. Bring on the diving. Bring on the kava! We are ready!