Denerau & The Mamanucas, Fiji
07/24/2008 - 08/30/2008
The new mall at the port is filled with restaurants and shops. Yipee.
Port Denerau
Denerau is home to quite a few nice resorts including Westin, Sheraton, and Sofitel to name a few. Local cruise ships and day tours regularly depart from Port Denerau to visit the Yasawas and Mamanucas. Along with resorts and cruise ships, Port Denerau has a marina, haul out facility, shops and restaurants. Sounds like a great place for us to visit.
One of the down sides of Denerau for a cruising yacht is the marina charges for anchoring in the port. While this makes sense because of the dredging needed to keep the channel and marina available, it is kind of a drag (pun intended) due to the poor holding ground. Several boats had problems staying put while we were there. Luckily for us, Whisper decided to stay put in her chosen anchoring spot.
On the upside, while we visited Denerau we caught up with several sets of fellow cruisers. Gosi, Endangered Species, Lionheart, Contigo, Camissa, and Quantum Leap all ventured in to the area about the same time we did. We also met several new folks. We enjoyed listening to music on the waterfront, sharing drinks at the bar and eating tasty meals at a couple of the restaurants.
Yep, there is a Hard Rock Cafe in Fiji.
The Esquires Cafe had wireless internet access, so we schlepped our laptops up to the coffee shop, surfed the web, upgraded some software and drank coffee. Life is good.
Next to the coffee shop is the ice cream shop. Very dangerous.
Next to the ice cream shop is the bar and fruity slushy cocktails. Even more dangerous than ice cream. Robin must have been deprived of coffee, sweets and ice cream prior to arriving in Denerau.
This large yacht, Texas, moored at the marina in Denerau. After a little snooping around on the web, we discovered the yacht has a bit of a checkered past with some unpaid bills in New Zealand.
We toured a couple of the resorts in the area for future reference as well as for haircuts. No luck on the haircuts, but the Westin Resort Spa was very picturesque.
Via dinghy, we toured the waterway and its waterfront homes in the port area. We liked one of the smaller homes on the waterway. Perhaps this is due to most small homes being bigger than the living space on a boat.
The corner lot with its beautiful flowers.
The main bar and restaurant at Musket Cove sports this idyllic view. Resort life is tough, but someone has to do it.
Musket Cove
Enough of the high life. Let's move on to Musket Cove. Wait a sec, this is another great resort area. We briefly visited Musket Cove in May on arrival in Fiji. We both looked forward to returning to Musket Cove, exploring more of the Mamanucas and staying in one place for a month or more.
There is one word to describe a cruisers visit to Musket Cove — easy. Everything is easy. You open an account allowing you to charge your food, groceries, drinks, fuel, mooring and spa treatments to the yacht just like a resort guest. Anchor, grab a mooring ball or dock at the marina. We can use the pool. We have the option to purchase a dive package from the dive shop. We can watch the Fijian dance shows on Thursdays. We can use the TV room. We can buy an activities package allowing us use of the kayaks, windsurfers, catamarans, bicycles and other toys. The Island Bar provides barbecues, wood, plates and silverware for grilling and eating your own food in a beautiful setting. Basically, yachties are treated like guests of the resort with our room being Whisper. Sweet.
"De Plane, De Plane". Musket Cove is a bit like Fantasy Island. Some guests arrive via sea plane, but most arrive by the high speed catamaran.
The Island Bar serves $4 FJD beer and wine. Most folks call it the Four Dollar Bar.
Kite surfing is very popular in this area. Duncan managed to improve his wind surfing a bit, but now he is thinking kite surfing may be the way to go.
Rather than just being a pool bum, Robin and Duncan started swimming laps to counteract other lounging activities.
"Whoosh" "What was that?" "Whoosh" Large schools of fish cruised the anchorage probably looking for food scraps from the yachts. Two remora decided to make a home underneath Whisper's hull. When a piece of food was thrown overboard, they shot out from under the hull and quickly devoured the food.
The view from the ridge shows the hurricane hole in the foreground, some of the resort lodging, the marina on the top left and the mooring field and anchorage on the top right. You can almost see all the way to New Zealand - just kidding.
A bevy of shells appeared on the beach duty to some channel dredging at the nearby Plantation resort. Neither one of us are big shell collectors, but we've never seen to many shells in such good condition. Robin cleans the shells in preparation...
..for choosing the best shells. We culled the shells to about half and then gave the rest to other shell collectors.
Low tide treats us to the Sand Bar just off the anchorage. Regular trips to the sand bar for snorkeling, cooling off and watching kite boarders kept us amused.
Here is a rare occurrence - we went out to dinner just the two of us. We even had the waitress take our picture. Are we getting into this resort life or what?
Barb and Duncan are all smiles as we begin another fun evening at the Island Bar.
Staying over a month in one place allows us to visit with a wide variety of cruisers. We will catch up with old friends, and make some new ones. Musket Cove, affectionately known as "the vortex", acts like a vacuum — sucking cruisers into the easy life.
Jane and Richard (aka Tricky), our new friends from Australia, tried to elude the camera, but we managed to get this great photo of them. Okay, except for cropping off Tricky's head.
Chay, Katie and Jamie on Esprit look festive on the night we all decided to go to the pig roast. Chay and Jamie sport their Fijian sulus. We knew Esprit from puddle-jump days in Mexico.
Wah Lah — here is the pig on the spit. Kind of skinny don't you think? Will there be enough food for everyone?
Roast pig, good company and Fijian dancers — a good time was had by all. Yes, there was enough pork for everyone. Most people were excited about getting their portion of "crackling", which is basically crispy pig skin and the attached fat. We have one word for this new taste sensation — disgusting!
The Island Cruising Association kicked off its Fiji Vanuatu rally with a few days of festivities at Musket Cove. Out at the sand bar, some silly games kept everyone amused and the resort provided a little tent selling rotis and drinks.
Yep, there was a good turnout. Some folks brought out the big boats and other arrived by dinghy.
An evening party encourage attendees to dress up in costumes starting with a W. The Endangered Species crew took home the prize. Rick is flagged attired spelling out W?. Robin (the other Robin) is a witch. Will is a Whale and Sandy is Wacky (or something like that).
After all the festivities, rally participants took off for either Tanna or Asamvari islands, in Vanuatu. Here goes friends Gwen and Don on Tackless II. Doesn't their new paint job look nice?
The rally fleet wound through the reef and headed out for the passage to Vanuatu.
We discovered Olympics coverage on the television and watched the amazing Michael Phelps win his eight gold medals.
Cruisers from every country will anxiously watch the U.S. presidential election. We watched Obama accept the Democratic nomination. We believe he is the best presidential candidate we have seen in our voting lifetimes. The November 2008 election will be very interesting.
Robin tends the dinghy as our friends Tom and Bette Lee prepare to anchor Quantum Leap in front of the Funky Fish Resort.
Funky Fish
For variety, we visited several other resorts in the Mamanucas. First stop, the Funky Fish. Twelve of us hopped on board Tom and Bette Lee's catamaran, Quantum Leap, to take the short jaunt over for a lunch visit. The resort's restaurant sits high on a hill with great views of the surrounding reefs. The staff is very welcoming to cruisers. The resort is a rather austere surf backpackers place with some of the most economical prices for lodging in Fiji.
Tom, Barb and Bette Lee are on the bow and ready to assist when it's time to drop the anchor.
Skipper Tom motors toward the Funky Fish
Robin and Ann chit-chat along the way. Sure is nice to go out on some one else's boat!
Guests at the funky fish arrive in a longboat and then take the limousine up the hill to check-in.
Here is the view from the restaurant with our ride, Quantum Leap, over on the right.
How many cruisers can you fit in one dinghy?
Off we go on a dinghy excursion.
Liku Liku, Castaway & Malolo Beach Resorts
On an extremely calm day, three dinghies proceeded to go on a day trip to visit some of the resorts in the area. First stop, Castaway Resort. Appropriately named, within minutes of ordering and receiving our coffees, we were asked to leave the premises. "Very important guests" were about to arrive and our assault on the beach with 3 dinghies looked a bit too suspicious. We assume the visitor was interim prime minister Banimarama who had visited Musket Cove the previous day. Castaway we were.
Next stop, Malolo Beach Resort. A much warmer welcome awaited the group. A great lunch and an ice cold beer while serenaded by singing and guitar music allowed us to recover from our "Castaway" experience.
We also did a drive by of the exclusive Liku Liku Resort. This resort looks like a beautiful place. Subsequently, we met several fellow divers staying at the resort and the reviews were outstanding. It appears to be a popular honeymoon spot, because every couple we met was newly wed.
A much warmer welcome awaited us at Malolo Beach Resort We decided to stay and order lunch.
As we enjoyed our lunch, a sea plane pulled up to the dock with a couple of folks who dropped in for lunch.
Robin (the other Robin) and Sandy look down at the resort from the hillside restaurant and bar.
The exclusive Liku Liku Resort's over-water bungalows look appealing. With prices of over $1000 per night, we did not attempt to go ashore here.
Feel the need for speed. A bigger outboard for our dinghy? A bigger engine for Whisper? Nope, a group of cruisers chartered a power boat.
Tokoriki
With more exploring to do, a group of us chartered a skippered power boat from Musket Cove to visit the island of Tokoriki and do a bit of snorkeling along the way. Going on a fast motor boat was a nice treat.
Once at the island of Tokoriki, we hooked on to a mooring and went for a snorkel. The reef was in outstanding condition and the life was plentiful. After snorkeling, we enjoyed a tasty lunch at the resort. We felt like we were on vacation at the resort. The grounds were beautiful and the food was delicious. With full bellies, we piled back in to the boat and continued our tour of the nearby islands. We did a quick drive-by of the island used for the filming of the Tom Hanks movie Castaway. There were quite a few tourists there and we did not have permission to land from the local chief, so we just took a quick look from the boat and kept on moving. Another stop delivered us to a sand quay where we took a brief look around for shells. No luck. Back on the boat, we headed back to Musket Cove as the six hour tour was almost over. What fun!
Off we go.
Our ride sits off the beach on Tokoriki. The skipper called ahead and made a booking for us for lunch.
The Tokoriki Resort looked like a great place to stay.
The resort pool looks out over the sea.
Here we are enjoying a scrumptious lunch at the resort.
Beautiful flowers appeared everywhere at the resort. They also have their own orchid greenhouse.
A quaint chapel is available for guest weddings.
Inside the beautiful, small chapel.
Melissa and Ed, visiting Rick and Robin on Endangered Species, quickly adapted to the cruising lifestyle.
Anybody see Tom Hanks or Wilson on the beach? How about some FedEx packages? Nope, just tourists.
Calm weather allowed for some decent exploring for snorkeling locations via dinghy. Tom and Barb from Gosi joined us for this trip.
Snorkeling
Looking for decent snorkeling is always at the top of our list of to-dos. The Musket Cove area did not disappoint. Right by the sandbar at the edge of the anchorage is a great little reef with a wide variety of fish. Resorts from all over the area bring guests to the sandbar. How lucky are we to be living right by it.
We also explored a couple of good spots on the north and east sides of Malolo LaiLai. The water clarity in the Mamanucas seems much better than up in the Somosomo Straits area. With this, we became quite anxious to go scuba diving.
Tubular dude. Very impressive soft corals and anemones.
Robin searches for the pretty fish and corals.
A few of the local boys smiled for the camera as they enjoyed playing in the water.
This guy better watch out - he is just big enough to look like dinner.
Robin researches the fish seen on the latest snorkeling adventure.
Enough lounging around above water. We purchased a fourteen dive package from the Subsurface Dive Shop at Musket Cove to start exploring underwater. With 44 dive sites nearby, we were ready to start blowing some bubbles. The next log will show the highlights of diving in the Mamanucas.