After a few days in Savusavu, we were provisioned and ready to explore Fiji for the next month before hauling out and getting the boat stored for cyclone season. With only a few weeks left, we needed to decide between seeing Fiji’s famously colorful corals at a dive site called Rainbow Reef near Taveuni to the east, the wild and untouched islands of the Lau Group to the south, or making it to the Yasawa Islands to the west where our buddy boats would be. After some deliberation, we decided that the corals would (hopefully) still be there next year but our friends wouldn’t, so we kept heading west.
It took Eitan and me a couple of day hops to make it to the first island, Drawaqa. On the way over, I was surprised to see the land grow drier and drier, with golden grassy hills resembling California in the summer. Some hillsides were scarred with giant black burn marks which I assumed to be an intentional practice to manage the vegetation, something we hadn’t seen in this part of the world. Since there didn’t seem to be much to do on land, and the water quality wasn’t very inviting either, Eitan taught me how to play chess. The Danish couple left a magnetic chess set onboard when they departed and it had just been collecting dust. After learning the rules and playing a couple of practice rounds, I was hooked! Instead of wasting time scrolling on our phones, we started to play three or four games a day and I eventually got good enough to beat Eitan a couple of times!
We dropped the hook in Drawaqa and made our way over to the pass on the north side of the island, known for its local manta rays. Sadly, we didn’t see any mantas, but I did spot something I was most excited to see underwater in Fiji: anemonefish! The jelly-like tentacles of the anemones danced with the surge, nestled between the patches of hard coral. Each individual anemone was home to two or three different anemonefish. The most famous type of anemonefish is a clownfish, but these were slightly different, with just one or two vertical white stripes and an orange or orange/black body. The fish seemed to have so much personality as they chased off other fish and returned to the anemone, burying their bodies between the tentacles in a show of ownership.
After a few excellent snorkeling sessions, we received some great news: our friends on SV Sauce-Sea were coming to meet us in the anchorage! Wes and Susan are some of our favorite cruising friends but we hadn’t seen them since they untied our dock lines in Puerto Vallarta before crossing the Pacific. They had been about a month behind us throughout the South Pacific and had finally caught up, coming directly from French Polynesia to Fiji. The timing of this meetup was extra special because Eitan would be turning 30 the following day! I could hardly contain my excitement as we picked them up in the dinghy to head to shore, celebrating with a round of drinks, which turned into dinner at the resort. We celebrated once more with a bonfire and brownies on Eitan’s actual birthday the next day.
With the wind forecasted to pick up, our anchorage wasn’t going to be protected for much longer so we joined SV Sauce-Sea in moving to the next island, Naviti. We had heard about a walk across the island that would lead us to a beach with a sunken plane wreck. After arriving onshore, we were approached by some local women harvesting sea grapes. Apparently, one was the granddaughter of the local village chief and scolded us for not visiting the village first to give our kava offering for sevusevu. We asked if it would be okay to do the hike to the plane wreck first, then do sevusevu afterward, to which she agreed, pointing us to an opening in the vegetation which we assumed was the trailhead.
After bushwhacking through the thick vegetation for the first 100 feet of trail, we entered a recently burnt clearing that was still smoldering. The path became more and more ambiguous and we did our best to keep moving in the right direction, trying not to breathe the ash stirred up by our footsteps. After about 45 minutes of wandering with no clear trail in sight, we decided to call it a day and try again the next morning, bringing the drone to give us a better idea of where to go. As promised, Eitan and Wes motored off in one of the dinghies to give our offerings at the nearby village.
Since Susan wasn’t feeling well in the morning and my drone investigation didn’t show any actual path, we decided to scrap the hike and sail up to the next island. As it turned out, Wes and Susan returned to the anchorage a couple of weeks later to search for the plane wreck once more. Before heading to shore, they stopped by the village to do sevusevu first and inquired about how to hike across the island to the wreck. One of the local guys offered to be their guide and showed them a completely different trail we had not seen before. Although we can’t be certain, it seemed we were misguided on the wrong path intentionally, since we hadn’t done the offering beforehand. Lesson learned!
