The plan was to continue south and find a protective anchorage so that tomorrow we have an easy passage back to the marina in Nadi. The weather forecasts are all over the place as this stuck low pressure system is not predictable. But all warnings were for big rain storms. We needed to get going promptly, Sam said he would bring us some fresh mangoes and pawpaws at 9am, Rowan’s plan was to give him the gecko to release her (I was not convinced about this!). By 9:15am there was no sign of Sam so we decided to go into the village, I could release the gecko, Rowan could find Sam and the fruit. I had put the inverted plastic bottle trap with a juicy bit of mango, in the fruit bowl under the cloth cover, as Han predicted the greedy little gecko was caught. At least I only had to carry the plastic bottle to a nice bit of grass and trees next to the beach, it all worked perfectly, she disappeared like greased lightning. Rowan found Sam, very nonchalant, obviously doesn’t have a watch! Loaded with fruit we rushed back to PolePole and set off.
We made our way between the two islands to the windward side, quite a wiggle and we had not done this route before, so always on alert for reefs and bommies. We got through the pass and got the sails up, we had a lovely couple of hours sailing south. Rowan was frantically checking out various weather models as they were all saying different things but all had a consensus that a lot of rain and thunderstorms were about. Rowan was in touch with the weather router we are using and he suggested we go to a bay in the north of the island in the chain we are heading to. The wind was predicted to change from the north to the south during the night and with big stormy winds. As we entered the pass between the two islands we got to the suggested bay, the wind had picked up a lot from the north, the swell and conditions in the bay were horrible so we decided to go to the deep bay at the south of the island where we have been before. This time we went to the leeward side of the island and were grateful to have our previous track on the nav chart. As the downpour of rain arrived and the cloud came down, we had about 50m of visibility. We had to wind our way through some very narrow bits of deep water between reefs. It really was pretty terrifying, thankfully we had taken the sails down, the engines and autopilot work well. We were able to follow our course and Rowan didn’t have to sit outside. As we were crawling along we suddenly saw a boat heading straight for us, as the deep water is so narrow, we were both on the same path. The crazy boat, called Marco, had no AIS on so didn’t come up on our charts (which is a requirement in Fiji waters), he did not respond to his vhf. We could see him on his phone, he was obviously just as freaked out by our appearance as we were, we guessed he was navigating on his phone.
With the wind swirling around we discovered that the wind had turned around as predicted and was coming from the south, meaning our bay was going to be no good. Having spent an hour crawling down to the bottom of the island, Rowan said we needed to turn around and go back to the bay we had passed by, that our weather router had suggested. We had to do the whole nerve racking passage back. This time we had the inter island ferry coming straight for us, also not showing up on AIS or answering his VHF. Luckily the cloud was just beginning to lift and we could see they had seen us. We saw the boat Marco, had gone into an anchorage, there was one other boat there already, but it was going to be a terrible place for them to be for the night. We pressed on and got back to the top of the island and made our way into the anchorage, thankfully the visibility was much better as we navigated our way through the reefs into the bay. It was such a relief to be finally anchored, the rain had stopped, we were in 20m of water and holding well. There was a threat of big winds coming at midnight. The wind had completely died off. It was nearly 6pm by the time we could sit down and have a cup of tea.
The view out the window from our bed
Glorious start to the day
Our little gecko in the trap waiting to go to land
Found this amazing lobster shell on the beach in the village, someone had a good meal
Leaving the limestone island
Navigating our way through to the windward side of the islands
Obstacles to be avoided
And then the weather turns ……
Our nav chart , the radar is picking up the torrential rain all around us, we couldn’t see land (sand colour on the chart is land, green is reef, and light blues are shallow water) the cloud was right down about 50m visibility if that. Thankfully we could follow our previous route, following the pink line, knowing we had to stick to narrow corridors of dark blue water to avoid the reefs.
Finally after about an hour and a half the rain stops and the clouds begin to lift, Rowan is soaked and using his phone as an additional navigation tool
The island looks dramatic with it’s table cloth of clouds
This was our route , thin line going in and thicker line returning to our anchorage
The storm heads north
We have not been here before, it is a very pretty anchorage with a nice looking village
We are finally anchored in 20ms with a big swell but well sheltered from the wind
A fittingly spectacular sunset to end the dramatic day
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